CPSU members reject performance-based pay
By Nick Everett
— On April 14 the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) Centrelink Section Council voted to recommend to its membership the introduction of a new "performance-based" pay system within Centrelink.
The proposal, the outcome of negotiations between Centrelink and the CPSU, is being driven by workplace relations minister Peter Reith, in an effort to exact greater "efficiencies" from all federal government departments. These "efficiencies" cost more than 70,000 federal public sector jobs in the first term of the Howard government.
On April 15 and 16, CPSU Centrelink members around the country met to vote on the new system, despite protests from call centre delegates around the country. The new system disadvantages call centre members, who alone in the organisation are required to meet minimum measurable standards to progress from one pay level to the next. (Previously these increments were based on the number of years of service.)
At a CPSU members' meeting in Brisbane on April 15, the proposal was soundly rejected by members, 71 voting against and only one for. Members voted unanimously for a motion that noted:
"We believe such a system is a mechanism to divide the work force and create different classes of staff doing essentially the same work."
The motion called on the CPSU Centrelink Centrelink Section Council to renegotiate an acceptable package and, if necessary, to recommend a campaign of industrial action to secure such a result.
The proposal was rejected by a resounding majority of union members across Centrelink's network of 20 call centres.
Jim McIlroy, a CPSU delegate at the Brisbane Call Centre said, "The introduction of a performance-based system that requires measurement of call quality and quantity using the 'MATE' [Making Advances Towards Excellence Program] is a betrayal of call centre staff. This was allegedly a training program, and the statistics derived from its use, we were assured, were not to be used to determine promotion or pay, or to identify inefficiency."
Philippa Stanford, a delegate at the Adelaide call centre and a member of the Centrelink Section Council, stated: "The CPSU can and must do better than this.
"Throughout negotiations on a new EBA, Centrelink has been unwilling to discuss the alternatives to a performance-based pay system or to address the crippling effects of 5000 job cuts across the organisation. If Centrelink remains unwilling to address these key concerns, the CPSU must prepare itself for a campaign of industrial action to secure a better deal."
[Nick Everett is a CPSU delegate at the Brisbane Centrelink Call Centre]