The Department of Defence will face severe, expensive and protracted internal skilled labour deficits for science, technology, engineering and maths personnel because of a stubborn refusal to pay technically skilled staff anywhere near their market value — despite a massive national commitment to nuclear power and critical sophisticated missile defence systems.
That’s the bleak takeaway of a breakdown in negotiations between Australia’s peak technical union baked-in previous evidence to parliament that compensation for staff outside current public service classifications for clerks and lawyers is now six digits behind the market and getting worse.
Professionals Australia, the peak industrial body for engineers, scientists and technologists has confirmed it has been shut out of any upgrade in formal pay recognition of its members’ skillsets, despite formal evidence to previous parliamentary committees that pay gaps as large as $100,000 are common.
The sidelining of APS technical talent strongly jars against the strong call for sovereign capability outlined by the Defence Strategic Review (DSR).
At the nexus of the dispute over recognition and salary is the refusal of the Australian Public Service Commission and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to create a distinct science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) classification within APS ranks.
The refusal, in broad terms, means the APS will continue to rely on an outsourced or contracted technical labour force.
It comes despite the recommendations of the Thodey Review outlining the need for new or specific classifications for tech and technical staff and leadership against which the APSC has, in the main, retained a managerialist doctrine that puts technologists below generalists in the public service hierarchy.
The APS rejection of a technical cadre, despite the Thodey review, came subsequent to the inking of the AUKUS pact that will require the recruitment of thousands of highly- trusted technical staff that must either be recruited directly or found from trusted sources outside government.
Professionals Australia has taken clear issue with this response.
“Although the DSR report indicated that pay and service conditions in the APS, as well as the ADF, should be highly competitive in the labour market, the Australian Public Service Commission has rejected our claim for a specific STEM structure that would help recruit, develop and retain a skilled technical, science and engineering workforce,” Professionals Australia’s CEO Jill McCabe told The Mandarin.
“The DSR Report highlighted that the Defence APS workforce was understrength and an innovative and bold approach to recruitment and retention was required.
“We are concerned that as new DSR projects are initiated, the demand for these skills will become even more acute, putting capacity to deliver these projects at risk,” McCabe said.
McCabe said as part of the APS enterprise bargaining negotiations Professionals Australia had “proposed a specific STEM classification and pay structure to help the Department of Defence compete with the private sector and attract and retain the critical skills needed to deliver strategic defence projects.”
“Under the current APS pay structure, the Department simply cannot compete with the salaries offered by the private sector. A qualified engineer working in the private sector can earn $30,000 to $100,000 more per year than in the Department of Defence.
“Engineering and technical specialists develop their skills and expertise in the first few years working in the Department of Defence but many then move to private sector companies due to the higher pay on offer,” McCabe said.
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