The Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden has announced plans to reintroduce pay deductions for partial strikes.
A partial strike is where the employee is still doing some form of their work. Employers have been banned from reducing the worker’s pay since the previous Labour-led government removed that power in 2018.
ACT’s van Velden said she recognised the entitlement of employees to strike, but the disruption caused “should not continue without consequence”.
Defence force staff are currently working to rule which is causing all sorts of problems. Eg taking their allotted breaks which leave critical parts of the org offline for 30 minutes or so (so they’re having to pull in officers to cover the gaps). It’s hugely disruptive and I assume very effective as a negotiation tool.
BUT. If the organisation can’t function with the staff taking their legally mandated breaks, the understaffing is just being exposed by the workers who have been plugging the gap, unpaid, until now.
That work to rule can see your pay docked is utterly insane.