PSA MEDIA RELEASE
December 4, 2009

For immediate use

Ministry of Justice is once again avoiding the issue
 

“The Ministry of Justice is just avoiding the issue if they think they can unilaterally declare bargaining over and hope that the issues behind this dispute will simply fade away. They will not,” says PSA National Secretary Richard Wagstaff.

“Clearly the action taken by PSA members over the past few weeks is putting pressure on the Ministry, but instead of showing leadership and addressing the legitimate concerns of PSA members, who are the majority of staff, they have pushed the panic button by trying to call off bargaining and making offers to individual staff. “

“These tactics are designed to undermine collective bargaining but they won’t work. Instead the Ministry will just provoke more industrial disruption and tension in the workplace”.

“The PSA will consider the options before responding to the Ministry’s latest moves. However, as always it seems common sense that settlements are best arrived at by negotiations, not by walking away from them as the Ministry seems to be doing.”

“The employer has their head in the sand by consistently refusing to address the claims put forward by the PSA. Members have made it clear to the employer that they want a fair and transparent pay system. The Ministry of Justice has not responded constructively.”

“Instead they have chosen to exaggerate the PSA’s claim several fold and now this hasn’t worked they think they can simply call off bargaining.”

“Last week the PSA-led negotiating team put forward a constructive offer that would have cost the Ministry a total of about $10 million.”

“Our offer included staff and the PSA working with the Ministry to reduce their costs by finding ways of working more efficiently, identifying and eliminating wasteful spending and improving productivity.”

“This would help offset the cost of meeting our offer that would have enabled the Ministry to begin addressing the underpayment of its staff.”

“The Ministry needs to address the fact that it’s staff are paid on average 6.3% less than the rest of the public service.”

“The Ministry’s latest offer consisted of a one-off lump sum payment of $750 that would have shrunk down to about $500 in the hand after it was taxed.”

“This was rejected because it’s totally inadequate and doesn’t begin to address the pay gap between Justice staff and workers in the rest of the public service.”

“Since the Ministry presented this offer, staff who belong to the PSA have staged a nationwide strike and also walked off the job in a number of local strikes.”

“They’ve clearly shown that the Ministry’s offer fails to address that they’re underpaid by a significant amount.”

“The pay for court registry support officers starts at just $29,500. That’s not much more than the adult minimum wage of $26,000 for helping run our country’s courts.”

“The Ministry needs to realise that a settlement will only be reached through constructive negotiations,” says Richard Wagstaff.

 
ends

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