Biosecurity staff checking for plant and animal-based items at Australia’s air and seaports will take industrial action in the next seven to 10 days, the Community and Public Sector union (CPSU) has said.
Members of the CPSU in the Department of Agriculture voted to take industrial action, which could see work stoppages, reduced reporting of data and increased biosecurity screenings.
The CPSU has stressed that the industrial action will not compromise the nation’s strict biosecurity requirements.
“Biosecurity officers are on the front line every day monitoring what’s coming in and out of the country, protecting the food we eat and the goods that we export,” national secretary Nadine Flood said.
“They ensure Australia’s multi-billion dollar agriculture industry is free from infestations, disease and plagues. These people do tough dirty work and the government proposes to reward them by cutting their take-home pay, cutting jobs and attacking their conditions.
“Taking industrial action is a last resort and members in agriculture know the value of the work that they do. It’s a shame this government doesn’t,” Flood said.
Employment minister Eric Abetz told Guardian Australia that the industrial action does not reflect the department’s wider workforce.
“The CPSU has not as yet given any notice of protected action at the Department of Agriculture. Thirty percent of the CPSU’s own members at the Department of Agriculture did not even vote in or for the protected action ballot,” Abetz said.
“Indeed 77% of Department of Agriculture employees were either not balloted (because they aren’t CPSU members), or were CPSU members who did not cast a vote or voted against protected action. Once again the CPSU is vastly exaggerating support for its irresponsible 12.5% wage claim. Most public servants realise this,” the employment minister said.
The industrial action will come just weeks after a public health scare that has seen 27 people infected with hepatitis A after eating contaminated imported berries.
Berries imported from China from Patties Foods have been withheld, but the Department of Agriculture has admitted that no extra surveillance has been conducted of frozen imported berries.
Labor said the industrial action aims to hit the government where it hurts.
“It shows the frustration,” shadow agriculture minister Joel Fitzgibbon said, adding that he thought it was an “understandable response”.
“This will have consequences for exports,” he said. “It’s going to disrupt services everywhere.”
The Department of Agriculture is one of the number of public service departments that have rejected the government’s pay offer, which would see pay rise by less than 1% in exchange for the loss of some entitlements.
Industrial action is on the cards for departments representing nearly half of the 160,000-strong public service workforce. Flood said that industrial action is now at “unprecedented levels”.
Earlier this month prime minister Tony Abbott boosted a pay deal to defence forces after public outcry over a pay offer that was effectively a cut in real terms.
He had previously warned that public servants would not get a greater pay offer than what defence force personnel receive.
