CPSU delegates reject cuts

By Sarah Harris

SYDNEY — Eighty delegates of the NSW Department of Social Security sector of the Community and Public Service Union (CPSU) attended the sector's annual meeting here on March 7-8.

Union organisers warned the meeting of impending attacks on the union and department resources by the Coalition government, but presented no clear tactics to fight those attacks. Instead, delegates were told that they may have to do union work in their own time.

Vicki Telfer, CPSU NSW branch secretary, claimed that the Coalition had a mandate to cut public service expenditure, and since some CPSU members had voted for them, the union had to take these members' views into account.

The main campaign being promoted by the CPSU organisers is for all union members to have their dues deducted from their bank account — the Coalition is threatening to cancel deductions from members' pay. Sixty per cent of CPSU membership dues goes to pay organisers' salaries.

The majority of delegates at the meeting were angry at the continued lack of resources and DSS staff. Delegates also requested that communication be improved between the union members and leadership about what was happening at the workplace and in CPSU offices, and that the union guard against competition for resources between DSS offices.

From GLW issue 225