Public servants strike, government still on the attack
Thousands of commonwealth public servants have taken 24-hour strike action during the past fortnight, as part of a long-running dispute with the federal government. Some of the largest departments – such as Human Services (Centrelink), the Taxation Office, Immigration and Border Protection, and Defence – were affected. A range of smaller workplaces also took part.
More than two years after enterprise agreements covering the bulk of the government workforce expired, more than 100,000 public servants are yet to accept new pay deals. The government is offering pay rises of 2 percent per year for three years, with no back dating. It is also demanding that key conditions and workplace rights be stripped out of agreements and placed instead into workplace policies that can be altered at management’s discretion and which are unenforceable by workers.
The latest strikes are a welcome return to industrial action after the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) diverted its energies into Labor’s failed federal election campaign. For months, union officials and volunteers campaigned against the Liberals in marginal seats, without the ALP having promised to deliver on our log of claims. Prioritising the election was a dead end, achieving nothing and sucking life out of the industrial campaign.
Over the past two years, tens of thousands of public servants have defied the government by repeatedly voting “no” to proposed deals that fail to keep pay rises in line with inflation and attack conditions. Yet the CPSU has been unable to build any industrial momentum to force the government into significant concessions. Crucially, strike action has been sporadic and short lived; individual stoppages of up to 24-hours have been followed by months of inaction. The union leadership describes this as “strategic” action. It is a strategy that has got us nowhere.
Time is on the government’s side because most public servants who haven’t agreed to a new deal have had no pay rise since mid-2013. One by one, workers at the majority of smaller agencies and departments have accepted substandard deals – not out of enthusiasm, but out of fatigue, demoralisation and a belief that nothing more could be won. Fairfax media has recently reported that the government is preparing a fresh round of ballots at those departments where workers are still holding out.
Even now that Turnbull has been re-elected, the union’s strategy appears still to be based on a belief that the key to victory is social media posts and letter writing campaigns. The most recent strikes were accompanied not by major rallies displaying the union’s strength, but by small gatherings outside the offices of Liberal MPs, designed as photo opportunities. The message at these events was that the government is “incompetent” and “doesn’t understand” what it’s doing to workers.
This is nonsense. Turnbull, employment minister Michaelia Cash and the rest know exactly what they are doing. And so far they are winning. If we are to rebuild the strength of our union we need to display the same sort of determination as they do.
With a workforce worn down by years of attacks, and little recent history of industrial militancy, this will not be an easy task. But the first step is to be clear on what needs to be done.
