BY CHRIS SLEE

MELBOURNE — Members of the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) employed by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) held stop-work meetings during the week of September 9 to 13, at which they voted to hold a two-hour strike on the morning of September 18.

Negotiations for a new agency agreement for the ATO have broken down. The CPSU had hoped to win flextime rights for call centre workers as part of the new agreement. Instead management is trying to impose rigid call centre-style rostering on virtually all ATO workers. They want all areas of the ATO to be open for receiving phone calls from 8am to 6pm. If not enough volunteers are found for a particular time slot, people will be forced to work at particular times.

The CPSU is willing to accept longer phone hours, but only on a voluntary basis. This may require incentives for workers who work at unpopular times.

The CPSU had also hoped to win permanent jobs for the large number of workers who have been employed on short-term contracts for long periods. Instead, management is threatening not only to sack these workers when their contracts expire (for many, this means June 2003), but also to abolish the jobs of “ongoing” workers at the lowest levels in the public service hierarchy.

The ATO received increased funding in this year's budget to overcome the chaos caused by staff shortages resulting from redundancies and non-renewal of temporary contracts last year. But management expects that the need for staff in processing areas will decline over the next year or two, enabling a new round of job cuts.

Another issue concerning workers is pay. Management is offering 4% in the first year of a new agreement and 4.5% in the following year — but with conditions attached. If targets are not met, the pay rises could be withheld.

The September 18 strike will take the form of workers not starting work until 10.30am, instead of the usual 8.30am. Membership meetings will be held at 10am outside each Tax Office building.

From Green Left Weekly, September 18, 2002.
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