Council staff pay negotiations
Published on 04 June 2025
Background
A Certified Enterprise Agreement is an agreement between the Council, unions and Council staff setting out pay and employment conditions over a period of time.
Council management has been negotiating with the three unions representing Council staff since November 2024 on a new Certified Agreement.
Council is required by law to negotiate with the unions despite the agreement impacting all Council staff – both union members and non-members.
To date, no resolution has been reached and with the current agreement expiring in February this year, this means union members now can take protected industrial action.
What has Council management offered?
Council has offered a 15 per cent pay rise over forty months and a package that includes improved conditions, wellbeing leave and increases in many of the on-call allowances.
The focus of this agreement is to help ease the cost-of-living pressures on employees and to ensure job security.
Based on our current work force, a staff member on $70,000 a year will move to $74,555 in the first year and be on $81,000 by year three.
Daily on-call allowances would be increased and five days for wellness leave has been offered.
Council management believes this offer provides fair and reasonable pay and conditions for staff while balancing the need to deliver affordable services to the community and it is an offer the organisation can afford.
What do unions want?
The unions representing Council staff have rejected Council management’s offer.
They took some time to agree on a combined position.
The unions offer is far higher than what Council can afford for long term sustainability and the cost to the community. They have been seeking wage rises of between 17.5% and 21%.
The unions also rejected a request by Council to go to arbitration before the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission.
What industrial action could occur and what will this mean for Council services?
Unions have been on protected industrial action, such as strikes and work bans, for nearly ten weeks.
We acknowledge this is their right, however what it means is Council can not utilise other staff or contractors to do critical work for the community.
Protected Industrial action means an employee can come to work, refuse to do their role but continue to get paid.
While Council continues to do everything it can to minimise the impact on the community, the only course to ensure services are delivered is to introduce a lockout.
Whilst we respect the rights of union workers who choose to take protected industrial action, due to the ongoing impact on services and to those employees still undertaking their duties, we have made the difficult decision to enact our legislated employer response action.
The only legislated action available to Council is in the form of a lock-out of those staff who are taking protected industrial action. This lock-out will continue until Monday 9 June 2025.
During this period, Council is not required to pay those employees and can engage contractors or alternate staff to ']ensure essential services continue. While this is not a decision taken lightly, it is the only legal mechanism available to maintain operations during industrial action.
The majority of staff who were engaging in protected industrial action have returned to work during the lockout period.
Council is willing to continue negotiations with the unions during this lockout period.
What is the next step?
Council management respects the right of workers to take protected industrial action and has continued to attempt to negotiate in good faith with the unions.
Council management and unions have another meeting with Commissioner Caddie on Friday 6 June. If no agreement is reached, Council management will again seek the assistance of the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission to help create a new certified agreement.
Council management is eager for this issue to be resolved as soon as possible for the benefit of Council staff and the community.