Unsworn Australian Federal Police members could lose 22 per cent of their salary under proposed changes to the agency's enterprise agreement.
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A 22 per cent flexibility payment currently exists to compensate AFP members who are required to work unusual hours, often at short notice.
But that flexibility payment could be taken away from many non-operational AFP members who work standard office hours, under a draft enterprise agreement which will be voted upon by staff in coming weeks.
About 6000 staff are covered by the enterprise agreement, but it is unclear how many of those could face the 22 per cent salary cut.
The Australian Federal Police Association, which represents Federal and ACT police officers, is continuing to negotiate over the changes until voting on the agreement starts on August 19.
Chief executive officer Jim Torr said the association was still fighting hard to retain the 22 per cent flexibility payment for more of its members.
"The AFP are saying to us, we don't need all those people to have all that flexibility," Mr Torr said.
"But from our point of view we're still working on that with the AFP, we're not satisfied with everything weve seen from them," he said.
The AFP told The Canberra Times that the changes were necessary to strengthen the agency's operational and investigative arms.
"The new enterprise agreement aims to align employment terms and conditions with the contemporary operating environment", an AFP spokeswoman said. "The changes aim to promote a more professional workforce, while ensuring that funding is continually targeted to priority operational areas."
AFP members will receive pay rises of 3 per cent, 3.5 per cent, 4 per cent and 4 per cent over four years, something which has been described as "adequately competitive" by the AFPA.
The pay rises will cost the AFP about $274 million, prompting union concerns that the agency may be forced to make redundancies.
An AFP spokeswoman said no forced redundancies were planned, although natural attrition and "other workforce measures" would be put in place to account for the pay rise. "Inevitably any pay rise puts pressure on the affordability and therefore the size of the workforce."
AFP employees will retain six weeks recreational leave, a Christmas-New Year shutdown period, two mandatory rest days, and two operations rest days.
Voting on the enterprise agreement will take place from August 19 to August 29, with the results being announced on August 30.
Mr Torr feared that if the current agreement was voted down, AFP employees could lose the substantial increases to their base salaries and the backpay to last month. The current draft agreement, which was negotiated over a period of eight months by the CPSU, Australian Federal Police Association and AFP, would last until 2015.
