By Paul Oboohov
One September 25 the National Delegates Committee (NDC) in the Department of Employment, Education and Training and Youth Affairs (DEETYA) met in teleconference to finalise their log of claims prior to a membership vote beginning September 30.
DEETYA is the immediate target of the Howard offensive against the Australian Public Service, but for the second time in two NDC meetings this delegate's motion calling for a CPSU-wide response to the Howard attack failed for want of a seconder.
The Wendy Caird leadership of the Community and Public Sector Union (the main APS union) has also decided not to call mass meetings over the issue: members this time around will have to huddle in their workplaces, losing out on the feeling of strength in numbers and of discussion among differing points of view.
Nor will this approach be restricted to DEETYA: all CPSU members in the APS will soon face workplace meetings on what to do about the budget cuts and existing bans. Dwindling mass meetings have given Caird and Co a plausible pretext to run their agenda through the individual workplace, a method which yields greatest advantage to the CPSU machine.
The NDC did adopt a ban on implementation of the government's plans to privatise the CES, but this only so long as there is no negotiated settlement of the DEETYA log of claims. The thorny issue of what the union's principled position on employment privatisation should be was dodged once again.
At the last CPSU Australia-wide mass meetings on August 23, members voted for a "strategy" against the budget of two-hour client contact bans on Friday mornings. Now the national CPSU leadership is recommending the lifting of these bans, with the decision on further bans left to individual agencies.
The losing agency-by-agency approach is thus being deepened. Each department will have its log of claims (with the possible partial exception of DEETYA and the Department of Social Security), each will pursue its own industrial action in support of its log, and each will go down to defeat.
However, partly due to the pressure exerted through a petition campaign in DEETYA calling for a CPSU-wide industrial strategy, and partly because of the tireless efforts of CPSU activists in the rank-and-file network National Challenge, the CPSU leaders have included in their motion for the whole APS the suggestion of a "consultation with members" for an APS-wide log of claims.
This would deal with such issues as contracting out, working conditions under the Public Service Act and superannuation. A replacement for the 1995-6 enterprise agreement, which provides a framework for agency bargaining, is also flagged.
Given the failings of the Caird leadership to date and its dodging of any serious struggle against Howard, it's certain that this APS-wide log of claims will generate zero enthusiasm among CPSU members.
Finally, the DEETYA NDC majority moved that, should members pass all motions, no replacement bans would be allowed for a period of two weeks "for the joint DSS/DEETYA statement of principles and demands to be served on the Government in good faith". The membership will not be deciding this issue. This delegate opposed it, arguing that any rescinding of bans could only be undertaken by mass meetings that imposed them.
At this week's DEETYA workplace meetings, delegates who want a serious struggle for the CES will be sponsoring a motion along the lines of the petition that has gathered so much support.
[Paul Oboohov is the ACT delegate on the DEETYA National Delegates Committee.]