General News
25 September, 2024
Mount Isa City Council staff in standoff over pay rise
Workers are again planning to walk off the job because of the wage dispute.
A wage dispute at Mount Isa City Council has reached a “standstill” as workers led by the Services Union have rejected the latest offer from council management.
Mount Isa City Council management and the Services Union will hold the latest round of negotiations tomorrow (Thursday).
The meeting comes after workers last week rejected the council’s latest offer to increase wages by four per cent per year for three years.
The union has been asking for increases of six per cent in the first year, five per cent in the second year and four per cent in the third year under an updated Enterprise Bargaining Agreement.
The agreement for Mount Isa council workers expired in 2022. There have since been administrative increases, which are not subject to the EBA process, of 2.5 per cent and 3.2 per cent over the past two years.
At time of print, the union strike committee had voted in favour of further industrial action and it was expected that between 30-40 administrative staff, including engineers, town planners, local laws officers, library and IT staff would walk off the job at noon today (Wednesday).
It was believed some staff would return to their work after the protest action while others would not return to the council office until the next day.
Services Union lead organiser Tom Rivers said while there had been “marginal increases” in the offers from council management, it was “just not enough.”
“When the inflation crisis reached its height, Mount Isa council took advantage of not having an agreement to offer a wage increase that was less than half the rate of inflation – so the value of wages has actually gone down,” he said.
“People in similar jobs across the state are getting better wage improvements.
“The CEO can claim the council has to address the mine closures or blame the reduced ratepayer base but council still has to deliver services to the community.
“Workers at the council have continued to deliver for the people of Mount Isa despite the wage issues.”
Mount Isa City Council chief executive officer Tim Rose said the council planned to conduct a non-binding vote among affected workers in the coming weeks to determine broad sentiment towards the offer.
He said the 30-40 staff who took part in industrial action earlier this month represented about 30 per cent of the total impacted workforce at the council.
Mr Rose said the administrative increases, combined with federal income tax deductions, meant the wages of workers had kept pace with inflation.
“Negotiations are at a standstill because we can’t match what the union expects,” he said.
“The local economy is not very strong at the moment, we have population decline, we are losing 1200 jobs and we don’t have strong economic growth.
“Our capacity to pay is nowhere near what coastal councils can pay – but we are trying to offer a reasonable increase that we can afford to pay.”