Workers across eight Melbourne local councils went on strike for 24 hours on 5 May to demand higher pay and a multi-enterprise bargaining agreement. That’s a contract covering workers at all eight councils, rather than each council having its own agreement with different conditions and rates of pay.
Local council workers provide a variety of essential services, including childcare, garbage collection, library services and parks and road maintenance, many of which were partially or fully shut down on the day of the strike. In the inner-north council of Merri-bek, the strongly unionised librarians shut down all five libraries for the day.
It’s not surprising that council workers were ready to walk off the job. The average salary is $70,000, according to the Australian Services Union (ASU), the main union covering council workers. Under each council’s existing agreements, real wages have declined by between 8 and 13 percent. The ASU wants a wage rise of 10 percent in the first year, followed by 4 percent for each of the next three years.
This is not an extravagant demand. Even assuming inflation returns to the Reserve Bank’s 2.5 percent target over the next three years, those increases would still leave half of the councils’ workers behind in real terms. That is particularly insulting, given the exorbitant salaries of council CEOs, like the City of Melbourne CEO who “earns” more than $500,000 per year.
A whopping 97 percent of union members, averaged across all eight councils, voted in favour of industrial action in late March. The campaign kicked off with a 24-hour strike of garbage collectors at three councils on 7 April, followed by bans at various councils involving library workers, street cleaners and garbos. Bans can impose a cost on management while limiting the impact on workers’ incomes, but they also leave management with the option to dock workers’ pay or formally discipline them.
As the pressure on workers increased in mid-April, union members at the Merri-bek and Melbourne City councils voted for a 24-hour strike across all eight councils. On 17 April, an online meeting of hundreds of ASU council workers voted unanimously for a strike. More than 80 percent voted for a 24-hour stoppage, but there was also some support for a 48-hour strike, especially from depot workers, who were under threat from scab labour. A few days later, a delegates’ meeting voted to pause the work bans and begin preparations for a 24-hour strike on 5 May.
On the day of the strike, around 1,200 council workers converged on Trades Hall for a rally before marching to state parliament. Spirits were high. Eugene, a worker at Maribyrnong council, told Red Flag: “Strength in numbers is the number one thing. Having workers out there talking to each other is what builds workers’ class consciousness. We’re all fighting the same cause, no matter what council, no matter what area”.
Another worker, Jason, a delegate at Hume City Council, said that the councils have “dragged out the process ... Our demands are simple, but the councils have made it anything but that, so now we need to give them some consequences”.
Groups of workers from councils not included in the multi-enterprise bargaining also attended in solidarity. Some are pushing for their councils to join the fight for the combined agreement, while others narrowly lost the vote to join due to scare campaigns and dirty tactics by management.
In addition to securing much-needed pay rises, the fight for a multi-enterprise agreement has broader significance. Negotiations for the council agreement are one of the first major tests of the federal Labor government’s 2022 industrial relations changes that expanded multi-enterprise bargaining rights for unions. The idea is that a single agreement covering workers at multiple workplaces gives them greater clout in negotiations. If the ASU succeeds in this attempt to establish a collective contract, and one that is better than what would have been negotiated individually, it will unite thousands of workers and open a path for others to follow suit. A clear win for the council workers would also show workers everywhere that we don’t have to put up with yet another round of nominal wage rises that fail to keep pace with inflation.
The next steps remain to be determined. We will need plenty of organising, discussion and industrial action before the state government feels any pressure to increase council funding—either through direct grants or by easing restrictions on rate rises. In the past, council workers have waged epic industrial disputes to win and keep wages and conditions and to restrict outsourcing. Returning to that level of militancy has to be the aim. It is ambitious, but necessary.
The strike has lifted workers’ confidence and sent a message to councils that workers are prepared to fight for their wages and conditions. With inflation on the rise again, a strike of thousands of workers who provide essential services is a solid step in the right direction.
