BY PAUL OBOOHOV
CANBERRA The militant Members First rank and file group in the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) has nominated candidates for union positions representing workers in many federal government agencies across the country. Members First has also nominated for key regional positions in the ACT, Victoria and Queensland.
A number of Members First nominees are unopposed, while many will contest positions against candidates aligned with the ALP-aligned leadership of the CPSU.
In the ACT, Andrew Hall is appealing a claim by the Australian Electoral Commission that it did not receive his faxed nomination for ACT regional secretary. The AEC said it received two other nomination forms that were sent in the same transmission.
Members First candidates' platform includes: pattern bargaining as a first step to industry-wide bargaining; total opposition to privatisation; a campaign against understaffing, longer hours and for a 35-hour week; democratic industrial campaigns; the provision of full details of wages and conditions across the public service; and solidarity with other unions and community groups in the search for social justice.
"It is a crucial time for the union", Hall, convenor of Members First in the ACT, told Green Left Weekly. "Unionists in the public sector have a decision to make. Do we allow the union to sink further or do we elect new leaders prepared to build a more democratic, campaigning union determined to defend and advance members' wages and conditions, while championing the role of the public sector."
From Green Left Weekly, October 16, 2002.
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