Xinhua, Sydney :
Staff in the Australian Government’s Department of Human Services walked off the job on Friday, as part of an ongoing pay dispute.
For over three years, the department and their staff have been at loggerheads regarding a pay rise, and Community and Public Sector Union national secretary, Nadine Flood, said the department is refusing to negotiate.
“All they want to do is hold on to rights and conditions that have been in place for many years and allow them to balance their working and family lives,” Flood said.
But a source within the Department of Human Services told Xinhua on the condition of anonymity that the public does not seem to support their strike, and the union may be to blame.
“I don’t think our union is really helping us,” the source said.
“We have been years without a pay rise, years without an agreement, but we don’t have the support of the public.”
The source went on to state that there is no parity between the pay rates received by staff working across various government departments, and this is where the crux of the issue lies, as human services staff are not being paid at the same rates as their equivalent government contemporaries.
The industrial action will not affect payments made to the public by the government agencies involved, but will result in less staff being available to service clients.
The head of the Department of Human Services, Hank Jongen, said that his department will not be influenced by the strikes today, which means that further industrial action is to be expected.
