Comment by Barry Healy
Federal public servants will be voting in the next few weeks on three alternative motions framed by the National Executive of the Public Sector Union to open the way for enterprise bargaining in the Australian Public Service. Union activists opposed to enterprise bargaining need to think carefully their tactics and about preserving their unity in answering these new moves by the leadership.
The NE motions are designed to manoeuvre around the considerable opposition to enterprise bargaining among the membership and to capitalise on demoralisation springing from the leadership's lack of response to APS job cuts. The membership sentiment was expressed forcefully during voting in August which began the current 8% wage campaign.
United national action by rank and file activists got overwhelming support for a motion preventing the leadership from negotiating on the basis of enterprise bargaining.
Some of that membership feeling was based on fear of job and conditions losses coming out of any sort of wage agreement. The erosion of jobs and conditions under the cover of "efficiency" without any united union response has produced a large group of members who fear that any wages deal will disadvantage them further. Another part of the sentiment was fuelled by anger at the long-term inability of the PSU leadership to organise any sort of effective wages campaign.
In an effort to regain some credibility after the August vote, the NE organised a "petition campaign" of members to show opposition to enterprise bargaining. In a caricature of unionism, PSU delegates and activists stood outside APS establishments gathering signatures of union members. The tradition of large numbers of members discussing and deciding on issues appears to have quietly slipped out of PSU culture.
The government reply to this waffle has been quite clear. Its bottom line for agreeing to a wage rise is productivity bargaining at the enterprise level. Now the NE has returned to members with three options designed to split the opposition to its course.
The options being presented are: (1) reject the current outcomes of the negotiations entirely and immediately begin an industrial campaign; (2) negotiate on the basis of enterprise bargaining (the NE-endorsed position); (3) simply drop the whole campaign.
The first option is phrased so as to drive people away from serious support. It does reject both enterprise bargaining and productivity deals, but it does not include mass meetings as a method of organising the campaign. Members know that an industrial campaign left in the hands of the officials who have not been able to organise anything for 18 months would be doomed.
The second option is recommended by the National Executive, the first time it has openly campaigned for its enterprise bargaining agenda. It includes a list of ambit claims for the structure of enterprise dealing such as: "a common level of pay increase would be available through agency agreements, although operative dates may vary. However, pay rates in agencies which do not achieve increases would be aligned with the rest of the APS at an agreed date within the life of the overall pay agreement."
The government has shown its ability to undermine pay deals simply by dragging its heels to avoid agreed dates. This is just one example of where agency-based bargaining would strip PSU members of any real protection.
The third option is a cynical attempt by the NE to capitalise on the demoralisation which it has deliberately created in the ranks of the union. If conservative votes can be split from the votes of the members prepared to fight enterprise bargaining, then perhaps the NE's preferred option can get in.
As has become the norm in the PSU, these votes will not be held at mass meetings but at workplace meetings dominated by the top officials. Alan Millar, the latest in a series of officials of the New Zealand Public Service Association brought over by the PSU, will address many meetings on the NZ experience of enterprise bargaining.
The demoralising line which these touring officials push is that Australian unionists should agree to enterprise bargaining now so that the Liberals won't be able to impose it when they get into power. This extraordinary logic, an invitation for workers to "avoid the rush, cut your own throats now", is the official wisdom of the PSU leadership but so far has been rejected by the membership.
Given the weight of the officials in this voting process and the difficulty of organising at a rank and file level across a large national union, the immediate prospects for public servants look bleak. However, it is possible that a united effort by activists supporting the first of the options, with a supplementary motion forcing mass meetings and a genuine campaign, could win majority support at enough meetings to embarrass the leadership into slowing down its agenda.