Nick Everett, Canberra
"[Industrial relations minister] Kevin Andrews and [Department of Employment and Workplace Relations secretary Peter] Boxall are writing the new rules for public sector workers", Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) assistant secretary Margaret Gillespie told a union rally on July 6. "Well, the workers in DEWR are not giving in to the bullying, the delays and the lies."
Two-hundred DEWR workers in Canberra walked off the job at noon to rally for a fair certified agreement. The action, supported by CPSU members from other federal government agencies, followed stop-work rallies in Sydney and Melbourne by DEWR workers fed up with the department's stalling. Some 60 people also rallied outside the DEWR office in Darwin.
CPSU members in DEWR launched a campaign for a new certified agreement in April last year, and in July adopted a log of claims demanding a 6% per annum pay increase. In December, the 2002-04 certified agreement expired and DEWR management put an offer for a non-union (LK) agreement to a vote. This agreement included both inferior pay and the removal of many conditions. The offer was resoundingly rejected by staff, with 80% of those covered by the previous union (LJ) agreement voting against management's offer.
But Boxall was in no mood to compromise. Previously, he had been the secretary of the Department of Finance and Administration, where under his leadership, the certified agreement was not renewed and the vast majority of staff ended up on Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs — individual contracts).
Seeking to implement the same strategy in DEWR, Boxall began aggressively promoting AWAs with more generous pay increases and bonuses than had been offered in the department's LK proposal. On April 4, AWAs were declared a requirement of employment for all new employees.
By June, news had broken that temporary staff in the department's Melbourne office were being told that they must sign an AWA to retain their jobs.
While Andrews now claims that 53% of DEWR's 3000 staff are covered by AWAs, those seeking to renew the collective agreement have demonstrated their fighting spirit in the latest round of protests. In Canberra, three DEWR delegates joined Gillespie and the union's division secretary Lisa Newman in addressing the rally outside the department's national office. One delegate told the crowd that she had signed an AWA, but recognised the necessity for a decent collective agreement to maintain the conditions of all staff.
Gillespie told the crowd that "[we've got] a minister who tours the country preaching about flexibility and choice, but who denies the very same things to his own work force, and a departmental secretary who is hell-bent on de-unionising his work force".
In a message of support to DEWR CPSU delegates, National Tertiary Education Union ACT secretary Neil Mudford congratulated DEWR workers for "standing firm against the imposition of these iniquitous AWAs and the removal of new employee access to the collective agreement".
"Minister Andrews has torn the veil away from the Liberal government's rhetoric on choice, thereby providing us with a glimpse into the not-too-distant future for the rest of the Australian work force", Mudford said.
From Green Left Weekly, July 13, 2005.
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