A new report has highlighted the “bargaining fatigue” in APS negotiations.

The study by UNSW says internal bureaucratic strife, Rudd-era industrial laws and union disunity are running up against the Abbott-Turnbull government’s harsh public sector pay policy.

Researchers conducted interviews with senior public servants and union officials, to gain an understanding of what they dubbed the industrial “forcing strategy” that began under the Abbott government in 2014.

As public service industrial disputes drag into their third year, the report reveals friction between government departments and the Australian Public Service Commission.

The academics found that the bitter conflict between the Abbott-Turnbull employment ministers and public sector unions was due largely to the government's workplace relations plans.

The forcing strategy seeks “to limit pay increases and improvements to working conditions, increase labour flexibility, enhance management's ability to ratchet up performance standards and enable management to gain increased power over trade unions”, according to UNSW workplace expert Sue Williamson.

“The Coalition believed that public service employment conditions should be brought into line with those of private sector employers, 'deprivileging' the Commonwealth public sector workforce,” the study says.

“The Coalition attempted to use its power resources, principally the 2014 and 2015 APS Bargaining Policies, to implement its forcing strategy.”

But they also highlighted a separate factor that has gained much less press.

The UNSW team said that the Fair Work Act - legislated in 2009 by the Rudd government – was preventing the government from enforcing its will on its workforce.

The harsh bargaining policy is being held up by a provision of the Fair Work Act that protects the role of unions in the bargaining process.

“The FW Act did protect union recognition and constrained efforts by agency managements to minimise union participation in APS bargaining,” the report states.

“Such protections weakened the feasibility of the Coalition government's forcing strategy.

“The practical effect of the legislation in the APS was an increased capacity and role for unions in bargaining.”

It did not spare the unions from blame either, arguing that the CPSU was complicit in the long-running wage freeze.

The report paints a picture of an industrial stalemate that is going nowhere, as the major goal of each camp is to completely thwart the plans of the opposing camp.

“Tensions emerged between agency management and the APSC over the latter's strict interpretation of the Coalition's Bargaining Policy,” the study says.

“On the whole, agency managements would have preferred increased discretion to negotiate with union representatives at workplace level.

“Even though the government maintained that participation in industrial action was low, the swathe of agreements rejected – some more than once – highlighted the effectiveness of a strong union campaign.

“It also highlights the importance of legislation supportive of collective bargaining and union participation in collective negotiations.

“Nonetheless, the Coalition and its managerial agents have succeeded in freezing APS wages for the vast majority of APS employees.”