Pay dispute escalates as staff stop work following stalled negotiations between City of Albany and ASU WA

A pay dispute between the City of Albany and its staff escalated on Wednesday when about 70 workers walked off the job after an unsuccessful meeting between the representatives of the two parties. The action was in response to a recent move by the City to retire its 2019 enterprise agreement, a move the Australian Services Union WA say has not happened in WA since 2006. It will mean the agreement no longer applies as of May 26. The City and its staff have been in dispute about the level of a proposed pay rise since staff rejected a 6 per cent increase at the end of June last year when the agreement was due to end. A safety net clause in the 2019 agreement stipulates the City should adjust pay in line with the CPI, but there is a disagreement between the two sides at which point that CPI should be considered. The wording of the clause stipulates “payment equal to the movement” of the Perth CPI “from 1 April to 31 March of the preceding year will apply” annually from July until a replacement agreement is established, or until the agreement is terminated. The City argued the “preceding year” refers to the 2021 March CPI of 1.1 per cent, while the ASU WA believe it should be the March 2022 CPI of 7.6 per cent which had been calculated over the “preceding year”. In early April the matter was taken to the Industrial Magistrates Court, but a decision has yet to be delivered. The six per cent pay rise originally proposed by the City is in effect despite the ongoing stalemate. ASU WA assistant branch secretary Jill Hugo, who has been involved in negotiations on behalf of City staff for over a decade, said the City’s position did not make sense. “How can you argue that that cost-of-living increase should be from over a year ago?” she said. “That’s just nonsense.” City chief executive Andrew Sharpe said the industrial action was “disappointing”. He said he valued its staff and the work they do, and that the stop-work action did not “represent the views of all our staff, the majority of whom did not participate in this action”. “This isn’t about not rewarding staff with a fair pay increase; it’s about making sure any pay increase is affordable for our community and sustainable for our organisation,” he said. “This morning the City recommenced negotiations with the WASU for a new industrial agreement as we want to reach an outcome and have an agreement for our staff at the earliest opportunity. “As an interim measure, while we negotiate a new industrial agreement, the City is establishing above award policies to ensure employees will maintain their current employment conditions.” Ms Hugo said the City indicated during discussions on Wednesday morning that it was willing to roll over the 2019 agreement but wanted to remove references to the CPI safety net clause. “For us, rolling over the agreement is keeping all the wording in agreement as it is,” she said. “For them, rolling over the agreement is removing certain clauses, which includes those clauses that deliver a cost-of-living increase every year.” ASU WA branch secretary Wayne Wood said both the State Government and local governments were watching how the negotiations played out. “The State Government is interested in how workers are being treated and so they will watch what’s happening as well,” he said. “This is not just a fight for the ASU and its members here, this is a fight across the whole of local government. “Perhaps it’s setting a precedence for the whole State in every jurisdiction, so they could be up against the whole union movement.”