The results of the current round of wage negotiations between the ACT Government and its employees must break earlier patterns. Two elements of the unions’ demands should not be acceptable to the Government or the taxpayers of the ACT. The first is that they have claimed a 9 per cent rise, which is about 4.5 per cent above inflation. The second is that they have made an across-the-service claim.
Gone are the days when unions could put their hands out for more money without offering better value work and then launch a program of blackmail and disruption till they get it. Governments should resist this approach. Pay rises should not be automatic, but should be earned. That means greater productivity or greater efficiency through more flexible working arrangements. Clearly, those cannot be made across the whole service. Some workers will be more willing or more able to offer more than others.
The Government has already offered 4.3 per cent across the service over the next 18 months which is a tad about the expected underlying inflation rate. If ACT Government workers want more, they should have to earn it. Any other approach will contribute to government cost and inflation, thereby imposing an unfair burden on the rest of the community.
For that reason the unions should lift their bans and negotiate agency by agency with trade-offs for any pay beyond the inflation rate.
With their present conduct in mind, there is little wonder governments want to privatise and contract out. The undistrupted garbage service is a tribute to that policy.