Agency bargaining in the ATO

By Chris Slee

MELBOURNE -- An agency bargaining agreement for the Australian Taxation Office, endorsed by both management and the Public Sector Union leadership, will be put to PSU members around Australia at a series of meetings between May 11 and May 19.

The agreement, which would last until December 1995, provides for a 4% pay rise for most workers (2% backdated to March, 2% in December 1994). In return the union would agree to a number of measures to increase “productivity”. These would include:

• benchmarking -- measuring the “productivity” of various sections and comparing them, not only with other sections of the ATO, but also with outside organisations, public and private. If a section is found to be “less efficient”, the workers would be pressured to work harder, or else their jobs would be contracted out to private companies.

• continuous improvement -- workers would be pressured to continuously meet higher productivity targets.

• best practice -- the ATO would adopt the most efficient work practices known to exist anywhere.

What this would mean was shown by the report of a visit by a group of ATO managers to the St George Bank telecentre. The managers were very impressed by the high pressure work environment at the bank, where the number of phone calls answered by each operator was electronically monitored and workers were pressured to continually increase the number of calls answered.

By endorsing the agreement, the PSU leadership is by implication endorsing a similar approach in the ATO. This is a logical consequence of agency bargaining, which involves abandoning the struggle for a Public Service-wide pay increase, and instead seeking pay rises based on “productivity” within departments.

In Melbourne (and presumably elsewhere) the union mass meeting will occur immediately after a management information session. In effect, the union meeting will be a continuation of the management meeting, except that non-members will be asked to leave.

Rank and file unionists are organising to oppose the deal.

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