THE Health and Community Services Union has released a draft industrial agreement from earlier this year that signalled a 5 per cent wage increase for Ambulance Tasmania staff.
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But Health Minister Michael Ferguson said it was shameful for HACSU state secretary Tim Jacobson to present the negotiating document as a deal.
The offer the government put to the union on Thursday was 6 per cent over the next three years with no retrospective increase for staff – some of whom have not had a pay rise since 2013. HACSU rejected the proposal.
“Ambulance workers are furious that this government is so disorganised and incompetent that after reaching an agreement with its workers that it believes it can simply walk away from that agreement,” Mr Jacobson said.
Mr Ferguson said: “There was no ‘deal’ outside government wages policy and he knows it.
“Misleading his members in this way is no way to resolve this matter.
“It’s difficult to understand (HACSU rejecting the deal) given that paramedics would be 20 per cent better off under the government if the union would allow them to vote on the offer we’ve made.”
Mr Jacobson said the union had made it clear to negotiators that the government was able to approach staff and put the offer to a ballot. He said the proposed deal was essentially a 4 per cent pay cut given wages had not increased for two years.
The dispute has been the subject of low-level industrial action for five weeks, but HACSU has indicated that will likely escalate.
