Tax staff support bad agreement

Tax staff support bad agreement

MELBOURNE — The Australian Tax Office management's draft enterprise
agreement was accepted by 79.6% of staff who voted in a ballot taken between
July 13 and 15. Fifty-six per cent of staff voted in the ballot. The agreement
will now go to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission for certification.

The controversial agreement was being put to staff for a second time,
after 62% rejected it in the first vote. Unlike the first time round, the
Community and Public Sector Union supported the agreement in the second
vote, although there were few changes to the draft put forward by management.
Many CPSU members voted to accept the second agreement on the basis that
it now provided the union with a role in its implementation.

Union members campaigning against the agreement pointed to the increased
management powers to sack staff, contract out work and harass individual
workers. Even the CPSU acknowledged it to be a bad agreement. Activists
in the CPSU campaigned against the agreement within the union, and following
the union's internal vote, among staff generally, along with the Australian
Services Union which has members in some tax offices.

In Melbourne, activists from the ASU and the CPSU opposition caucus
Members First handed out leaflets which presented the case against the
agreement outside tax offices. Despite this, only 20.4% of staff voted
against, as compared to 24% in the CPSU internal vote on the agreement. 

From GLW issue 325