By Stuart Martin
CANBERRA — The ACT and Victorian branch executives of the Community and Public Sector Union have reacted angrily to undemocratic changes thrust on the union by its national management committee. Conferences have been called to give union delegates a chance to discuss the issue.
The union's leaders want to take control of membership services, publications and finances from the branches and to establish a national call centre in Sydney.
Victorian branch secretary Sue Mountford has written a letter to the union's members in the state, arguing why the branch executive opposes the plan. The letter argues that the proposal will force redundancies on organisers in the union's state offices and in effect abolish the branches.
The Victorian branch executive went a step further on February 23, strongly criticising the national management committee's preoccupation with structural change within the union, at the expense of industrial issues and of stemming the flow of member resignations.
The executive condemned "the secretive and adversarial tactics used by full-time national officials towards other officials and staff", "the emergence of the use of a traditional centralised authoritarian culture by the national officers as a replacement of participatory democratic decision making processes and as a solution to staff performance management issues", and the "centralisation of decision making, staffing resources, publications and finance in breach of CPSU rules".
On February 17, the ACT branch executive condemned the restructure plan, saying it did "not believe that a National Membership Service Centre will at all adequately service the needs of our members". The executive deplored the nationl leaders' treatment of CPSU staff.
The national management committee has hit out at its critics, however. National secretary Wendy Caird has visited delegates' committees here, trying to put a gloss on the changes.
She claimed that only the ACT branch was unhappy with the changes and that the only reason members in that city weren't consulted was because an unnamed branch officer had failed to report the discussions of the national management committee. The officer could only be branch secretary Graham Rodda, ACT's representative on the national management committee, who has consistently supported the restructure proposal.
Caird also claimed that an article in Green Left Weekly's February 16 issue was "mischievious" and falsely claimed that 100 jobs would be lost under the restructure. The article made no such claim.
Caird, who is up for re-election later this year, has sought to modify her position somewhat in the face of members' opposition. She has given assurances, for instance, that branch publications won't automatically disappear and that the union call centre will refer confidential sexual and workplace harassment cases to a designated industrial organiser.
The rank-and-file Members First caucus, which has been vocal in its opposition to the restructure, has circulated a leaflet and a petition in the ACT calling for all union members to be given input to the decision. The caucus will be backing the motion at the ACT extraordinary conference for a general members' meeting to discuss the issue.
[Stuart Martin is a member of Members First. For more information on ACT Members First, or for copies of the leaflet and petition, phone (02) 6248 2093 or e-mail <membersfirst@bigpond.com>]