Comment by Ray Hayes
Steve Rogers and June McKay in their article "Jobs at Risk in DEET Proposal" (Green Left Weekly, June 15) miss the point completely. Their analysis is unworthy of inclusion in the pages of a paper that attempts to play a positive part in the progressive politics of this country.
They are so frightfully cynical of the voice of the union membership in the Department of Employment, Education and Training who have made it clear by their majority support for both the Services and Structures Review Agreement and the Human Resources Management Agreement that they (the membership) support the moves to restructure DEET.
Union members in DEET (and non-members) have supported these steps because they know and understand that DEET has not been anywhere near as effective at delivering services as it should be. Workers in DEET, whether they be union members or otherwise, whether they be from management or the front counter, know this because for too long and for too many reasons they have been frustrated in their efforts to do their jobs properly.
Part of the problem has been the inefficient structures that have developed in the organisation over a history of amalgamations and previous restructures. Most of us don't believe that this restructure in itself is going to solve all of the problems confronting DEET as an organisation. However, many of us do believe that we have the opportunity to participate actively in the management of change the organisation is about to undertake. This is where Steve and June miss the point entirely.
Their purpose is to attack the union leadership. They blame the leadership for the membership supporting the agreements. Their political battle with the leadership, as they understand both the leadership and their conflict with the leadership, blinds them completely to the potential that these agreements provide for the application of genuine industrial democracy in practice in a significant Australian public service department. This will only happen through the union and the membership being committed to using the consultative arrangements provided by the agreements to advance the principles and practice of industrial democracy within DEET. Whingeing about non-existent job losses, or a leadership that the membership has supported, does nothing to advance the union or industrial democracy in our workplaces.
DEET is a department that has a major responsibility for the delivery of the social justice policy of this government. Long-term disadvantage in society can be addressed through the use of government programs. That happens to be how the democratic system we have so far developed as a society, has determined how we, as public sector workers, should spend taxpayers' money. These are the taxpayers who have voted for this government and the social justice policy for more than a decade.
Comrades Rogers and McKay don't even mention that this is an agreement that sets out to make DEET more effective so that it can better deliver the programs that we have, as employees, by law been given a responsibility for. We have a duty of care to the Australian people. It is a tall order but we are actually required to deliver social justice — in practice. We are being paid to change our world. Rogers and McKay want to attack the leadership for a majority membership decision. When they say that "DEET PSU members were originally given a June 9 deadline by the PSU national office to vote on the proposal", they are saying something that is factually incorrect.
The DEET national delegates committee (NDC) made a decision on May 19 that the agreements as they had been negotiated to that point should go to the membership for a vote — by June 9. On June 6 in an out of session meeting by telephone the NDC decided to support the call by Canberra delegates for a one-week extension to the vote on the agreements. Neither of these decisions by the NDC was taken lightly. The clear vote by the membership in support of the agreements confirms that the NDC made the right decision.
It is incorrect, both factually and politically, to suggest that any of these decisions was made by the PSU national office. The decisions in relation to when the agreements should be put to the vote were made by elected workplace delegates who had again been elected by their respective state/territory combined delegates committees to represent rank and file members as the NDC in the national negotiations.
The decisions were made by part of the leadership of our union. They weren't made by the PSU national office leadership. They were made by rank and file delegates and trade union activists who thankfully are still very much part of the state/territory and national leadership.