BY PAUL OBOOHOV
CANBERRA — The Members First rank and file group in the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) is challenging the ALP-aligned Progressive Caucus in elections for department-based section and local region positions in the ACT, Queensland and Victoria. The postal ballot opened on November 22, and will close on December 11.
The current ALP-aligned CPSU leaders at the national, sectional and local levels remain rusted onto the failed notion of enterprise bargaining, agency by agency, rather than sector wide campaigning. Yet a Department of Employment and Workplace Relations report has shown that enterprise bargaining has brought huge disparities in pay for each level across the federal public service. Conditions also vary widely.
In bargaining for wages and conditions, the union's leaders hide behind the provisions of the Coalition's Workplace Relations Act in order to prioritise negotiations over industrial action. They give themselves a free hand in closed-door sessions with management and present fait accompli outcomes that steadily erode working conditions.
Solidarity with other departments' union members is rarely even contemplated by these officials. The result is that public servants feel like lab rats in a huge, failed, neoliberal industrial experiment, with a "survival" culture and long working hours.
Since the advent of the federal Coalition government in 1996, the ALP-aligned CPSU national leadership has presided over the loss of more than 100,000 jobs and rampant privatisation and outsourcing without even the feeblest attempt at a fight-back. Whole public service sections have disappeared, such as the Commonwealth Employment Service.
There is not much debate in the union, either. While 799 positions are up for election in this round, just 580 nominations have been received, 460 of these were elected unopposed. Just 38 positions are being contested.
Members First believes that there is an alternative. The group is running on a platform of:
- replacing agency bargaining with sector-wide "pattern" bargaining, including a common time frame for certified agreements;
- improving conditions and job security, fighting for a 35-hour week and less casualisation;
- democratising the union, through holding officials accountable to member decisions;
- focusing on core union functions, such as supporting members in grievances and using union resources for members rather than the interests of the current ALP faction running the union; and
- informing and activating members in industrial campaigns.
With cross-department worker solidarity, Members First argues that the CPSU can start to swim against the tide of retreat. A number of Members First supporters have already been elected unopposed, while others are contesting positions. For more information on candidates and the campaign, email <membersfirst@bigpond.com>.
From Green Left Weekly, November 27, 2002.
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