Wages budget slashed in WA public sector

Western Australian treasurer Mike Nahan is taking the chainsaw to public service wages.

After his mid-year financial review forecast a budget deficit, a “workplace renewal policy” was announced, which slashes the total salary budget for public sector agencies across the state. Most will be slugged with a 40 percent cut to funding for workers hired to fill vacancies created by a resignation, retirement or transfer. Agencies that employ nurses, teachers, firefighters, and other frontline workers will receive 10 percent less funding for new staff.

Reductions of this scale will have immediate ramifications. Vacancies for full time positions could be filled on a part time basis only. And workers on lower classifications or with less experience could be hired to save money. Alternatively, vacancies may be left unfilled. The latter is a real possibility.

In October, premier Colin Barnett foreshadowed another round of public service redundancies. Toni Walkington, general secretary of the public sector union (CPSU/CSA) says that more than 7,500 jobs have been cut from the WA public sector in the last four years.

Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation state secretary Mark Olson has warned that “lives will be put at risk if this policy is implemented throughout the Health Department”. While calling the policy “stupid” and “dangerous”, Olson has not mobilised any of the 27,000 members of the WA branch of the ANMF, the largest union in the state.

Other unions similarly have failed to muster more than muted criticism of the policy. The CPSU/CSA says that it has “applied to the Western Australian Industrial Relations Commission to facilitate meaningful consultation”.

The government is the largest employer in the state. Its attack on public sector wages could place downward pressure on the pay of workers in all industries. A fightback that mobilises workers from across the public sector is desperately needed. The blueprint for such action is not a mystery: delegate meetings, public protests and strike action.

WA workers have shown a willingness to take a stand against cuts. When teachers, teaching assistants and nurses took industrial action in 2013 and 2014, they received widespread support.

The government is using the unwinding of the mining boom to increase its attacks on the public service. Mass action is the key to stopping it in its tracks.