CPSU gives ALP uncritical support

By Frank Gollan SYDNEY: Damned if you do and damned if you don't. That sums up the dilemma for Australian public service workers in the current federal elections. For the past 13 years, public servants have voted in their majority for Labor, fearful of cuts under a Coalition government. What they have received instead are loss of jobs, conditions and public services under Labor. Despite this, in the two months leading up to the elections, the Community and Public Service Union has put on six marginal seats campaigners to campaign uncritically for the ALP, and has flooded members with booklets and brochures with a universally rosy view of the Labor government. Today cynicism is widespread. The removal of permanent employment, proposed in the current restructure of the Public Service Act, is just one indication of the changes being brought down. A Coalition victory on March 2 will be a disaster for employment in the public sector, but a Labor victory will not be much better. With up to 250,000 members, the CPSU is one of Australia's largest unions. It is not nationally affiliated to the Labor Party, although joint national secretary Wendy Caird was a delegate to the last ALP national conference. Late in 1995 the CPSU launched a campaign to defend the public sector. Leaflets were produced, along with a short video focusing on the privatisation of water services in South Australia. By the end of 1995, the public sector campaign had been turned into a "marginal seats" campaign. Six temporary staff were recruited to campaign in these seats. While some sections of the union have discussed producing brochures with photos of union officials alongside local ALP candidates, the federal campaign has been a more sophisticated "put the Coalition last". The February-March issue of the union newspaper Our Voice is entirely devoted to the elections. The responses from the ALP, Coalition, Democrats and Greens to 17 questions are included, along with a commentary from Wendy Caird. Socialist candidates and independents currently in parliament are ignored, despite the CPSU national council voting in October that a broad range of parties and independents should be surveyed. Caird's commentary fails to make a single criticism of the ALP. (The public sector video at least included a mild rebuke in the form of a brief image of the Qantas fleet.) She writes that the ALP "sees a wider role for government" and, "The ALP responses offer some certainty about protection of jobs and conditions, and of Australia's public assets". These claims are false. Through its competition policy, the ALP is systematically removing government from every area it can. The federal public service is shrinking. And the only certainty that the ALP is offering in relation to jobs and conditions is that jobs will be lost and conditions eroded. In recent months the CPSU has become an active participant in the loss of jobs and conditions. The shameful and completely unnecessary acceptance of job losses at DEET is one example. The recent proposal to union members that annual leave loading be rolled into base rates of pay will help either party in federal government destroy annual leave loading across the rest of industry. According to delegates at the October national council who spoke to Green Left Weekly, there was broad concern about how members would react to a pro-ALP union campaign. Caird responded aggressively, telling the meeting that Australia "is a workers' heaven, a worldwide best". Loss of jobs, loss of permanency, discount pay for new staff, different pay for the same work through enterprise bargaining, increased workload and unpaid overtime, increased stress, outsourcing, privatisation — these are the images of the public service in the 1990s. Meanwhile a stream of union officials heads into ALP seats in parliament. Public service workers can be excused for their cynicism.