Public sector union pushes back – strikes likely
Tens of thousands of federal public servants are edging closer to industrial action over stalled negotiations for new enterprise agreements. Planning for action is under way at a number of departments, including the Department of Human Services (DHS), which runs vital services including Medicare and Centrelink.
Existing agreements for the bulk of Commonwealth employees expired at the end of June. Despite the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) having finalised its log of claims last December, no progress has been made on new agreements for the sector’s 160,000 workers.
So far, the DHS is the only agency in which management has put a proposal on the table: 0.76 percent annual pay rises along with significant cuts to conditions. Management was forced to backtrack after workers reacted with outrage and derision.
At the end of September, the CPSU Governing Council voted to endorse “the use of protected industrial action” in support of the union’s demand for a 4 percent annual pay increase for three years, roughly in line with inflation, without cuts to conditions or job losses.
The government has flatly rejected the union’s modest demands, insisting that any increase in pay be offset dollar for dollar by cuts to conditions. Although bargaining formally takes place at the department or agency level, every agreement must be signed off by employment minister and industrial relations hardliner Eric Abetz. Farcically, he refuses even to meet with the union.
The government also wants to strip conditions from legally enforceable enterprise agreements, to be replaced with references to departmental policies that can be altered at management’s whim. Recently, the government refused to allow the Australian Crime Commission to offer its staff a 0 percent pay increase while maintaining existing conditions in the enterprise agreement. The union has rejected attempts at the so-called “streamlining” of agreements and labelled the plan a thinly veiled attack on workers’ rights.
The CPSU itself is likewise being targeted by the government. There are proposals to remove delegate rights from enterprise agreements, along with requirements that the union be consulted about changes in the workplace. Some departments have denied union representatives reasonable facilities for current negotiations, including refusing adequate paid release from the workplace for bargaining representatives. Even the longstanding practice of delegates going desk to desk during work hours to distribute union material and consult with their colleagues has been challenged by management in a number of departments.
Given the government’s predictably unyielding stance, militants within the CPSU have been arguing for months that our side needs to take a tougher approach and mobilise rank and file members in their own defence. The Governing Council decision to endorse industrial action is a step in the right direction, but to maintain existing pay and conditions, meaningful, sustained industrial action will be required across the public service.
