Thursday 15 August 2024
Community and Public Sector Union/Civil Service Association (CPSU/CSA) members across the Child Protection and Family Support system in the South West have closed their offices in Bunbury, Busselton, Collie and Manjimup this morning as part of rolling strike action, calling on Premier Cook to urgently prevent the system from collapsing.
Emergency protocols are once again in place at locked offices to ensure access can be provided in emergency situations.
This is the third half-day strike in the past few weeks by Western Australia’s Child Protection and Family Support workers, voicing their demands alongside their colleagues in Albany, Armadale, Binjarab (Peel) and Cannington to Premier Cook that he needed to urgently intervene to prevent some of Western Australia’s most vulnerable children and families from falling through the cracks.
One South West union member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as to avoid a breach of discipline, said of the crisis, “Vulnerable children, their families and foster carers miss out on critical services as unreasonable workload pressures contribute to burnout and a constant shortage of child protection workers. Child protection workers are resigning citing unreasonable workload pressures and an unsafe workplace.”
CPSU/CSA Acting Branch Secretary, Melanie Bray, said Premier Cook needed to urgently inject funding to adequately resource the system so that all open child protection cases have dedicated caseworkers to stymie the flow of passionate staff out of the sector, to avoid system collapse.
“Passionate and dedicated child protection workers, frontline and support staff, from Manjimup, Collie, Busselton and Bunbury have walked off the job this morning, asking a very straightforward question of the Government, where’s the funding? Record unallocated cases, record cases with open child safety investigations and yet no sense of urgency from a Government with record budget surpluses.
“We have a child protection system in crisis. With a record 1264 cases, that is 1264 individual vulnerable children and families right across the state, each with their own complex and unique needs, without a dedicated caseworker. At 115, the South West has the second-highest number of unallocated cases out of WA’s regional districts.
“The time for Premier Cook to act is right now. Listen to the reasonable demands of his Government’s expert child protection and family support workforce, and fully resource the sector so they can deliver best practice child protection work from vulnerable children and families right across Western Australia.”
ENDS
Notes
- Members at the four South West Offices will walk out of their offices and gather at the Bunbury Tower for a march towards ANZAC Park beginning at 9am. A short rally will follow until 9:30am.
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CPSU/CSA Acting Branch Secretary, Melanie Bray will be available for comment at 9:45am at ANZAC Park in Bunbury.
- Following the action, members will hold a closed-door morning tea with their South West colleagues, and re-enter their offices around lunchtime.
- The CPSU/CSA covers 44,000 general public sector workers, one-quarter of the WA public sector, including child protection officers, youth custodial officers, park rangers, veterinary scientists and dental technicians
- Note to Journalists: Please ensure the full acronym, “CPSU/CSA” when mentioning us. The CPSU/CSA and CPSU are separate organisations with the latter covering Commonwealth, ACT and NT public sector workers.
For more information or to arrange further comment from Acting Branch Secretary Melanie Bray, please contact CPSU/CSA Reception on 08 9323 3800 and ask for the Media and Stakeholder Engagement Officer.
