Department of Human Services staff agree to new enterprise bargaining deal

Department of Human Services employees ended their more than three-year enterprise bargaining dispute this week, with 70 per cent voting in favour of a new agreement.

The massive workforce, which includes Centrelink, the Child Support Agency and Medicare, voted 71 per cent in favour of the deal - the fourth time workers voted in the current bargaining round.

Staff will get a three per cent pay rise when the three year agreement comes into effect, with most current staff entitlements remaining in place.

Over 18 months, the deal will see total pay increases of six per cent.

The Community and Public Sector Union welcomed the breakthrough, describing it as an end to a long-running fight to protect critical workplace rights and conditions.

But Mr Lloyd said the union's tactics had not been constructive for most of the period.

"Recently the union appears to have stepped back and ran a neutral campaign in DHS," Mr Lloyd said.

"Employees would rightly ask the union for an explanation as to why they have waited so long for their pay rise."

The agreement ends a series of rolling strikes from the DHS workforce but the government is yet to win agreement for enterprise deals with agencies including the Bureau of Meteorology and the Federal Courts.

A deal for Immigration and Border Force workers has reached arbitration.

Employees at the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority also accepted a new enterprise agreement this week.

Mr Lloyd said the current bargaining round had seen 123 new agreements made, while only 2.6 per cent of Australian Public Service employees remained in bargaining.

"I encourage the parties still engaged in bargaining to move forward in a pragmatic fashion to settle new agreements," Mr Lloyd said.

"Agreements reached during the early stages of the bargaining round will reach their expiry date by mid-2018. This means employees and the agencies involved will soon be contemplating bargaining agendas for the next enterprise agreement."

CPSU national secretary Nadine Flood said the DHS result followed "emphatic rejection of previous agreement proposals" from the government.

In November 2016, 74 per cent of workers voted "no", following a 79 per cent "no" vote in February and an 87 per cent "no" vote in September 2015.

"This 'yes' vote is a significant turn-around from previous ballots," Ms Flood said.

"DHS management finally realised that retaining workplace rights and conditions was the key to settlement and as a result the CPSU did not oppose this agreement."

"This new agreement is far better than those previously rejected though it still falls short of what hardworking staff in Centrelink, Medicare and Child Support deserve, particularly given there's no compensation for more than four years without a pay rise."

"In the end staff have recognised the bargaining progress made in recent months as DHS bosses finally realised that rights and conditions was the core issue, particularly family-friendly rights that let people balance work with other commitments such as dropping the kids off at school or day care."

Ms Flood said the extended bargaining dispute had been tough for DHS public servants, coming amid job cuts and the fall out from the Centrelink robo-debt controversy.

She accused the government of an "anti-worker agenda" which she said was causing immense damage to the Commonwealth public sector.

A spokeswoman said the department would seek to have the agreement approved by the Fair Work Commission.

"The department has bargained in good faith over the past three years to finalise a new agreement and we are pleased our staff have voted to accept the proposed agreement," she said.

"Of the 77.29 per cent of eligible staff who participated in the vote, 71.09 per cent voted for the agreement."