Staff Association members have voted to authorise protected action at CSIRO, with the ballot result sending a strong message to the organisation’s senior leadership to improve their pay offer as bargaining talks continue.
As required by Australian workplace laws, protected action must be endorsed by a secret ballot of union members that achieves a double majority; the process requiring the participation of more than half the membership before achieving more than fifty per cent support for the specified actions.
Close to three-quarters (74 per cent) of Staff Association members participated in the protected action ballot with 83 per cent voting to approve stop work action, if necessary, to secure a decent pay outcome.
The results send a strong message and back up a member-only poll conducted in October where 81 per cent respondents rejected Executive’s first pay proposal of 11.2 per cent over three years.
The protected action ballot outcome increases the pressure on Executive to formally issue an increased pay offer and raises the stakes for enterprise bargaining at CSIRO, as agreement negotiations begin to focus on the overall proposal.
Recently the Staff Association applied for a Protected Action Ballot (PAB) for members in CSIRO. This was a decision made by Staff Association Council and union bargaining representatives.
Staff Association members are campaigning for a new enterprise agreement at CSIRO, putting forward a positive agenda to boost pay, fix super, restore rights and value staff.
While negotiations with CSIRO Executive have been constructive and are set to continue, discussions around pay are approaching impasse.
Executive’s first offer – a proposal of 11.2 per cent over three years (4% in the first year, followed by 3.8% and 3.4%) – was soundly rejected by Staff Association members in a recent poll. More than fifteen hundred Staff Association members participated, with 81 per cent of participants calling for an improved pay offer.
Following the pay poll results, Staff Association organisers and delegates conducted extensive consultation of union members on the next steps in the campaign, involving hundreds of one-to-one conversations by phone and text.
The overwhelming majority of members contacted indicated their support for increased campaigning in support of an improved pay offer, including moving closer to protected action.
A recent Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) announcement making conditional back pay available to non-APS agencies until midway through March 2024 has extended the bargaining timetable into the new year.
However, with the summer hiatus of December and January rapidly approaching, the time required to complete the legal and administrative processes to enable the possibility of protected action in early 2024 means that we have work to do now.
Protected industrial action can be taken when bargaining for a new enterprise agreement to increase pressure on the employer during negotiation.
Industrial action may include employees not attending or performing work, or putting a limit on the way work is performed. For employees to take lawful industrial action, there are a number of steps we must take to ensure the action is ‘protected’.
These steps are:
A Protected Action Ballot is an important legal and administrative process, required under Australian workplace laws. To undertake legally protected industrial action, the union must undertake a ballot of its members who will be covered by the proposed enterprise agreement.
A double majority is required for the ballot to be successful – a majority of Staff Association members in CSIRO must vote, and a majority of those voting members must vote in favour of each action. If the ballot is successful, legally protected industrial action then becomes an option for members in CSIRO.
Taking protected action helps to add pressure on the employer to improve the pay offer at the bargaining table.
Staff Association members will be asked to vote on particular forms of protected industrial action.
In support of reaching an enterprise agreement with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation T/A CSIRO, do you authorise the taking of protected industrial action against your employer separately, concurrently and/or consecutively, in the form of:
Encouraging every single member to vote YES to all actions in the ballot.
The decision to proceed to a protected action ballot has not been taken lightly. We are taking this step so that we are prepared to increase pressure on CSIRO to secure an improved pay offer.
CSIRO Staff Association Councillors and union bargaining representatives are recommending members vote YES in the protection action ballot, which endorses both actions as listed.
It will be an electronic ballot using SMS and email.
You’ll be sent an email and an SMS with the voting instructions including a link directing you to the secure ballot where you should vote YES to endorse both proposals.
Voting YES will endorse both proposals, as listed on the ballot.
The ballot will open at 12pm (midday) AEDT on Thursday 16 November and will run until 4pm AEDT Thursday 30 November 2023.
All CSIRO Staff Association members who are included in the roll of voters are eligible to cast a ballot.
Non-members cannot participate.
CPSU has engaged TrueVote Pty Ltd, an external ballot agent authorised by the Fair Work Commission to undertake an electronic ballot process.
If you have any questions about your voting eligibility or place on the voter roll, please contact TrueVote using the details below.
For telephone support please call TrueVote on 1300 360 287 or email support@truevote.com.au to speak to a support officer.
The Government has just revised its Australian Public Service (APS) pay offer, to include an additional lump sum payment that is equivalent to 0.92 per cent of an employee’s base salary.
This new feature is in addition to the three year, 11.2 per cent pay increase (4% in the first year, followed by 3.8% and 3.4%) put forward in September.
CPSU members in the APS are now being asked to consider the revised proposal through a week-long online poll, open until 30 November, with the results set to have a major impact on the future of service-wide bargaining and beyond.
In an email to staff, Executive bargaining representatives said ‘APSC has advised that, as a matter of priority, they will provide further advice about how this decision will translate to non-APS agencies such as ours, noting the principle that APS outcomes will inform broader Commonwealth pay outcomes.’
‘If the Government confirms CSIRO is also able to implement this one-off payment, we will adjust our pay offer accordingly. This would mean that, if available to us, the one-off payment would be in addition to the transitional arrangements that enable backpay.’
In short, subject to APSC approval, CSIRO Executive intend to revise their current pay offer and put forward a new proposal in line with the package being offered to APS staff.
Yes. If Executive put forward a revised pay proposal, Staff Association members will be consulted on the new offer, but the mechanism to engage views and collect feedback is still to be determined. It’s likely to be an online poll similar to the process we employed in response to CSIRO’s first pay offer.
However, these details will be finalised following the end of the protected action ballot and the conclusion of the CPSU’s APS member poll (both 30 November) and receipt of a revised pay proposal from CSIRO Executive. Watch this space.