Public servants working for the ACT government say they are overworked, tired and stressed and they want the territory's top mandarins to do something about it.
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The public servants' union says nearly one-third of territory government workers it spoke to had gone off sick because of the strain of spiralling workloads imposed by a "never-ending drive for efficiencies and restructures".
The CPSU surveyed 500 of its members in ACT government workplaces and found two-thirds of them had recently been through a restructure and nearly 40 per of that group reported negative consequences from the change.
About two-in-five respondents to the survey said their workload had "increased significantly" in the last 18 months and one-in-five reported it was "very difficult" to finish their work in normal hours.
Almost one-third of the public servants said they were unreasonably rushed or pressured by bosses and a similar number reported cutting short or skipping meal breaks to get their work done.
One quarter of the respondents admitted that working longer hours had caused them personal problems and nearly one-third said the increased demands of their jobs had hit their health, forcing them to take time off work sick.
The union's regional director Vince McDevitt said his members were paying the price for a changing ACT Public Service.
"The never-ending drive for efficiencies and restructures is causing a lot of change," Mr McDevitt said.
"A significant proportion of public service workers are feeling overworked, many as a result of recent restructures and job losses.
"The amount of restructuring, machinery of government changes and ever-increasing demands to provide services to a growing population has clearly led to a significant increase in workloads for large tranches of the service.
"It appears these workload issues are having an unacceptable impact on people's health."
The union official said territory public servants were just like other workers who wanted to have a life as well as a job.
"ACT public servants, like the rest of us, are looking for some work-life balance and where work demands have an unreasonable, unfair, undue impact on your life, the consequences can be dire," he said.
"It's having a very real and negative impact on workers and they're at the end of their tether.
"This is not just about people being asked to do more, it's about them being able to deliver services to the people they serve."
The union has approached Commissioner for Public Administration Bronwen Overton-Clarke with the results of its survey and asking for talks on how to ease the burden on government employees.
"I don't think the survey data would have been a massive surprise, a lot of those results would have been self-evident across a lot of directorates," Mr McDevitt said.
A spokeswoman for the government's super-department the Chief Minister, Treasury and Economic Development Directorate (CMTEDD), said they were aware of the CPSU's concerns and were willing to work with the union.
"To date CMTEDD has only received preliminary data but will continue to work with the CPSU on the issue," the spokeswoman said.
"We are committed to working with our staff and the CPSU to ensure we have a healthy and productive working environment."
