The prospect of bureaucracy-wide strikes undermining the Federal Government's operations will not eventuate until well into next year, if at all.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
More than 120,000 public servants - almost three in four staff in the Australian Public Service - have formally rejected their agencies' wage offers this year.
However, workplace law prevents staff at two of the largest government agencies from taking any industrial action until 2012.
The Department of Human Services - a newly merged workplace that combines Centrelink, Medicare Australia, the Child Support Agency and CRS Australia - employs about 38,600 public servants.
This month, its employees voted against the Government's proposed 3 per cent annual pay rise, arguing the offer amounted to less than inflation.
However, while the wage deals for most of the department's employees have expired, the workers cannot apply to strike until CRS Australia's agreement ends on January 14 next year.
Similarly, the Australian Taxation Office's workforce of about 23,700 public servants has also opposed a pay offer of 3 per cent a year.
But because the agency's executive level 2 staff are on a separate agreement to other staff, no ATO workers can apply to take industrial action until the EL2 deal expires in July next year.
The legal barrier means the bureaucrats' largest union, the Community and Public Sector Union, is unable to coordinate massive whole-of-government strikes for at least another nine months.
Staff at several workplaces, however, such as the Defence Department and the Agriculture Department, have taken industrial action over the past two months.
Meanwhile, the Immigration Department, whose staff had previously rejected a 3 per cent annual pay rise, is on the verge of agreeing to a new deal with its workers.
Immigration's latest proposal, which has gained the union's approval, offers varying pay rises to staff depending on their level.
The deal amounts to a wage increase of between 9 and 14 per cent over three years.
The union's national secretary, Nadine Flood, said yesterday she was encouraged that more agencies were opting to take an approach like Immigration.
''They've been prepared to come back to the bargaining table and seek a sensible resolution,'' she said.
''We do not consider that industrial action should be necessary to resolve these problems, but in those agencies where it is available, action could occur if negotiations do not progress quickly.''
The Government warned public servants earlier this year it needed to rein in pay rises to help return the budget to surplus.