Community Corrections staff - who manage the 26,000 people the Department of Corrections is responsible for outside of prisons - are gearing up to take industrial action.

Community Corrections staff - including Probation Officers and Electronic Monitoring staff - are frustrated with low pay and ballooning workloads further fuelled by anger over the Government’s rushed changes to the Pay Equity Act, says Fleur Fitzsimons, National Secretary for the Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi.

"We will be looking to take industrial action if we do not get an improved offer from Corrections, and the mediation, set down for Wednesday 4 June, fails," Fitzsimons says.

Community Corrections staff are 68% female, which falls just agonisingly short of the Government’s new threshold requiring a workforce to be made up of 70% women to take a pay equity claim.

"Up until the recent reversal, Probation Officers were subject to a five-year long pay equity claim, they were found to be significantly undervalued and their claim was before the Employment Relations Authority to be settled, Fitzsimons says.

"With the ability to raise a pay equity claim cynically extinguished by the Government, underpaid Community Corrections workers will be expecting to see a significantly improved offer from Corrections," Fitzsimons says.

Community Corrections workers include probation officers, programme facilitators, electronic monitoring staff, community work supervisors, bail support officers, administration staff, and many others.

On any given day, Community Corrections staff work with 70% of the people Correction is responsible for, about 26,000 people living in the community. These people include those: who have been released from prison; who are serving Community-based sentences; who are electronically monitored; and who are on electronic bail.

PSA union Community Corrections members have been negotiating with Corrections since December and have been offered increases of around 1%, further embedding their low pay, Fitzsimons says.

The PSA is balloting members on taking three escalating actions - a complete withdrawal of labour for two, then four then eight hours. An indicative poll of Delegates showed unanimous support for industrial action.

© Scoop Media