By Philippa Stanford
ADELAIDE — In mid-August, Community and Public Sector Union members working for Centrelink in South Australia voted overwhelmingly in favour of a "stop the cuts" campaign to fight the loss of 160 jobs. On August 25, the CPSU section council endorsed a similar campaign to oppose staff cuts nationally.
The federal government has imposed a staffing budget that will require the loss of 3800 staff by June in the year 2000 (1300 this financial year and 2500 next financial year).
Jobs are being cut from customer service centres and the office which provides policy and staff support. Temporary staff are being employed in the call centres for 12 months. The cuts are being made on the assumption that unemployment will fall and therefore Centrelink's workload will reduce.
Centrelink is struggling to provide services at the present level of staff. This year there have been major policy and payment changes, such as the introduction of the common youth allowance, Newstart common platform, employment mutual obligation, parenting payment, Job Network and work for the dole.
With the most recent changes to Austudy and the youth allowance, Centrelink took on 487,000 new clients nationally, with no additional staff.
Customer service centres (formerly regional offices) have large work backlogs and staff are experiencing increased aggression from dissatisfied clients. Call centres are only staffed to handle 70,000 calls a day. Current demand is up to 1 million calls a day.
Union delegates report staff are experiencing increased stress, aggression from clients, increased sick leave, overwork and frustration. Clients are suffering hardship due to delays in processing payments and being unable to get through to call centres.
CPSU members in SA voted for a campaign to bring staffing levels up to that required by the workload and are demanding that the federal government provide the additional funding to achieve this. Members opposed the use of short-term temporary staff rather than employing permanent staff.
The CPSU Centrelink section council endorsed a campaign that concentrates on staffing cuts caused by the government's special efficiency dividend.
The campaign will address management's failure to fill existing vacancies, the casualisation of the work force and the reduction of the work force through redundancies.
A disputes committee is meeting weekly to coordinate the campaign.