A deal within the Australian Labor Party (ALP) to get an Australian Public Service (APS) wage offer proposed by the Albanese government across the line with the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) has triggered a fierce internal backlash, with opponents openly labelling it a betrayal.
Members United, a rival group to the current CPSU leadership team that generally opposes formal Labor affiliation for the union, has told members to vote down the deal because it is too cheap and below inflation, seizing on the fact that the timing of the public service bargaining process has spectacularly collided with CPSU elections.
A CPSU member poll on whether to accept or reject the 11.2% pay rise offer over three years plus a sign-on bonus closes next Thursday, November 30.
Separately, the CPSU elections, which are being run through a postal ballot, close literally a week later, on December 6.
Members United describes itself as a grassroots group within the CPSU that wants to replace professional and career unionists in the leadership with rank-and-file members drawn from the public service. The group is running a ticket under the same name, fielding candidates for all positions directly against the incumbent leadership that is running for election as The Melissa Donnelly Team (MDT).
“The Melissa Donnelly Team’s decision to recommend a below-inflation pay offer is the ultimate betrayal of the CPSU membership. 11.2% is barely half of the CPSU’s original claim of 20% over three years. They can choose to escalate action and pursue political enforcement of the CPSU’s claim — instead, they think members should eat Katy Gallagher’s deal,” said Members United national secretary candidate Will Mudford.
Mudford accused the incumbent CPSU leadership of “risking an existential crisis of the CPSU.”
“Their long-run strategy was to get Labor into power and a good deal was supposed to follow. If the CPSU leadership can’t protect their members’ standard of living, they simply aren’t doing their jobs. They’ve failed on every measure,” Mudford said.
“The union leadership’s decision to prejudice the member poll by recommending that members support is inconsistent with their previous claim that they maintain neutrality in member polls, counter to the notion that “members have been in the driver’s seat of this bargaining campaign.”
A key risk for the government, the Australian Public Service Commission and Labor more widely is that if a pay deal isn’t struck before the CPSU elections, it’s unclear who all three may be dealing with in terms of bargaining after they are held.
Gallagher has become the Members United prime target because, apart from being the public service minister and an Australian Capital Territory senator, she is a former CPSU organiser in the ACT and has now become an interlocutor in wage negotiations.
There are several factors at play, but in the event Labor loses control of the CPSU because of the way bargaining has been handled, it must politically fall on Gallagher’s head rather than current CPSU chief Melissa Donnelly, irrespective of whether Donnelly re-secures the role of national secretary.
Another wildcard in the pack is what could happen if the CPSU member poll on the pay offer returns a negative vote. As the last member poll demonstrated, the poll is non-binding with the union opting to reject the offer on the basis the vote was too close to show broad support. The initial vote on the pay deal came in at 52% in favour of acceptance, with no recommendation from the union.
The problem will be if the vote returns a clear negative, even with a positive recommendation from the current CPSU leadership, leaving open the option to reject the deal and potentially have the government go directly to agencies for a vote — what the Coalition did — or make a call and go against the member poll at the risk of being punished at the union elections.
Unions outside the CPSU, which is the dominant industrial organisation within the APS, are not inclined towards service-wide pattern bargaining because they are forced to accept whatever the CPSU can achieve, which is often not as much as smaller unions that have more member clout.
These include the Taxation Officers’ Branch of the Australian Services Union, which was blindsided by the offer of a sign-on bonus and the CPSU’s recommendation to accept it.
The issuance of the last-minute final offer also has major ramifications for the Australian Public Service Commission because the many unions at the bargaining table aside from the CPSU will want to know why they were cut out.
While the Albanese government’s policy on the public service and its industrial relations stance has always favoured service-wide bargaining, whether or not it achieves it is another matter, with Gallagher having previously joked she may live to regret taking that approach.
In the event the CPSU opts to reject the offer, this would give other unions the option of seeking an out from pattern bargaining via intractable bargaining provisions.
Members United is now telling unionised public servants they need to go harder if they want an offer that keeps up with inflation.
“What we can win is directly proportional to how hard we fight. This offer won’t help workers struggling with the essentials. The Melissa Donnelly Team are totally out of touch — Members United will fight, and we care because we don’t just represent public servants, we are public servants,” Mudford said.
On the CPSU’s Facebook page, a slew of comments about the offer and the recommendation to accept were far from favourable.
Many comments related directly to abandoning union memberships, like: “At least when I cancel my CPSU membership tomorrow I know I will save more than .92% of my wage a year. Terrible advocacy and outcome CPSU.”
And “Well if that’s all they can manage, one way I can get myself more money to actually pay my bills will be to stop paying union fees. I’ve been a union member since I very first started working. But I am having to seriously reconsider that commitment,” one commenter said.
And “It’s not a pay rise it’s a bribe as like the last payment it hasn’t been added to our salary for our future pay rises to be calculated against. I don’t get the point of them if they don’t do that 🤷♀️,” said another commenter.
And “We as the Union need to continue fighting, We shouldn’t just give up. We deserve a decent pay offer this hush hush money doesn’t interest anyone. Don’t be waving this and saying oh look shiny shiny. Cause it ain’t. Continue to fight for a better offer. Negotiate from 15% see what they say. Don’t care how long it takes we’ve put up with crap for so long we would be happy to fight until we get a better offer. Start striking now. Do from lunch time strikes to end of day. This will show them we aren’t happy. Continue to strike until they come to the table,” was another comment.
On the Members United Facebook page, the ginger group was posting screenshots of comments left on the CPSU member poll.
If the CPSU’s recommendation for the offer was interpreted as the deal being all over bar the shouting, there is a lot of shouting and it is very loud.
READ MORE:
CPSU backs APS 11.2% pay offer with sign-on bonus, starts polling
