DSS unionists vote on agency campaign
By Bill Mason
Union members in the Department of Social Security around the country have been holding meetings to discuss the way forward in their campaign to protect public service jobs and conditions in the Howard government's planned service delivery agency, which is to carry out provision of social service and other payments from July.
A key issue in dispute is the government's insistence on the right to employ all new staff of the agency on individual contracts as non-permanent public servants, as a pool from which to fill all job vacancies in future. This opens the way for creeping privatisation of the agency, widely differing wages and conditions for equal work, and a block to career paths.
The national leadership of the Community and Public Sector Union has sought endorsement of a resolution to "review" the current campaign of industrial action around a log of seven principles regarding the agency, in light of the impact of the government's new anti-union Workplace Relations Act.
In meetings to vote on this resolution, a supplementary motion proposed by newly elected DSS section councillors Philippa Stanford and Mark Cronin has been widely supported.
The resolution rejects "any proposal to retreat in the face of the new Workplace Relations Act, which represents a threat to the legitimate right of workers to take industrial action.
"We note that under the act unionists may face the same penalty for 'failing to work as directed' as for taking strike action [no pay]. We therefore believe that our campaign should be escalated and call on the DSS section council to meet immediately to develop alternative tactics such as rolling, short-term stoppages, 'work to rule', and other possible tactics.
"A clash over the WRA cannot be avoided, and members involved in industrial action who are victimised by the legislation must receive full CPSU support. Therefore, in the event of any member's pay being docked, we call on the national executive, in consultation with the DSS section council, to implement APS-wide industrial action.
"We demand that in running the campaign the DSS section council be supported by local disputes committees open to all CPSU members in DSS, and directed by mass meetings of CPSU members in DSS.
"Given that this campaign will be fundamental to the survival of unionism in the Australian Public Service, we also demand that the NE call for support from other unions and the ACTU and its affiliates. Now is the time to put the CPSU commitment to union principles to the test."