By Paul Oboohov
CANBERRA — A series of meetings of Community and Public Sector Union members in the national office of the Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs last week discussed the federal government's attack on the Commonwealth Employment Service and a CPSU draft log of claims.
The cuts will force 8000 staff into the Public Employment Placement Enterprise (PEPE), unprotected by Public Service Act pay and conditions. Another 2000 will be forced into a shopfront agency with Department of Social Security staff, although under public service conditions, at first.
The attack on CES is the first in a long list of public services and staff to be contracted out to the private sector under the Liberals' policy of "competitive neutrality". This policy, outlined in a June Treasury document, demands that the public sector give up its commercial advantages of tax exemption and debt-free funding. What is not mentioned in the document, but is being implemented under the guise of achieving a "level playing field", is the abolition of public service conditions and pay.
At the DEETYA meeting in Mort Street, Civic, some union members vented their anger at the Wendy Caird leadership for not taking more action to stop the attacks and at the treachery of DEETYA executive members, some of whom have their eyes fixed firmly on the lucrative salaries accompanying management of the PEPE and DSS shopfront agency.
Another meeting, in the information technology division of DEETYA, discussed the Coalition's plans — initiated by the former ALP government — to outsource information technology. The CPSU leadership has yet to come up with a strategy to keep public service information technology within the government domain.
The log of claims, drafted by the Caird leadership group on the DEETYA CPSU National Delegates' Committee (NDC), includes keeping the CES and its staff in the public service, but is straitjacketed by the agency bargaining framework.
Because DEETYA is the "first cab off the rank" in the contracting out process, the changes have to be fought by staff in that department. But winning will require a CPSU-wide campaign. As it stands, the DEETYA log of claims, to be finalised by the NDC on September 18-19, hinders this process because it limits the issues addressed to the one agency.
A petition is currently being circulated calling on the NDC and the national executive to abandon the agency-based process and to move to a CPSU-wide campaign which includes banning revenue collection in agencies that specialise in it. This would avoid the situation where service-oriented agencies, such as DEETYA and the CES, have to take industrial action which adversely affects their clients and would play into the Coalition's hands.