Premier Perrottet should resign if he can’t pay his workforce striking workers told

Public Service Association

Dominic Perrottet should stand aside if he can’t keep his frontline workers’ pay packets from going backwards says the union representing frontline public sector workers – including prison officers, school support staff, child protection workers, and SES workers.

The Public Service Association’s General Secretary, Stewart Little, told a rally of thousands of workers outside NSW Parliament House in Sydney this morning the Premier’s key KPI is to make sure the people who carry out his policies are paid properly.

“It’s frontline public sector workers Australians turn to when there’s fires or floods or pandemics, yet it’s these same people who get messed around when they ask not to go backwards,” says Stewart Little.

“We are the people that do the contract tracing during pandemics, keep our schools going, make the child protection system work and keep our state’s prisons running, yet we get no back up at all from our leaders.

“Interest rates are going up, food prices, electricity prices, everything’s up except our wages, and now we’re being asked to receive another pay cut.

“At the end of the fires in the summer of 2019 we were frozen, we got a pay cut then, and now we’re receiving another pay cut in real terms, we’re just not going to cop it this time.

“If Mr Perrottet doesn’t have a plan when it comes to dealing with inflation or the cost of living which amounts to more than just asking his loyal workforce to accept a pay cut then he simply isn’t up to the job and he should resign,” says Stewart Little, PSA General Secretary.

Mr Little has already rejected Premier Dominic Perrottet’s “insulting” wage cap tweak which was announced on Monday which still see’s workers wages going backwards by 2.1% when measured against inflation. The Public Service Association’s executive met on Monday morning to review the Premier’s offer, which would lift the long-standing 2.5 percent pay cap to 3 percent, with a one-off $3000 bonus for NSW Health employees. Inflation this year is 5.1%. The Premier’s offer was rejected. PSA General Secretary Stewart Little said the offer, which would represent a significant pay cut to workers in real terms, was an insult and reinforced why wage decisions should be in the hands of an independent authority and not politicians. “Inflation is running at over five percent. If frontline workers take three percent, they would still be going backward by thousands of dollars a year. “We need the Premier to go back to the drawing board and come back with a fair offer for the women and men who have been busting a gut throughout the pandemic to keep this state operational. “New South Wales is creating plenty of wealth but it’s not getting to the real people who do the real work for this community, Premier Perrottet needs to make that happen,” Mr Little said.

/Public Release.