Public servants at the Treasury Department have been offered a pay deal worth more than 1.5 per cent per year with few cuts to their conditions and entitlements.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
It is understood that the department's new boss, former investment banker John Fraser, insisted that he be allowed to offer his workers an acceptable deal, despite the government's hardline stance on wages and conditions across the public service.
The wage offer, of 2.5 per cent for the first year will then be followed up by 1 per cent increase in years two and three.
In return, Treasury public servants will be asked to stay at their desks for an extra half hour each week, taking the officially mandated working week to 38 hours from 37.5, and give up an official half-day shutdown each Christmas.
There will also be a an annual formal appraisal for about 390 officials at EL1 and EL2 levels in the department.
The offer is being seen as a win by some Treasury staff with wage increases well above what has been offered elsewhere in the service and "productivity offsets" that will hardly be felt in the famously hardworking department.
The Treasury public servants are being offered nearly twice what has been proposed at the Tax Office, where deep cuts to conditions and entitlements are also on the table.
The giant Human Services department was offered just over 1.1 per cent in July last year, with the offer slashed to about .75 per cent if it was not taken up within five weeks.
In the face of widespread discontent, a new offer of just under 1.4 per cent per year was made in February, with some cuts to conditions. Labor claimed the deal would leave staff $920 worse off.
Thousands of union members at the Australian Taxation Office have also begun stop work action and public servants at the Defence Department have begun industrial action over a pay offer of just over 1 per cent per year to be paid for with deep cuts to conditions.
A Treasury spokesperson outlined three productivity offsets to pay for the department's pay offer.
"To achieve this offer, Treasury would: adopt a standard working week of 38 hours, an increase from the current 37.5 hours, formally remove the half day shutdown on the last working day before Christmas and have one formal appraisal per year for Executive Level staff, with no change to the appraisal process for APS staff," the spokesperson said.
But no timetable has been set out for putting the offer to a formal ballot of Treasury's workers.
"The process from here will be for bargaining representatives to meet and negotiate the content of a new agreement as well as the pay offer," the spokesperson said.
"The timing of a vote is dependent on this process."
