School cleaners have announced further work bans as union leaders express frustration over Premier Will Hodgman's failure to meet with them to negotiate the long-running public sector wages dispute.
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In addition to work bans which started last week, Education Facility Attendants have escalated their industrial action to include no rubbish removal from classrooms, no vacuuming, no picking up litter in school grounds and no cleaning of sinks and floors in all state schools.
United Voice branch secretary Jannette Armstrong said the action had been taken in response to the continued failure of the Hodgman government to bargain for a fair and respectful wages agreement.
Ms Armstrong said there was a very real prospect schools may be forced to close as a result of the ban.
"If these bans are allowed to go and are allowed to escalate we may get to the point where schools have to close because they are not safe and are not hygienic," Ms Armstrong said.
"It's not a decision that Education Facility Attendants take lightly but they feel they have no choice."
Union leaders waited in the foyer of the Executive Building for several hours on Tuesday morning in a bid to meet with the premier to progress wage negotiations but were refused a meeting with Mr Hodgman.
A government spokeswoman said Mr Hodgman was unable to meet with the unions because he was in a cabinet meeting.
Community and Public Sector Union general secretary Tom Lynch said unions had indicated they were willing to accept the premier's proposed 12 month agreement announced in Parliament last week but wanted the opportunity to negotiate aspects of the deal.
"If the premier had met with us on Tuesday morning we would have told him we are willing to accept his 12 month interim agreement proposal but that, instead of the 2.1 per cent increase he proposed, we believe our members should get 2.5 per cent," Mr Lynch said.
Mr Lynch said 2.5 per cent was the same wage increase politicians were awarded in 2018.
"Why should our members who are working very hard in education, health, justice and child protection be taking a real pay-cut, when politicians, who trade nothing off, simply scoop up 2.5 per cent every year?" he said.
Treasurer Peter Gutwein labelled the union sit-in a political stunt.
"The government, from the beginning of this process, believed our hard working public sector workers deserves a pay rise. Only the petulant behaviour of union bosses has prevented this," Mr Gutwein said.
Mr Gutwein urged unions to work with the State Service Management Team, because that was the process which was in place in terms of negotiating the dispute, and to take the government's latest offer to their members.
Mr Lynch said the Mr Hodgman's failure to negotiate may also force other unions to resort to industrial action.
"That would be on the premier's head. What other alternatives do we have?" Mr Lynch said.
Over the past year, the government has held 113 formal meetings with unions in an effort to solve the wages dispute.
"They offered us a 114th meeting with representatives on Tuesday morning - people who are not able to negotiate. All they can do is repeat the offer the premier made in Parliament," Mr Lynch said.
"What we need is a party on the other side who is authorised to bargain to solve this dispute."