JOB CUTS

Cutting jobs “not a victimless crime” … Opposition Leader John Robertson. Photo: Dean Osland

UNIONS and the opposition have condemned the government’s plan for thousands of job cuts across the public sector, although they acknowledged the numbers were lower than they had feared.

The Treasurer, Mike Baird, announced 5000 public sector workers would be offered voluntary redundancies over four years, targeted at ”office and backroom” positions.

”This is a difficult but necessary decision,” Mr Baird said in his budget speech. ”Further reductions are also likely to occur through normal staff turnover and natural attrition.”

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How all the redundancies will be spread across departments is not yet known. Budget papers stated the Department of Corrective Services will shed around 350 positions.

The Health Minister, Jillian Skinner, had already announced 150 redundancies from her department as part of a wider restructure. The Transport Minister, Gladys Berejiklian, has indicated around 100 positions will be made redundant as functions are consolidated in the new Transport for NSW department.

The Opposition Leader, John Robertson, said the decision to cut the jobs was ”not a victimless crime”. ”This is going to impact on the people of NSW,” he said.

Steve Turner, the assistant secretary at the Public Service Association, said the figure was ”heartening” in that it was considerably lower than the 20,000 jobs that had been rumoured to be axed in the first year.

”Community opposition to job cuts in the public sector seems to have got home a wee bit,” he said.

But Mr Turner said it was important that any redundancies that were offered were genuinely voluntary.

Under the government’s managing excess employees policy, introduced on August 1, workers who take redundancy within the first two weeks of their position being declared ”excess” receive their previous entitlements, including a severance payment of three weeks per year of service to a maximum of 39 weeks.

If they opt not to take voluntary redundancy they can receive priority for new jobs within their agency, and across the public service, for a three-month retention period.

But if no new employment has been found in that period the employee can be retrenched with reduced severance pay.

The Greens MP John Kaye said the government has redefined the process to make the word ”voluntary” irrelevant.

”There’s nothing voluntary about a redundancy that ends in a sacking,” he said.

Frontline staff, such as doctors, nurses and police officers, will not be allowed to apply for the redundancies offered in their departments, Mr Baird said.

The secretary of Unions NSW, Mark Lennon, said the government’s distinction between frontline and ”backroom” staff was false.

”The problem for frontline workers, be they the present ones or the new ones, is they’re also going to be asked to do more with less because they will not have the back-office support,” he said.