BY ALISON THORNE

Members First, a grouping within the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) that is working for a fighting union, has launched a campaign to win the right to use email for union organising, free from management interference or censorship.

The campaign, which was proposed by Socialist Alliance members leading Members First in Victoria, aims to have the right to unfettered email organising made a priority item in new industrial agreements.

The campaign was sparked by reports of increased restrictions on email usage by union activists. For example, delegates within the Centrelink Call Centre network are prevented from circulating CPSU bulletins unless they relate directly to a Centrelink matter. Threatened with being charged with breaching the public service’s Code of Conduct, delegates were unable to use email to distribute recent union bulletins discussing the defence of Medicare or the CPSU’s campaign to defend a Telstra member threatened with redundancy after maternity leave.

For organisations like Members First, email is a vital form of communication. It is cheap, relatively easy and allows union activists to network and distribute campaign materials. CPSU members are encouraged to support the campaign by putting motions at workplace meetings and delegates meetings.

There will be a public meeting for CPSU members to launch the campaign in Melbourne at 6.30 pm on November 10, meeting in the Evatt Room of the Victorian Trades Hall Council building on the corner of Lygon and Victoria streets in Carlton. For more information or to support the campaign email <a.thorne@bigpond.com>.

[Alison Thorne is a member of Members First and the Socialist Alliance.]

From Green Left Weekly, November 5, 2003.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.

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