The NSW Public Service Association and Unions NSW have called a rally on March 15, in the lead-up to the NSW elections, against job cuts. The PSA is highighting Liberal leader Peter Debnam's threat to cut 20,000 public service jobs if elected, and is circulating a petition calling on all candidates to "maintain public sector job levels in real terms as at 2006 state budget levels".
It is also campaigning for public services to be maintained at present levels and for the safeguarding of the state industrial relations system to protect workers against Work Choices.
While agreeing with the rally's focus, some union activists believe the PSA campaign should equally be aimed at the Iemma Labor government — which is likely to be reelected. In February, the premier said that 5000 state public service jobs would go, and that there would be further cuts. PSA general secretary John Cahill's response was that the cuts were "against the public interest" and that "this is a recipe for a significant downgrade in public services". Still, on February 20, Iemma refused to rule out cutting more jobs.
Bea Bassi, a PSA delegate who has worked in the NSW public sector for 18 years, told Green Left Weekly that the issues at stake are bigger than which party wins government. "By voicing our concerns, we are also protecting jobs in general", said Bassi, a member of the Socialist Alliance. "Besides health, education, housing and transport, there are many services we have a right to access including consumer laws and litigation, occupational health and safety, legal aid and Indigenous affairs", Bassi argued.
"Government-managed services operate under the umbrella of 'duty of care' and strict codes of conduct, standards and regulations. This means our community, and its needs, must come before profit. They are funded by, and accountable to, all of us."
"When politicians talk about cutting public services, what they really mean to cut is the 'public' not the services. They are not saying that the services are no longer required. What they [want] is privatisation, and subcontracting and outsourcing — another way of introducing the federal industrial relations laws into the state.
"Our politicians don't intend to cut services", Bassi continued. "They intend to sell the public services to the private sector, for it to make profits."
Susan Price, NTEU activist and Socialist Alliance upper house candidate, told Green Left that the alliance is "fundamentally opposed to the cutting or 'outsourcing' of government services", by Labor or Liberal governments. "Already our services are far too stretched", she said, adding that the state tax burden should be shifted away from workers and pensioners and back onto the "big end of town" — corporations and the wealthy.
[The rally on March 15 begins at Sydney Town Hall at 9am.]