CPSU bans generalise across Canberra

Wednesday, May 29, 1996 - 10:00

By Paul Oboohov

CANBERRA — Most workplaces in most federal departments have placed bans on the handling of government business and the administration of cuts, bans on doing the work of vacant positions, processing government revenue and the passing on of statistics.

A report to a meeting of the Community and Public Sector Union ACT branch's Australian Public Service Combined Delegates' Campaign Committee on May 23 said that written material is going out with headers and footers calling attention to the fact that the service provided may not exist in the near future, and ministerials are being returned with stickers on them saying that the work is subject to a CPSU ban.

The report said that the bans, while being amended by some workplaces to exempt work associated with disadvantaged groups, were being applied in a remarkably consistent manner according to a suggested list, given that the last mass meeting gave the decision making power over bans to individual workplaces.

Public servants have thought through the bans, debating them in their workplaces, and deciding resolutely for industrial action against the cuts to jobs and services.

In parliamentary question time, ministers are often saying that they will have to wait for advice to answer questions. In the Department of Finance, management has threatened that the work of the budget will be outsourced. Delegates told management that bans would proceed.

Several agencies have started to refuse the use of facilities by delegates, and misleading advice has started to emanate from the Department of Industrial Relations, generally suggesting dire consequences for participation in industrial action. However, these have no foundation in actual agreements.

The next mass rally and half-day stop-work in Canberra over the cuts will be held on June 6. A march and rally are scheduled, and this time there will not be Labor politicians: the delegates trenchantly criticised their use in the last rally outside parliament. The focus this time will be public servants themselves, particularly from the departments suffering cuts.