The mass public service strike planned for next month will achieve nothing but inflict pain on the public and cost the striking workers lost wages, according to the federal workplace authority.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Public Service Commissioner John Lloyd suggested the 24-hour walk-out by "tens of thousands" of public servants planned for September would be a fizzer, with "participation in any action very low".
Mr Lloyd said the workers planning to strike would be better off in joining their colleagues in other departments and agencies who had accepted the workplace deals offered to them, some of whom were now due to get their second annual pay rises.
The Community and Public Sector Union revealed its plans on Monday for a mass-walkout of public servants from Medicare, Centrelink, Child Support, the Tax Office, Defence, Agriculture and Water Resources, the Bureau of Meteorology and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.
Border Force on-water units began a campaign of rolling stoppages on Monday after their colleagues walked off the job at airports and other sites around country last weekend.
The union's national secretary Nadine Flood said the actions were designed to send a message to the Coalition government that resistance to its hardline public sector bargaining policy remained strong, despite the dispute going through a quiet period before and after the election.
More than 100,000 public servants are yet to sign on to new enterprise agreements offered under the Abbott-era policy, while about 50,000 government workers, in about 54 agencies or departments, have signed on to the new deals.
The federal election was expected to act as a circuit-breaker in the dispute, which has rumbled on since 2013, but Public Service Minister Michaelia Cash last week instructed agency and department bosses that no compromise was permitted on the tough terms of the policy as talks with their workforces resumed.
Senator Cash spent much of Monday and Tuesday embroiled in the row with the Victorian government over that state's volunteer firefighters and did not publicly comment on the CPSU's plans.
But the Public Service Commissioner offered a blunt assessment of the prospects of the strike, saying the union's approach was disappointing.
"The decision of the CPSU's leadership to encourage members to strike once again is most disappointing," Mr Lloyd said.
"Generally, participation in any action is low, although regrettably there is disruption for both the workers involved and the public.
"This type of action does nothing to resolve the matter."
The commissioner encouraged public servants to resolve the dispute by accepting the terms they had been offered.
"A total of 57 new enterprise agreements have been reached under the government's Workplace Bargaining Policy," he said.
"The initial group of agencies to make new agreements have now reached their first-year anniversary and employees are benefiting from their second pay rise.
"The CPSU would better serve its members by negotiating agreements that are consistent with the policy."
