Early public service pay deal leaked

Officials and unions are kneedeep in negotiations for pay increases across the public service, with one initial offer on the table of a $6000 increase over two years.

It comes as the Government’s Covid pay restraint continues amid a high turnover level.

A letter from the Public Service Commission outlines that an offer had been made to ‘‘some’’ education and public service unions. The letter was dated as guidance for October 28.

In the letter, the offer for expired collective agreements was for a $6000 base scale increase, on average, over a twoyear term.

That included a $4000 increase for 2022/23, and a further increase of $2000 after 12 months in the 2023/24 year. It would increase base scale rates and be dependent on the pay structure in each agreement.

For settled collective agreements, the offer was to work through so that no base scale has an increase of less than $4000 in the 2022/23 year or less than $2000 in the 2023/24 year.

The increase would vary depending on already negotiated increases, while some agreements may not change if they have already received increases or have committed increases above the offer.

Alex Chadwick of the Public Service Commission, who is leading the pay adjustment taskforce, said bargaining involves multiemployer, multi union, good faith bargaining across a number of sectors, including the public service, education, health, defence and police.

‘‘As in any collective bargaining, multiple offers will be exchanged and negotiated throughout this process.

‘‘Bargaining is still in its early stages and nothing has yet been agreed.’’

National Party’s public service spokesperson Simeon Brown said the Government ’’was simply virtue signalling when it put the pay freeze in place – as it hasn’t worked and has caused a big churn in the public sector and now the Government is backing away’’.

‘‘The Government said it was going to apply constraint to the costs of the public service . . . but is now planning to increase the

salary of all public servants with a pay adjustment.

‘‘The Government needs to be transparent about how much this will cost taxpayers, on top of how much it has cost to hire 14,000 more back office bureaucrats, and on top of how much it’s cost to hire back staff as contractors who quit their permanent roles because of the pay freeze,’’ Brown said.

Public Service Minister Chris Hipkins would not comment while negotiations were ongoing, but on October 26 said pay guidance on the restraint was still scheduled to be reviewed at the end of this year.

‘‘Pay guidance does not apply to those bargaining within the Public Sector Pay Agreement (PSPA) process, so for those who have opted in to the PSPA process and bargain an outcome, that would supersede pay restraint,’’ he said at the time.

Hipkins said last month he thought the turnover rate in the public service was starting to stabilise.

‘‘When you’ve got very low unemployment, people move around jobs more than when unemployment is higher.’’

Negotiations officially began last month, after the Public Service Association (PSA) told members an agreement had been reached to start negotiations proper for a cost of living pay increase across the public service and Crown agents.

It comes after a proposal from unions of a whole public service pay rise to deal with cost of living pressures.

The PSA, along with other unions, the Te Kawa Mataaho (the Public Service Commission) and employer representatives were set to engage ‘‘urgently’’ over a potential public service pay adjustment agreement on October 28, and again on November 4.

The PSA said on its website it is asking for a settlement of 6% and a 6% increase over two years to keep wages in line with current and projected inflation.

The union has been sparring with the Government over the ongoing pay restraint introduced in 2020 – meaning many public servants would receive nil or minimal increases.

It comes after data released in October showed there was a 17.3% turnover in the public service in the 2021/22 year. The average turnover the previous year was 10.5%, 10.1% in 2020 and 11.8% in 2019. Stats NZ’s figures for June 2020/21 showed turnover for New Zealand was at the highest levels since 2018 at 17.1%.