The end of the three-year industrial war in the Australian Public Service looks close as the largest department yet, Defence, agreed to accept a new enterprise bargaining agreement.
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The news, announced on Wednesday, comes on the heels of another large department, Agriculture, agreeing to a truce in its long workplace struggle.
More than 20,000 more public servants will begin voting on Thursday and Friday at the Australian Taxation Office, with a yes-vote widely expected there, and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, where the result is more difficult to predict.
A result is expected on Friday in a ballot of thousands of scientists, researchers and other workers at the peak science body the CSIRO, technically outside the public service but where the leadership says it must enforce the Coalition's tough bargaining line, with little success so far.
The yes- vote by public servants at the Department of Defence came at the fourth time of asking.
The department's acting boss Brendan Sargeant announced the 61 per cent to 39 per cent result to staff on Wednesday morning.
The yes-vote at Defence follows the decision of public servants at the 4000-strong Agriculture Department this week to accept, at the fifth time of asking, a new enterprise agreement.
Defence is the largest department, with 17,000 workers, to have voted to accept a new enterprise bargaining agreement since the hard industrial line taken by the then Abbott-government in 2014 ushered in three years of workplace strife across the public service.
But there has been concerted push recently by departmental bosses to back-off some of the harshers aspects of the policy and its insistence on stripping conditions and entitlements out of agreements.
Front-loaded pay increases, for workforces that have not had a general pay-rise since 2013, and the main public service union's decision not to run strong no-vote campaigns in the present round of ballots, have also played a role in agreements being accepted.
The Community and Public Sector Union recommended its members at Defence vote against the latest proposal, saying it reduces workplace rights and conditions and still "fails to provide fair pay outcomes".
But the union did not mount as vigorous a no-vote campaign as had been seen in the past, observers told Fairfax.
"Defence staff have finally voted up a new agreement, albeit reluctantly," CPSU National Secretary Nadine Flood said on Wednesday.
"This deal is a real improvement on those they've previously rejected, but it's far from perfect and also massively unfair that they're copping a three-year plus pay freeze."
Another union representing Defence public servants, Professionals Australia, said the new deal was "a bad agreement from a deeply flawed process".
"It reduces workplace rights and does not provide fair wage adjustments," union official Dave Smith.
The department had been in dispute with its civilian workforce for three years and proposals for new workplace deals have been defeated an unprecedented three times, most recently in December 2016.
Attention will now turn to the Australian Taxation Office where 19,000 public servants will begin voting on a proposed agreement on Thursday morning.
