While DHS workers continue to labour under an expired pay deal, their bosses have secured a $6,000 rise.

The CPSU has slammed the “no-strings-attached” pay rises granted to the Department of Human Services’ 168-person senior executive service.

But the department says workers would receive a 2 per cent pay rise if they would just agree to an upcoming enterprise agreement ballot.

Reports show the highest pay band for band-3 senior executives has moved from $339,500 to $345,000 in 2015-16, band-2 went from $248 000 to $252,000 while band-1’s maximum pay has increased from $196,000 to $199,000.

Those figures do not include their taxpayer-supplied car, superannuation contributions of up to 15.4 per cent, fringe benefits or other allowances.

Additionally, departmental secretary Kathryn Campbell can set up her own wage deals outside of the official bands.

Ms Campbell now earns $731,000 a year when super and other benefits are included.

Meanwhile, most of DHS’s 36,000 workers have been paid on the same scales since 2013, and have twice rejecting workplace deals formed under the public sector bargaining framework set up under Tony Abbott.

“Is this a sick joke?” Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) national secretary Nadine Flood asked this week.

“Senior management in the department have given themselves a no-strings-attached pay rise while continuing to push a staggeringly unfair enterprise agreement on rank-and-file DHS staff.

“Staff morale was already rock bottom and this is hardly going to help.

“This is a pain-free pay rise for a few hundred senior executives who were already on base salaries of $153,000 to $345,000 a year,” the union leader said.

“In contrast, a working mum on under $60,000 a year like the majority of DHS staff faces her third Christmas without a pay rise because she can't afford to give up the workplace rights and conditions that allow her to juggle work and picking up the kids.”

A departmental spokesperson would not speak about the executive pay rises, but instead urged lower-tier staff to vote for their own pay rise next week.

“The department attempted to provide staff with a 2 per cent pay rise as part of the February 2016 proposed agreement vote,” she said.

“Next week ... staff will vote on a proposed agreement that includes a pay rise of 3 per cent on commencement, followed by a 1.5 per cent increase on both the first and second anniversaries of the agreement.”