By Paul Oboohov and Bill Mason
Community and Public Sector Union members in the Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs/Commonwealth Employment Service (CES) and Department of Social Security (DSS) offices around the country have begun an industrial campaign of lightning rolling half-day public contact bans.
Public rallies were held in major centres around Australia and on November 21 a nationally coordinated half-day public contact ban was instigated.
The action is in response to government plans to corporatise the CES's employment placement and assistance service, stripping 8000 public servants of public service coverage and conditions. Many areas covered by the CES will be contracted out to private "Employment Placement Enterprises" (EPE), and the rump CES is to be corporatised into a "Public Employment Placement Enterprise" (PEPE).
The Austudy/Abstudy student assistance side of DEETYA, along with the DSS network of offices, is to be corporatised into a "one stop shop" service delivery agency (SDA). The unemployed, from 1998, will have to register at the SDA, and be farmed out to a P/EPE for employment assistance, helped only after subjective judgment of their "capacity to benefit", or if they have a high enough voucher price on their head for the P/EPE to collect.
P/EPEs will be paid according to people placed in jobs. As P/EPEs will be operating for profit, they will try to avoid economically blighted areas. The government is likely to order the PEPE to provide a minimal service in these areas.
The plans are part of an agenda to strip the federal public service of nearly all service delivery, leaving only a policy advice function remote from the needs of the people. DEETYA/CES is very much in the front line in the struggle to defend service provision by the federal government.
DSS management has taken the CPSU to the Industrial Relations Commission, seeking an order against the industrial action. Despite claims by the federal government and the department that the effect of the bans was "minimal", DSS took the dispute to the IRC on the grounds of disruption to the public. The hearing is dragging on, and a ruling is unlikely before November 25.
Meanwhile, DSS management ran into a hitch with its plans to ram through changes to work arrangements involving higher responsibilities for benefit processing by front-line staff. On November 20 it was announced that delays in passing through the Senate the legislation necessary to destroy the CES and set up the P/EPE and SDA framework would prevent immediate implementation of the new system.
The delay until at least February follows pressure from bans imposed by union members, who are seeking resolution of issues surrounding a new job redesign and salary broad banding package before agreeing to any major changes in work practices.
In the meantime, the Wendy Caird national leadership of the CPSU has dropped industrial action in DSS "to allow the parties and the IRC to try and resolve the outstanding matters". This means that CPSU members in DEETYA/CES are currently going it alone.
Future industrial action may involve a national day of action around the introduction of the legislation into the Senate in the first week of December. The CPSU National Delegates' Committee (NDC) in DEETYA is to decide on November 25 whether there will be a one-day strike, a mass work-in of CES offices or other action.
DEETYA top management have admitted that they don't expect the legislation to pass in its original form, and have contingency plans to set up a privatised market for employment placement services through administrative means, winding back the CES's share of vacancies and job seekers.
Meanwhile, a CPSU national postal ballot was held in November to elect new section councils. Prior to this, two CPSU National Challenge delegates, Paul Oboohov and Tom Flanagan, had attempted to put to the DEETYA NDC a winning strategy of a CPSU-wide response to the attacks on CES and DSS, using revenue departments to put real pressure on the government through revenue bans.
However, the Caird leadership ensured that departments would have to fend for themselves, trapped in a CPSU-imposed enterprise/agency framework. These delegates then formed the "Save the CES-DEETYA Team", contesting ACT branch conference delegate, DEETYA section councillor, secretary and president positions, on a platform based on the CPSU-wide strategy. Voting closes on November 27.