Wagga City Council's non-union employees enjoying perks of paid day off debated | Poll

However a large number of employees are not union members, which has the community debating whether the entire workforce should enjoy the perks of union membership - and at the expense of the ratepayer.

The council's general manager Peter Thompson said extending the right to a paid holiday to all employees has been the practice for more than two decades and everyone deserves equal entitlements.

"I would imagine this council back in the 1990s did not want one staff member to have lesser entitlement than other workers based on union membership," he said.

"With so many staff not in attendance, the normal approach - not just here but other councils like Tamworth - treat it much like a bank holiday."

Councillor Kerry Pascoe said a council-wide day off is disruptive to the community and commercial operations that need the council to be open.

Rather than having the entire workforce out of action, he said it should be given as an extra day of annual leave.

"I want to see a situation of a flexi-day so it doesn't disrupt one of the biggest businesses in the city," he said.

"The right to a day off should stay, but it should be flexible and up to the employee when it is taken."

United Services Union organiser for the southern Murray region Jed Lawton said it was common practice for the council to extend the day off to all of its employees.

"The Local Government Award is clear that the picnic day is union members only, but it is up to the council whether it wants to waste ratepayers money by giving everyone the day off," he said.

Cr Paul Funnell fully supports the council's decision to extend the right to a paid holiday to the entire workforce. However he does not believe anyone should be entitled to the union picnic day in the first place.

"I am glad it has been brought up because it's appalling that people get a day off work, with full pay because they are in a union - that's what annual leave is for," he said.

"This is a throwback to the archaic, socialistic attitudes of the 1950s."