By Nick Everett
About 140 Community and Public Sector Union members stopped work on September 15 to support the union's campaign to reverse a $240 million-dollar funding cut to Centrelink, the federal government's service delivery agency.
After less than 12 months operation, Centrelink will shed 3800 staff, or five jobs a day over the next two years as a result of a 20% budget cut.
The members, who work at the Moreland Centrelink Call Centre and Customer Service Centre in inner-Melbourne, resolved to strike for one hour from 11am and hold a media conference outside their office.
The stoppage followed a stunt the previous week in which members sold lamingtons to "raise money" to hire more staff. The stall raised $17, which was forwarded to Centrelink CEO Sue Vardon.
The stoppage prompted Centrelink management to request a hearing in the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) on September 17 to demand a return to work order and damages compensation from the union.
Centrelink section council president Tanya Edlington argued in a Queensland CPSU delegates' phone hook-up the following day that the Moreland action was counter-productive. "The action could have left the union open to being fined and further protected industrial action [being] banned under the provisions of the Workplace Relations Act", she said.
Edlington reported that the council's disputes committee had resolved to organise further lamington stalls to mark Centrelink's first anniversary. The stalls will be held outside Centrelink offices in key marginal seats in Queensland on September 22, and will be attended by ALP and other federal election candidates.
"The ALP is the only party in this election that has made clear statements in support of staffing levels in Centrelink", Edlington claimed.
Section councillor Mark Cronin disagrees. "The ALP has made no commitment to reverse the cuts of more than 60,000 federal public service jobs that have occurred during two and a half years of Coalition government", he told Green Left Weekly.
Cronin said: "Each day we are seeing growing dissatisfaction with the acute pressure being placed on staff by arbitrary job cuts. Regardless of which party wins the election, we are going to need an industrial campaign to secure the resources required for Centrelink to offer a reasonable service to the community and reasonable conditions of employment to its employees.
"The interests of the CPSU membership would be far better served by 'celebrating' Centrelink's first anniversary with stop-work meetings where CPSU members can determine how the union's staffing campaign is to be run. It is time for union members to be the benefactors of a hard fought campaign, not those who wish to pursue a career as ALP parliamentary representatives."
The deterioration in conditions has been dramatic in Centrelink's 24 call centres. Since a new enterprise agreement was endorsed by the AIRC last December, flex-time entitlements have been eroded, working hours extended and a productivity improvement program called "MATE" has resulted in Centrelink squeezing massive "efficiencies" out of call centre staff.
Management have consistently sought to reduce the number of supervisors available to support customer service operators at the Warilla Call Centre and closed a number of phone "queues" around the country, including one of only two multilingual telephone information services at the Moreland Call Centre.
Centrelink management is now trying to sack temporary staff. They include some at the Hobart Call Centre who are just a few weeks away of completing 12 months service (at which time management are obliged to make them permanent).
The call centre network is staffed to handle 70,000 calls per day, but call attempts have been known to reach a million per day.