Professionals Australia has raised concerns about the future of automatic salary progressions in public service pay bands after a government corporation raised scrapping them.

Public servants at Canberra-based Airservices Australia say they were sideswiped by a review they thought would improve conditions.

Professionals Australia is worried the pay freeze could set a trend across the federal bureaucracy as agreements for 160,000 Commonwealth workers are negotiated.

Staff are signing a petition against the agency’s proposal to save $2 million a year by removing salary upgrades within classifications.

It would force employees to make a business case for each incremental increase they wanted.

To smooth the way, the Professionals Australia union says Airservices Australia is offering to introduce small bonuses as lump-sum payments, although 75 per cent of staff would miss out on these financial carrots.

Read the full article on The Canberra Times, Public service pay progressions up in the air , Phillip Thomson, 20 May 2014.