A SHORT HISTORY OF PUBLIC SECTOR CONDITIONS AND AGREEMENTS | Public Sector Review - December 2023

The PSA has been agitating for improved conditions for public sector workers for nearly 140 years.

Following agitation from public sector workers in the late 1800s and early 1900s, which included a Royal Commission from 1888-91, the first independent personnel authority – i.e. a Public Service Board –was set up under the Public Service Act of 1916. Before that there had been an ineffective Civil Service Act of 1874.

For the next 70 years or so public service conditions of employment and pay were determined through different iterations of a Public Service Board, Public Service Arbitrator and Public Service Commissioner.

Until relatively recently public sector terms and conditions were set by the equivalent of determinations from a Public Service Board or Commissioner. There was no access to the industrial relations tribunals; nor were there awards and agreements.

The concepts of public sector awards and later of enterprise agreements came relatively recently – in the 1970s and 1980s.

A large number of awards were struck then, leading eventually - following a complex period of award restructuring - to the main underpinning award for SA’s public sector workers – the SA Public Sector Salaried Employees Interim (SAPSSEI) Award, which dates from 1994.

In the 1980s and 1990s, in an apparent attempt to weaken the power of public sector workers, public sector agencies had their own separate enterprise agreements. During this period, discrepancies emerged between departments and agencies to the extent that by the late 1990s, pay rates in Health, for example, had fallen around 10 per cent behind other agencies.

These differences emerged due to such things as the sizes of the agencies, funding arrangements and the impact of shifting political priorities over time.

In the second half of the 1990s the PSA convinced the government of the day to move to a single agreement across the public sector – the first “parity” agreement.

Each enterprise agreement negotiation takes place in its own context, dynamics and environment. Each round comes with its own pressure points and opportunities.

The salaried agreement covering the broader public sector therefore had its genesis as an enterprise agreement in the late 1990s. In successive forms it has now been in place for 24 years.

OUT OF MANY ONE

The first salaried agreement covering the public service — also known as the parity agreement, as it replaced all the separate agency agreements — was approved in 1999. The “saved clauses” in our salaried agreement are the agency specific clauses which were retained when the parity agreement was struck.

Since 1999, there have been eight successor salaried agreements negotiated by the PSA, including one of which some elements went to arbitration in 2004.

Membership engagement and involvement has varied over the years. The period of award restructuring in

the 1980s was characterised by very high levels of PSA membership involvement. In recent times, the PSA has made it a high priority to ensure member engagement and genuinely involve members in the agreement making process.

By the time the PSA headed into negotiations in 2016, it was clear that the agreement, which was then nearly 20 years old, needed significant updating. In particular, members’ conditions needed to be more strongly protected through clear rights in the enterprise agreement, rather than relying on the goodwill of governments or general informal understandings between senior government officials, politicians and the PSA.

Job security is a good example of this. Between the mid-1990s and the 2014 state election, job security was by way of an exchange of letters. Before each state election, the PSA sought and received pre-election commitments from both major political parties that there would be no forced redundancies. While in a practical sense, this gave members some reassurance about job security, ultimately these commitments were not enforceable in an industrial sense.

This was laid bare in the lead-up to the 2014 state election when both major parties refused to provide a commitment to no forced redundancies.

This rendered PSA members’ job security vulnerable and made it imperative to achieve a strong job security clause in our enterprise agreement.

We subsequently achieved what has proved to be a very strong public sector job security clause — the Appendix 1 provisions - which were first included in the 2017 agreement.

JOB SECURITY PROVISIONS

Having job security protections enshrined in the enterprise agreement has made them enforceable. Appendix 1 is the reason why thousands of PSA members have retained their public sector employment despite the budget cuts and privatisations of recent years.

Similarly, prior to 2017, our agreements did not have a clause providing rights for PSA members to be represented. Existing provisions were essentially at the discretion of the Commissioner for Public Sector Employment. Under this arrangement members’ rights to be represented, and Worksite Representatives’ rights to represent members and be supported by their union, were vulnerable.

We now have strong union representation rights enshrined in our enterprise agreement.

In the lead-up to negotiations for the 2017 agreement, we surveyed members and consolidated the outcomes of that survey into a document called “What You Told Us”. More than 2,000 members responded to that survey and the PSA held hundreds of membership meetings. “What You Told Us” provided a roadmap for all of the improvements we needed to make to modernise the existing salaried agreement and ensure that our members’ rights and entitlements were clear and enforceable.

We identified clauses which needed to be added, updated, or in some cases completely rewritten, both through direct member feedback and input, as well as our own experience of representing members in disputes over rights.

There were around 350 improvements made to the salaried agreement in 2017, including many agency specific improvements.

In the last bargaining round, for what would become the 2021 agreement, the PSA faced a hostile and aggressive agenda from a government intent on removing and reducing many key clauses from the agreement.

The then Marshall Liberal government wanted to completely water down the processes for grievance and dispute resolution, remove rights to consultation, and remove job security. There was even a push to reduce some maternity leave provisions.

The government appeared to be on a mission to remove as many of the rights and entitlements from the 2017 agreement as possible, and to make it easier to sack public sector workers.

The PSA again surveyed and consulted with members, who overwhelmingly told us that your highest priority was to protect job security and maintain other rights and conditions.

Shortly after negotiations began, the world became gripped with the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, and in the context of mass lay-offs across the rest of the country, PSA members’ commitment to protecting job security only grew stronger.

The government did not anticipate how committed our members would be in their resolve to protect their hard-won conditions. At a critical point, members made a clear and collective decision to let the usual scheduled date for a pay rise pass while standing firm in their demands about protecting and maintaining conditions –especially job security. The government finally understood how serious we were and came to the bargaining table ready to negotiate on the PSA’s terms.

The role PSA Worksite Representatives and members played during these negotiations cannot be overstated.

And the process of organising was made even more challenging because many members were absent from the workplace due to the pandemic.

Negotiations for both the 2017 and 2021 agreements were very difficult. But our strength to negotiate at the table was firmly based on the strength and resolve of PSA members in their workplaces.

Each enterprise agreement negotiation takes place in its own context, dynamics and environment. Each round comes with its own pressure points and opportunities.

During the last two enterprise agreement negotiating rounds, PSA members developed their understanding of the importance of their enterprise agreement, and committed themselves to both protecting the achievements of the past and pursuing positive changes.

COST OF LIVING PRESSURES

The next round of negotiations will again be unique and will present its own challenges. Cost of living pressures, which have arisen since our last agreement was struck, are at the top of many members’ minds.

The PSA has consistently raised the issue of cost of living with government and the expectations of our members that a reasonable public sector pay rise will be budgeted for to address this.

We will continue to put pressure on government at every opportunity, however the ultimate pressure will be the strength of our membership in delivering that message as a collective.

It’s been like that for nearly 140 years.