The state government has announced it has presented a new offer to the public sector unions, but the unions said this was news to them.
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Community and Public Sector Union secretary Tom Lynch said he could not comment on whether the union would accept the offer, because he hadn’t seen it.
“I’ve not seen an offer from the government, and if they've only sent that to the media, surely you've got to question their good-faith bargaining,” he said.
“They did present us with a list of conditions earlier in the week, but I know that wasn’t an offer because it had ‘THIS IS NOT AN OFFER’ written on the top of it.
“We’re pretty easy to get in contact with. If they wanted to make an offer they could have called a meeting and sat down with us.
“As soon as we do receive an offer, of course we’ll analyse it and take it to our members.”
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The offer seen by The Examiner retains the 2 per cent a year wage rise that is at the centre of the dispute between the government and the public sector unions.
The unions are aiming for a higher wage rise, to put their members in line with the wages of their mainland counterparts, and are engaged in ongoing industrial action through institutions such as schools and hospitals.
However, the state government is offering to move on making it easier for workers to gain permanent rather than fixed-term employment, by converting a range of existing fixed-term employees to permanent, and developing a framework that puts the onus on the Head of Agency to explain why an employee should not be made permanent if they meet certain conditions.
They are offering an $1 million per year youth employment program for year 12 school leavers, changes to superannuation that mean super will be paid while an employee is on unpaid parental leave or workers compensation, an increase in paid parental leave from 14 to 16 weeks and paid partner leave (after the birth of baby/adoption) from 1 to 3 weeks, and other conditions.
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