BY CHRIS SLEE
The Australian Taxation Office's insistence that staff must meet "corporate indicators" before receiving a pay rise will likely be a hot issue in negotiations on a new certified agreement for the agency.
At a May 16-19 meeting of the Tax Section Council of the Community and Public Sector Union, council members heard that many members are discontented with the current system whereby pay rises are dependent on meeting statistical measures of how well the ATO is doing its job. Many of these targets have been impossible to meet due to staff cuts.
The union did not reject the use of corporate indicators altogether. Instead it called for "limiting" their role, and for the agency agreement to contain a trigger to increase the pay rise if and when the inflation rate exceeds it.
The union has called for an increase in paid maternity leave to 14 weeks, the introduction of two weeks' parental leave and other improvements. It also called for staff in call centres to have "equal access to all ATO conditions".
In other deliberations, the union's tax council backed a motion to "actively campaign" against the government's anti-refugee policies. It also called on the union's national officials to cease attacks on tax section secretary Shane O'Connell over his opposition to rule changes which he argues have led to excessive centralisation of power in the union.
The tax council also heard from Taxation Commissioner Michael Carmody, who explained the reasons for increased funding to the ATO contained in the federal budget. The government now recognised that earlier rounds of funding and staff cuts had made it difficult for the ATO to administer the tax system, Carmody said — something unionists had been warning about even before the cuts happened.
From Green Left Weekly, May 29, 2002.
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