The Corrections industry in Australasia is under intense pressure as competing demands are starting to impact on Government public policy. The drivers of this pressure can come from media pushing a law and order agenda following community concerns after high profile crimes as well as the private multinational correctional companies.
Public Services International (PSI) and Our World is not For Sale (OWINFS) have just launched a new report on the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA). The report outlines the way the Agreement, the radical extension of GATS, will restrict democratic government’s ability to make laws that protect you.
THE Tasmanian Crown Employees (Salaries) Bill 2014 (here) was tabled yesterday morning - and it’s nasty. It will mean the Tasmanian government can: freeze agreed wage increases in all Awards and Agreements regulating employment by the Crown for 12 months from various dates, replace agreed wage increases with yet to be determined increases, amend the Industrial Relations Act 1984 so the Tasmanian Indus
At election time political parties not only make commitments to the people of the state they seek to govern but they also make commitments as the employer of public sector workers. Commitments to honour employment agreements, commitments to bargain in good faith, commitments to protect jobs are commitments that should not be broken. Recent examples of the behaviours of Liberal/National Governments across Australia show that these commitments are honoured more in the breach.
Let's look at few examples of political lies that damage peoples livelihoods:
Support is building right across the country for Tas government workers who are on the receiving end of the worst attack seen in Australia so far. Tasmanian Public Sector workers’ living standards and their wages now, and in the future, are at stake. The Liberal Government have chosen a shameful abuse of legislative powers to override State Service Agreements and Awards.
NSW Premier Mike Baird is reported as telling a Sydney conference that he has earmarked performance pay for the public sector should he be re-elected in March 2015, in a move the Public Service Association of NSW (PSA) believes will create inequity and nepotism while further undermining the independence of the public service. “On the back of the restrictive Senior Officer contracts that are currently being rolled out, whereby employees can be sacked for no stated reason, the move towards performance pay will further undermine the service,” said Acting PSA General Secretary, Steve Turner.
WITH shameless disrespect for its workforce, Tasmania’s new Liberal Government has announced a pay freeze for public sector workers via a strategic leak to a media outlet and an address to Devonport’s business community. Public sector workers have already agreed to significant wage restraint over the last two rounds of bargaining but despite legally binding Awards and Agreements covering wages and conditions the government has signaled it’ll break those contracts and refuse to uphold its end of the bargain. “Today’s announcement is a slap in the face for hard working Tasmanians”, CPSU Act
