By Steve Rogers
CANBERRA — A May 12 meeting of the Public Sector Union national executive decided to intervene in its ACT union branch affairs. At an unspecified time PSU national secretary Peter Robson will "convene meetings of ACT Government members" to try to progress an agency bargain. The decision is unprecedented within the union, and occurs in the context of current PSU national elections.
ACT government public servants are currently members of the Australian Public Service. As part of the process of ACT self-government, plans have been under way for some time to create a separate ACT public service. For the several thousand PSU members employed by the ACT government, a high priority is maintaining existing working conditions.
With creation of a separate service due on July 1, a meeting of delegates on March 10 resolved to focus on this issue. While the PSU nationally had placed a priority on the introduction of agency bargains in the first half of this year, ACT government delegates postponed any action on this until the separate service issue was resolved.
In this they were joining a large number of federal government departments which have either decided not to pursue an agency bargaining agreement, or are bogged down in the process of trying to negotiate one. All PSU agency bargains which have been negotiated to date include acceptance of job cuts and a loss of some conditions (alongside a smaller number of improvements).
On the morning of the national executive decision to step in, around 50 delegates at a combined delegates' committee meeting representing all ACT government members voted unanimously that "the separate ACT Public Service be the priority issue over enterprise bargaining and that enterprise bargaining should not be proceeded with until after the forthcoming ACT Budget".
The decision of the national executive to directly override union delegates and intervene in a case which affects no PSU members outside the ACT reflects the hostility of national incumbents to the ACT branch leadership. It follows the publication of a leaflet entitled "PSU members in ACT Government lose out" by supporters of PSU Alliance, the group which lost power in the last ACT branch elections. A resolution to the May 12 delegates' meeting condemning the authors of this leaflet was also carried, with only one vote against.
The Public Sector Union nationally and in most branches has accepted job cuts in a number of federal agencies, including Defence, Administrative Services, Primary Industries and Energy, the Australian Customs Service and Veterans' Affairs. The defence of members has been limited to arguing for voluntary rather than involuntary redundancies.
Staff leave with an average $65,000 pay-out. By this means the federal Labor government has been able to cut thousands of jobs with little opposition.
In contrast, the ACT branch leadership of the PSU, which was elected last November, has put forward a position of defending public service jobs. In the ACT government, PSU members have expressed their opposition to trading off jobs and conditions. The effect of PSU national executive intervention, if successful, will be to force through just such a trade-off.