Beattie forces campaign to escalate

Date: 03 September 2002

The Queensland government will force the Queensland police to escalate their public campaign for improved wages and conditions by prohibiting industrial action, according to the Queensland Council of Unions.

QCU General Secretary Grace Grace described the government's legislation to prohibit the police force taking industrial action as unnecessary and would only inflame the current dispute over wages and conditions.

"The QCU believes it is the fundamental right of all workers to take industrial action in the pursuit of better wages and conditions," Ms Grace said.

"By prohibiting police taking industrial action, it forces them into running a public campaign. This is the only way left for police to go," she said.

"Any clarification of the ability of the Queensland police to take industrial action should have occurred in a court or tribunal and not by a Labor government, as an employer, legislating these rights away," she said.

"New South Wales and Victorian police aren't prohibited from taking action and there doesn't seem to be a problem down there," she said.

"By prohibiting Queensland police from taking industrial action, the government can not now criticise the police union for maintaining and/or escalating a public campaign which supports their members' claims for better wages and conditions as this is their only course of action," she said.

"At the end of the day, the government can not have its cake and eat it too," Ms Grace said.

For further information

Contact:	Liz Phillips
Union:	Queensland Council of Unions
Phone:	07 3846 2468
Contact Mobile:	0407 624 475
Email:	lizp@qcu.asn.au
WWW:	http://www.qcu.asn.au

LaborNET is proudly created, designed and programmed
by Social Change Online for the Labor Council of NSW
[Credits] [Site Matters]