More than 7,000 Australian Federal Police officers and employees have been told to vote down the current pay offer from the government by the Australian Federal Police Association (AFPA) based on it being insufficient and a raft of workplace concessions not made available to its members.
In the latest flashpoint for the Australian Public Service Commission’s (APSC) increasingly loathed one-size-fits-all 11.2% public sector pay deal over three years, the employee representative for federal cops has said that “as the proposed AFP EA stands, we strongly believe members are not getting a fair deal, and that the Australian Federal Police, Australian Public Service Commission, and federal government need to do better.”
The call to ‘Vote NO’ by the AFPA deepens the line in the sand drawn by other frontline agencies rejecting the federal government’s wage offer that was discounted by way of a concession for many administrative workers unencumbered by security classifications or the need for in-field or secure on-premise work that simply negates the ability to ‘work from home’.
The current equivalent baseline for the AFPA is the United Firefighters Union Aviation Branch, which is understood to have negotiated the equivalent of a 17% pay rise over three years through conditions and loadings. The deal being rejected is based on the APSC and the Community and Public Sector Union’s (CPSU) agreement for a ‘service-wide’ 11.2% bump over three years. The CPSU appears to be the only union supporting the deal.
“Only recently, the federal government rubber-stamped a $6,000 one-off payment to Air Services Australia aviation firefighters. The AFP is offering its members a $871 one-off payment as an inducement to vote ‘yes’ before 25 May 2024,” said AFPA president Alex Caruana.
One of the struggles facing the AFPA in its pay fight is that its members have tempered their campaigning out of respect for other first responders dealing with a series of nationally critical incidents over the last few weeks.
“Over the last few weeks, we have seen AFP officers at the forefront of counter-terrorism operations. The prime minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese explicitly stated that he has faith in the AFP to do their work and will provide them with every support.
“The entire workforce of the AFP are not traditional public servants. AFP members are the most scrutinised employees in the federal government. All members must maintain a security clearance, they are regularly drug tested and they can be integrity tested. Parliamentarians and their staff do not have this scrutiny,” Caruana said.
And there’s more.
Caruana told The Mandarin that AFP employees “must disclose personal relationship and financial information. This is on top of being scrutinised by AFP Professional Standard, the Ombudsman Office and the National Anti-Corruption Commission.”
“The AFP has an experienced and highly skilled cohort of unsworn personnel who bring valuable expertise to the AFP in areas such as forensics, cybercrime, human resources and legal. They fulfil roles as Investigation Assistants, working alongside sworn officers in protecting Australia and its communities,” Caruana said.
“Proposed conditions such as working from home are not applicable to them, they are not traditional public servants.”
The list of demands constituting the basis for the AFPA’s recommendations for a ‘No’ vote are listed as follows:
- Use of force allowance: The AFPA is seeking an increase to $5,000 to recognise the roles and responsibilities of members required to be use of force qualified and the heightened risks they face in their day-to-day jobs.
- Broadbands improved for sworn police officers, in partnership with the Protective Service Officer (PSO) broadband improvements: broadbands for police need to be improved to bring AFP salaries in line with their state and territory counterparts.
- Unsociable hours allowance to apply to all AFP appointees: unsociable hours allowance needs to be equitable and not result in members doing night shifts losing money.
- Implementation of a consultative committee: the AFP needs to properly engage and consult with their members, including a properly constituted consultative committee.
- A right to disconnect needs to be contained within the AFP EA.
- The AFP needs pay raises that do not result in real wages for AFP employees going backwards as they have over the past 10 years.
- Unsworn appointees need to be provided with career pathways as part of the AFP EA.
An AFP spokesperson told The Mandarin that the AFP Commissioner put forward the final offer for the 2024 AFP Enterprise Agreement on 11 April 2024.
“The offer aligns with all Australian Public Service common conditions, except in cases where those common conditions may not be as beneficial as what AFP employees already receive,” the AFP spokesperson said.
“The AFP is putting forward several new allowances and conditions that will significantly enhance remuneration and flexibility for employees, in line with what the workforce, as well as employee bargaining representatives have asked for.”
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Working undercover isn’t working from home: AFP union slams APS pay deal as a cop out
