Members First to contest CPSU national elections

Wednesday, April 12, 2000 - 10:00

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Members First to contest CPSU national elections

BY MELANIE SJOBERG

Arguing that the current leaders of the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) have not stood up to challenge massive job losses and outsourcing in the Australian Public Service, members of a rank and file union grouping, Members First, will run for national office bearer elections due in May.

Members First says it is committed to rebuilding a democratic, fighting union and hopes to build on the profile it gained during branch and section elections held in the CPSU in October. In the ACT, its candidates for branch president, deputy president and assistant secretary were all elected while in Victoria and Queensland, and in the Centrelink section, it received 30% of the vote.

The group cites lack of union leaders' resistance to a planned 16,000 lost jobs in Telstra as the latest in a long list of failures. In Queensland, Members First has initiated a protest action but has seen little commitment to the fight from union leaders.

"We need an wharfies-style campaign across the union movement to save Telstra from the corporate raiders", Jim McIlroy, the Members First candidate for assistant secretary, told Green Left Weekly. "We've initiated the Brisbane rally because members are looking for some leadership in this fight".

The grouping has also opposed a planned internal restructuring of the CPSU, which it says will undermine democracy and overly centralise the union. It argues instead for a regeneration of grass roots organising within the union.

Members First is calling for a united approach to:

  • Regain a single public sector enterprise agreement.

  • Roll back privatisation and end contracting out.

  • Repeal the Workplace Relations Act.

  • Defend social justice, community and environmental needs before profits.

The Members First candidates are: for president, Marcus Banks, Centrelink Victoria; for secretary, Susie Carcary, assistant secretary of the ACT CPSU branch; for assistant secretary, Jim McIlroy, Centrelink Queensland; for the two deputy presidents, Sarah Harris, Centrelink WA, and Greg Brown, Centrelink Queensland; and for two seats on National Executive, Jen Crothers, Australian Bureau of Statistics NSW and Michael Burnside, Centrelink Victoria.

Members First can be contacted by email <membersfirst@bigpond.com.au> and <members_first@yahoo.com>.

From GLW issue 401