What constitutes safe staffing varies for each directorate and agency, but the unions want enforceable language in their EBAs. Photo: CPSU.
The ACT Government has been warned it could face “real industrial issues” if it doesn’t support the union’s call to include a safe staffing clause in enterprise bargaining agreements.
Several unions recently came together outside the Legislative Assembly, headed by the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU), to raise the issue after 92 per cent of the union’s members said they wouldn’t agree to a new EBA without safe staffing provisions.
ACT regional secretary Maddy Northam explained that each work area was different and needed its own definitions of what safe staffing levels and appropriate workloads looked like.
She compared it to the nurse and midwife-to-patient ratios that were being implemented across public health.
“What physiotherapists at North Canberra Hospital need is different to youth workers at Bimberi need and what policy workers on London Circuit need,” Ms Northam said.
“If you’re not for safe staffing, what are you for?”
There are already provisions for psychosocial safety at work under Work, Health and Safety legislation, but Ms Northam said many directorates and agencies weren’t using the legislation appropriately.
That’s why the unions want an enforceable definition included in their EBAs.
Representatives from the CFMEU, UWU, ASMOF, TWU, Unions ACT and the AEU were also present at the rally.
AEU ACT branch president Angela Burroughs said that, without enforceable safe staffing, Canberra’s public school students were paying the price for a system that couldn’t guarantee a qualified teacher in front of every class, every day.
“When there isn’t a teacher in front of every class, every day, students’ education is disrupted. That should be a red line for any government,” she said.
“We need guaranteed minimum staffing in every school – not just teachers, but learning support assistants, psychologists, specialist educators and administrative staff.
“Schools cannot deliver quality education without a full team.”
In the education space, there are guidelines around class sizes.
But Ms Burroughs said the cap wasn’t aligned with the reality of modern classrooms, where student needs had become more complex, and there were no enforceable hard caps to ensure children weren’t missing out.
The AEU has put forward a suite of reforms around safe staffing that it feels is suitable for its sector, including the management of teacher absences so schools aren’t forced to split or collapse classes when someone is away.
“Hard class size caps that can never be exceeded are essential. If the Government is serious about safe classrooms and genuine inclusion, it must match its expectations with staffing and funding,” Ms Burroughs said.
“Expectations on schools have grown significantly over the past decade. Resourcing has not kept pace. Without structural change, the burden will continue to fall on educators and students.”
Ms Northam said this was just one example where public servants were being expected to deliver the same amount of work with fewer people across multiple sectors.
“The government needs to make the call: staff [areas] to the level that is appropriate to what they’re doing … or tell them, ‘you’re not doing x, y, z until we can bring up staffing levels’,” she said.
“It’s about knowing what you have the capacity to deliver and staffing appropriately.”
CPSU ACT regional secretary Maddy Northam said the top three issues during this round of enterprise bargaining were pay, super and safe staffing. Photo: Supplied/CPSU.
Another area where negotiations are continuing is around pay rises and superannuation contributions.
Ms Northam said the ACT Government’s offer needed to provide a pathway to 15.4 per cent, so that the ACT would be on par with what Commonwealth public servants were getting.
“Waiting 15 years for super parity isn’t good enough,” she said.
The ACT Government is expected to put forward another offer in the coming week.
Ms Northam said the unions were open to further negotiations, but if it didn’t look like the ACT Government was being genuine, it should prepare for “real industrial issues” towards the middle of the year.
“It’s not just about the pay rise and the super rise, it’s about being treated properly at work with staff staffing levels,” she said.
“[The government] needs to make sure to include safe staffing … [our members] have made it clear [that otherwise] they’ll vote no.”
Public Service Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith acknowledged the recent rally and said conversations would continue.
“We’ll continue to have those conversations around safe staffing and ensuring that our work health and safety and psychosocial safety obligations are met,” she said.
“Many of those obligations already exist, so part of that conversation is about how do we ensure that the language in the enterprise agreement reflects our existing obligations in a consistent way, and how do we ensure that staff feel safe to raise concerns when they do have those concerns around psychosocial safety.”
But she foreshadowed that budget pressures could make those conversations difficult.
“We think there’s probably a pathway through here, but at the same time, we know from … our own budget processes and the Eslake review, that we are in a fiscally constrained environment, and so we do need to take that into account in our negotiations as well.”
