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Issue No. 130 | 05 April 2002 |
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Lights Out on The Hill
Interview: Change Agent Industrial: Balancing the Books Unions: Breaking Out Politics: Pissing on the Light on the Hill History: Of Death and Taxes International: Now That's a Strike! Satire: Mugabe Voted Miss Zimbabwe: Denies Election Rigged Poetry: Flick Go The Branches Review: Red, Red Clydeside
The Soapbox Sport Week in Review Postcard
 Puplick's SermonChikka's LegacySocialists in the UKOrganising GloballyGrape DisappointmentUnion Resignations : Crisis or Opportunity?
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Unions Breaking OutBy Jim Marr
******************** Graham James Ingliss is a big man with a red face and bull neck. He lives in affluent North Sydney and is a disciple of something called "breakout culture". He introduced breakout culture to his domain at the ANZ bank immediately on being appointed district manager and it was "breakout culture", apparently, that made him see red when Padstow branch manager Joy Buckland appeared to put workmates ahead of the bank. It mattered little, it seemed, that Ms Buckland was national president of a union, the Finance Sector Union, engaged in industrial action over failed wage negotiations. Ingliss counselled and warned Ms Buckland, in meeting and by letter, that her position was in jeopardy. He was in the Federal Court at Sydney, last week, defending his contention that when union and bank interests collided it was her duty to back the bank. But back to breakout culture. What, in the name of all that's holy, does it mean? Simple, according to Ingliss, embracing the values of the bank and being passionate about the organisation's goals and aspirations. "It's trying to get people to think differently, to thing outside the square and be bold. It's the three words - perform, grow and breakout," he explained. Or, as Justice Wilcox observed, three words where one would have done. "It's just a great shame that ordinary English words can't be used. They are much more meaningful," His Honour lamented. Mr Ingliss went on to tell the court that managers didn't only have to enact bank policies, they had to believe in them, That the bank's "values" must be applied to all their decision-making. Ms Buckland appeared to have bucked these fundamental tenets by seeking to ensure stop work action was successful and, worse still, speaking to the media, as the FSU and ANZ locked horns over their EBA deadlock. Other issues, too, fizzed in the background - overtime cutbacks, staffing levels and the ANZ's "flexible relief model" - code for using temps to cover employee absences. Ms Buckland it seemed, not only failed to push certain bank positions but, sure as hell, she didn't believe in them. His Honour asked Mr Ingliss if the union president was entitled to tell fellow workers she felt the bank was wrong "when she, on your own admission, probably knows more about the state of negotiations than you, because she was present and you weren't at the negotiating table? Is she supposed to say nothing even though she thinks what's coming down from the Bank's negotiation is wrong, and even though she's been trusted by her constituency as the head of elected representatives in FSU, to look after the interests of the members?" "I don't believe," Mr Ingliss said, "that her role as a manager should be to pass those views on." "You don't think you're a tad one-eyed about this, Mr Inglis?" "I believe in what I'm doing." Mr Ingliss was insistent, it was Ms Buckland's role to promote the bank's views, irrespective of the FSU's position on any issue. Her failure to do this, he insisted, was part of the reason she had been censured. The district manager conceded that, in a heated post stopwork exchange, he had ordered removal of union material from a noticeboard inside the secure area at the Padstow branch and labelled the noticeboard "a shrine" to Buckland and the FSU. But he ducked and weaved when it came to how a union representative might operate in his breakout culture-driven world. He hadn't, he said, even thought about the relationship between bank and union, nor, did he necessarily, think he should. "If it happens a union spokesperson, an elected official, is a bank employee, you would expect them to do the right thing by their members by being prepared to speak out frankly, as needs be, would you not?" Justice Wilcox pressed. "Look, I don't really believe I am qualified to answer that. I don't know what the union talk to their members about." "That's not the point. We're talking about the principle. You'd expect somebody who represented you to speak out when the need arose to protect your interest, wouldn't you?" "I'm not in a union." Finally, he would, he agreed if his representative was a lawyer or MP. The FSU is alleging five separate breaches of Workplace Relations Act provisions by the Bank in regard to various warnings and censures against its president, dating back to 1999.
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