
Issue No 4		12 March 1999

News

Don't Mention The War: Big Brother Comes To Canberra

The federal public service is employing the Orwellian art of doublespeak to expunge trade unions from their Brave New Workplaces.

CPSU officials have been told that enterprise agreements that include the words "trade union" in them will not be approved by Howard ministers.

CPSU state secretary Malcolm Larson told Workers Online that the edict had already been applied to agreements covering government agencies: the Australian Film and Television School, the Australian Film Commission and CentreLink.

This has meant even innocent phrases like "Trade Union Training" and "Union Official" have been converted into "Leave for Approved Purposes" and "Employee Representative."

At the same time, all agreements, regardless of the employees' wishes, must include provision for the introduction of AWAs, the secret contracts Peter Reith is promoting as if it's a fetish.

And clauses laying down "Participatory Work Practices" which make no reference to the trade unions are being routinely inserted in agency agreements.

When this form of pattern bargaining is not embraced by workers, the Ministers with responsibility for the instrumentality have refused to sign the agreement and sent it back; meaning pay rises are put on hold until the correct form of words is adopted.

"In a perverse way, the administration of the public sector is becoming far more centralised under a Coalition Government," Larson said.

"They are pushing an overtly ideological agenda and dressing it up as a management technique."

It's been a difficult three years for the country's federal public servants, the budgets slashed, outsourcing for all but policy-related work and increased levels of work intensity for the remaining members.

But the federal government's attempt to change the language of the workplace is its most overt admission of its ideological agenda.

"By taking the language of trade unions out of the documentation, they think they can wipe us from the workforce's minds," Larson said.

"Their problem is they are pushing the staff around so much that their commitment to the union just keeps getting stronger."

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Issue 4 contents

Interview: Jennie George - Eyeing 2000
The ACTU President looks to the future and erects a few new signposts for her last 12 months in office and beyond.

Unions: Trade Unions Thinking Globally
How do you put people first in a global economy? That's the question for an international trade union conference in Sydney this week.

History: The Pioneers: Trade Unions Before 1850
Labour historian Greg Patmore looks at the early days of unions in Australia

Review: Opening Spaces For a New Labor
A new book by Sydney academic McKenzie Wark looks at how Labor must adapt to the popular culture.

Campaign Diary: On The Bus - A Tale Of Two Campaigns
As the State election campaign moves into full swing, Workers Online looks at how the management of the media by the two main parties is reflecting their strategies.

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