By Steve Rogers

CANBERRA -- As Public Sector Union members across Australia start voting in national elections, incumbent officials are out in force. But only some are doing so under the election banner. Most are out campaigning for the adoption of agency bargains.

In a move reminiscent of the heavy-handed introduction of agency bargaining into the federal public service in late 1992, members are being promised, cajoled and bullied into accepting agreements.

Adoption of agency bargains is critical to the survival of the incumbent Wendy Caird and Peter Robson Team. Every agency bargain put to members to date involves either the acceptance of major job cuts (such as in Defence and Veterans Affairs) or the prior approval of processes which will reduce working conditions and cost jobs (in the case of Tax).

In Tax, the union has agreed to combined management-union mass meetings of staff. A series of meetings across Australia is taking place in late May. The Tax agency bargain will trade off hundreds of current permanent positions, and privatise part of the work.

In the case of the Department of Employment, Education and Training (DEET), just days after the release of the white paper which fundamentally affects work in the department, the Public Sector Union is taking an agency bargain to members. This agreement was prepared before the release of the paper. It guarantees to DEET management that, regardless of any consultative processes outlined in the agreement, union members will accept the government schedule for all new changes over the next 18 months. This removes any pressure on management to negotiate at all.

PSU national office is pushing for a rapid resolution of the issue. When DEET delegates in Canberra resolved to give members sufficient time to study the agreement, this was overruled. Delegates were called back to reverse the decision while the ACT industrial organiser responsible for the department was out of Canberra on union business.

For the national incumbents, the small pay rises of 4% or less (3.5% in the case of DEET), spread over several months, are all they can point to in terms of gains from their wages strategy.

The union nationally has made no serious attempt to defend the thousands of jobs lost in Administrative Services, Primary Industries and Energy, Defence, Veterans Affairs and elsewhere. The Wendy Caird and Peter Robson Team claim that without agency bargaining there would have been no compensation for the pain of job losses. No commitment has been made to change this policy of accepting job cuts.

In the case of ACT government, national intervention has been initiated by the national executive. With a separate ACT government public service due to take effect in just weeks, staff are seriously concerned about preserving their existing conditions. Yet the Wendy Caird and Peter Robson Team wants to rush through an agency bargaining agreement which will cost jobs and cut conditions. This intervention flies in the face of an agreement last year that ACT local government was a Canberra branch responsibility.

A mass meeting of ACT government workers is being held on May 25 to consider the issues.

While this is the most visible form of interference in the ACT branch since the current PSU Challenge officials took office at the beginning of 1994, PSU national officials and national industrial organisers have engaged in constant interference in the normal functioning of the branch.

With the Public Sector Union about to amalgamate with state public sector unions, the prospects for national interference are serious. The current action against the ACT branch indicates what can be expected to happen to any other part of the union which listens to its members rather than forcing them to accept national office direction.

Meanwhile, PSU National Challenge candidates continue to meet a good reception during leafleting and walk-arounds, despite attempts by Wendy Caird and Peter Robson Team supporters to prevent them speaking to workers in some departments.

In these elections the incumbents are more visible than previously. While the team is made up of full-time union officials in elected positions, many of these, including national secretary Peter Robson, were “elected” to their current positions unopposed.

This is one of the less democratic aspects of the massive union amalgamation spree in the public sector. Union officials stay one jump ahead of the membership, creating structures in which an opposition has little chance of running an effective campaign, let alone winning.

This article was posted on the Green Left Weekly Home Page.
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