Dirty tricks in PSU national election campaign

May 11, 1994
Issue 

By Steve Rogers

CANBERRA — Incumbent national officials in the Public Sector Union have embarked on a campaign of red-baiting and dirty tricks prior to national union elections in mid-May. The cause of their concern is a campaign being run by PSU National Challenge, an activist-based grouping.

The majority of current "elected" national officials gained their positions unopposed three years ago, and the prospect of facing election is unsettling for them.

The National Challenge group has put forward four key points for its campaign:

  • To fight job cuts and defend and extend the public sector.

  • The achievement of real wage justice and improved conditions, not agency bargaining and other trade-offs.

  • Building a democratic union to involve, and return power to, the membership.

  • Creation of an effective national office administration by directing union resources to membership needs.

The group is fielding candidates for seven key positions, including all full-time officials. Maree Roberts, currently senior deputy president of the Tasmanian branch, is contesting the position of national secretary. Long-time Sydney trade union activist Peggy Trompf is standing for national president.

Other candidates are Victorian activist Tony Longland from the Department of Veterans Affairs for senior deputy national president; ACT assistant branch secretary Bronwyn Taylor for deputy national president; Department of Social Security activists Ray Fulcher from Melbourne and Phil Sandford from Sydney for assistant national secretaries; and ACT branch secretary Cath Garvan for national executive member. The group is also giving preferences to independent deputy national president candidate Phil Statham, currently Queensland branch assistant secretary.

The national officials are taking the threat to their positions seriously. In the round of branch elections in late 1993, the national incumbents' supporters were defeated in the ACT, Queensland and Western Australia, and narrowly survived in Tasmania. In Victoria they won against a partial opposition ticket. In NSW, South Australia and the Northern Territory, they were returned without a contest. In no area did their ticket resoundingly defeat a full opposition ticket.

Since then, the incumbents have adopted a four-pronged strategy.

First, the unpopular national secretary, Peter Robson, is contesting the lower profile national president position, and assistant national secretary Wendy Caird has been moved up to the national secretary spot. This sleight of hand has been undermined by the decision to call their group "the Wendy Caird and Peter Robson Team".

Second, a series of backroom deals have been organised across the country in preparing the ticket. Branch secretaries in South Australia, Western Australia and Northern Territory and an assistant branch secretary in the ACT have been included, despite the extreme reservations that some of these had earlier indicated about the Robson leadership.

Third, a high-profile campaign of PSU activity has been launched. This included giving support to Customs workers threatened with major job cuts (and then accepting a compromise which still resulted in several hundred jobs being lost). Since the PSU national officials and the ministers carrying out the cuts are all in the ALP, the process appears to be one of shadow boxing. An additional element of this high visibility was the "Union Awareness Week" in early May, which allowed incumbent team candidates to campaign around the country at members' expense.

Fourth, the Wendy Caird and Peter Robson Team began a campaign of red baiting and dirty tricks. To date activity by supporters has included:

  • Use of the April issue of the union journal Our Voice to feature articles bearing the names and faces of all incumbent team candidates for full-time positions, and the names of the rest.

  • Sending Wendy Caird to Canberra for a series of departmental meetings with members without reference to the local branch, under the guise of "consulting senior officers".

  • Advising government departments not to allow ACT PSU officials to address meetings of newly recruited public servants.

  • Distributing lists of PSU National Challenge candidates with incorrect political affiliations.

  • Claiming a wide range of activists opposed to them on other issues are members of the Democratic Socialist Party or International Socialist Organisation in a resolution to the April National Council meeting.

As the campaign gets under way, the Caird-Robson Team is being shy about its policies. Its post-election plans are set to include support for cut-rate "trainee" wages; further jobs and conditions trade-offs through a one-year extension to the overall agency bargaining agreement; ALP affiliation; and consolidation of undemocratic structures in the newly amalgamated public service union, the Community and Public Sector Union.

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