The ‘unseen’ workers in Northern Tasmania’s public sector added their voices to the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) industrial action on Tuesday, using their lunch break to meet in Launceston’s Civic Square.
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CPSU assistant secretary Thirza White said workers attending the rally were those who kept the “machinery of government running and the delivery of services going”.
As a Community Corrections court diversion officer Jade Berrell helps people recover from addiction.
“[We] work with people when they are at their lowest and most vulnerable and they do it because they love what they do and they believe in the ability of people to change and to rehabilitate,” Ms Berrell said.
“But we are here because Tasmanians need a pay rise. As Tasmanians we are $200 behind the mainland and if we want to recruit and retain dedicated staff, like I work with every day, then we need a government that shows its employees that it recognises their contributions,”
Service Tasmania employee Chris Welch has been working in the public sector for 17 years and told the group the organisation had just over 150 staff, but many of those were part time and worked in small teams in rural and regional areas.
“In several locations a single staff member works their shift alone every time they turn up to work. Our counter staff are required to deliver or transact over 600 unique products or services and to do this they obviously need a high degree of knowledge and skill,” Mr Welch said.
“Mr Premier, we urge you to listen to our concerns, bargain in good faith with our union representatives and show you do actually value and respect all public service workers – and the first step along the right path is to scrap the cap,” he said.
Other speakers were CPSU general secretary Tom Lynch, Paul Nas from Treasury & Finance and Labor Leader Rebecca White.
Treasurer Peter Gutwein said the latest offer represented “the most significant and meaningful improvement to public sector employment conditions in a decade”.
“The government has always believed Tasmania’s hardworking state service employees deserve a pay rise. But, importantly, it must be fair, it must be sustainable, and it must be affordable so we can continue to invest in frontline services for Tasmanians,” Mr Gutwein said.
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The CPSU held a stop work meeting in Burnie on Monday and a third will be held in Hobart on Wednesday.
“By the end of this week we will have seen 22 stop work meetings across this state attended by about 6000 public sector workers,” Thirza White said.
Launceston rally attendees rejected the state government’s offer, which included the 2 per cent capped wage increase, with the union putting forward a counter offer for annual increases of 3 per cent and other claims.
The CPSU will present the offer to the state government after the Hobart rally.
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