Deal offered on school cleaner contracts
By Bill Mason
BRISBANE — The Queensland government has been forced to retreat on its threat to privatise school cleaning, in what the Labor opposition calls "a humiliating backdown".
The Borbidge government decided on September 4 to withdraw dismissal notices to 6500 state school cleaners, giving them until the end of this year to achieve "new efficiencies".
Cleaners have until the end of 1996 to achieve productivity gains, or face a trial of privatisation in six new and six existing schools next year. The trial would run for 12 months, after which the Coalition government could again move to full privatisation if efficiencies were not achieved.
The government plan also calls for expressions of interest in voluntary early retirements and is designed to produce $30 million in savings, rather than the full $50 million expected from privatisation.
Australian Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union state secretary Don Brown welcomed the plan as a "major victory" for cleaners, while Premier Rob Borbidge said both the government and the union had "given ground".
The final say will rest with the school cleaners themselves, who have yet to vote on whether to accept the government's proposal. They will have to decide whether the gains achieved through their campaign of mass action could be whittled away by a plan with a possible sting in the tail.