Media release – Health and Community Services Union, 5 October 2022
Child safety workers strike for vulnerable Tasmanian children
Today child safety workers across Tasmania will be striking to force the Rockliff government to address their chronic recruitment and retention issues that are leaving at-risk children unsupported and vulnerable.
On 7 September, union delegates met with the Premier to discuss an Emergency Workforce Package that would begin to address their staffing crisis. The Premier promised them he would respond to the package. In the 28 days since, there has been one meeting and nothing has been implemented. Over the same time, four more exhausted child safety workers have resigned as the service staggers closer to a tragedy.
Quotes attributable to HACSU Assistant State Secretary Lucas Digney.
“Critical services are currently in crisis and these vital workers are struggling with crippling demand. It’s gotten worse, not better, and nothing has been provided by government or departmental representatives as to how the immediate service delivery crisis will be addressed.”
“Child Safety and the Advice and Referral Line are critically under-resourced and children reported at risk of neglect or abuse are not getting the support they need and deserve. We have hundreds of kids in care who do not have an allocated worker. It’s simply not good enough.”
Quotes attributable to CPSU Lead Organiser Natalie Jones.
“At the very time Tasmanians are hearing from the Commission of Inquiry about how we have failed vulnerable children in the past, it is happening again.”
“Our members refuse to stand by knowing that children reported at risk of abuse or neglect are not getting the care and support they need because the Rockliff government won’t address their recruitment and retention crisis.”
The service continues to decline with more staff leaving. Every day without action is another day closer to a collapse of the service altogether.
Child safety workers across the state will walk off the job at 12 noon today. They don’t do this out of self-interest. They do it because they are being forced to make decisions each day about which child in need gets help and which one doesn’t. That’s an unreasonable position to put these caring workers in.
Media release – Sarah Lovell MLC, Shadow Minister for Workplace Relations, 5 October 2022
Premier Rockliff isn’t listening
Workers from Child Safety and Hydro Tasmania have today been left with no choice but to take industrial action.
After months of negotiations, and with the cost of living currently rising at 6.5 per cent, a massive real wage cut is still all the Premier is offering.
Premier Rockliff also continues to fail to recognise these negotiations are about far more than just wages, with serious workload concerns among the many unresolved issues across departments and government businesses.
Tasmanians understand that underfunding and understaffing jeopardises essential services like child safety, which currently has approximately 35 unfilled vacancies and as a result is unable to provide nearly 100 at-risk young people with caseworkers.
For the Premier now to be making threats to workers about stripping them of back pay unless an agreement is reached by December brings into question the seriousness of his commitment to negotiate in good faith.
Taken together, real pay cuts, a lack of concern about workforce challenges and unreasonable threats show just how out of touch this Premier has become.
