The end of the cap,which Labor has insisted will not put the budget under extra pressure because pay rises will be funded through productivity improvements,means the government will need to develop a new bargaining system to deliver wage increases to 400,000 workers.
Powerful union boss and Labor heavyweight Gerard Hayes,who heads up the Health Services Union,has been the most outspoken critic of delays in axing the wages cap,arguing it should have been the No.1 priority of the newly elected Minns government.
However,Minns said he was deliberate in his course of action because he did not want the issue of pay for public sector workers to be “hijacked by the opposition” – a risk if Labor pursued legislation to change wages policy.
“They could have effectively kicked essential workers and said,‘they are not worth it’,” Minns told theHerald in an interview. “It[legislation] wasn’t required and the course of least resistance for a government that’s got a lot on its agenda is something that I am always going to preference.
“I’d rather just get the box ticked,in this case to[get the] pay out the door,than have to go around begging crossbench opposition MPs to support what I think would be pretty self-evident and sensible.”
The government has offeredpublic sector workers a one-off 4 per cent pay rise plus 0.5 per cent superannuation,at a cost of $618 million. NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey has said he would detail how that increase will be funded in September’s delayed budget.
The former Fair Work Commission deputy president Anna Booth and former Industrial Relations Commission president Roger Boland have also been appointed to produce a new framework to replace the wages cap.