Bosses at a Canberra public service agency will try to overcome their workforce's rejection of a proposed new workplace deal by simply running their defeated ballot again and hoping for a different result.
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Management at the Murray Darling Basin Authority are going to a fresh ballot, beginning on Monday, of their 300 employees after they rejected a proposal last month by just seven votes.
Workplace unions are crying foul but the authority's chief executive Phillip Glyde says the turnout in last month's ballot was lower at 77 per cent of the workforce than the previous rejection of an agreement when 86 per cent of MDBA workers voted.
Mr Glyde said he believes, based on the result of a separate staff survey, that some of the authority's employees want a third opportunity to vote.
He also warned his workforce not to get its hopes up that the stalled bargaining process would go to Fair Work Commission arbitration, as occurred in the Immigration Department.
"The arbitration involving the Department of Immigration and Border Protection and the Senate Inquiry will have no flow-on effects to the MDBA," Mr Glyde wrote.
"In addition if there is a majority 'no' vote again, this will not mean we go into arbitration – we will return to the bargaining table again for another lengthy period of negotiation.
"I am confident that when you look at the proposed agreement and the policy commitments of the MDBA, you will be reassured, as I have been, that your conditions and entitlements have been retained."
But technical union Professionals Australia says the authority is ignoring the voices of its employees by putting a rejected agreement forward for a vote again.
"The MDBA is not even attempting to bargain in good faith or respect the voice of their employees who have twice voted down deficient agreements," union official Dave Smith said.
"The chief executive has nothing to be proud of in this approach to bargaining with his workforce."
