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Michaelia Cash, John Lloyd and Dean Smith say CPSU has low industrial action participation
By Phillip Thomson
Government minister Michaelia Cash says figures released in Parliament have "exposed" the "wild" claims of the main public service union.
Figures gathered by Commonwealth employers show low participation in work stoppages primarily organised by the Community and Public Sector Union.
Michaelia Cash says the government wont change workplace relation rules without consulting voters.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
At the 30,000-strong Department of Human Services an average of 1173 staff took part in each of the work stoppages recorded, according to an analysis of the figures.
The most on one day was 5557 and the least was 132.
At the 20,000-person Australian Taxation Office there were 1130 staff in total who took part in six different stoppages in June.
At eight days of rolling stoppages at the 13,786-strong Department of Immigration and Border Protection in September, in which the union asked staff to stand down on different days, the highest number of staff taking part was 947 and the lowest was 478.
A total of 1244 Immigration staff took part in the August 3 stoppage.
The highest number of staff ceasing work at the 4639-person Agriculture Department was 169 and the lowest 14 during 10 days of rolling stoppages in September.
Senator Cash, the minister assisting the prime minister on the public service, said the statistics exposed the CPSU as having "wildly inflated the level of industrial action across the public service".
"This is an exaggeration that seeks to serve the interests of the union itself rather than the best interests of the workers they purport to represent," Senator Cash said.
"The low levels of participation show the CPSU would be better served by listening to their members and genuinely negotiating in good faith rather than resorting to industrial action."
CPSU national secretary Nadine Flood said the numbers were selective and because of this did not show low participation.
"We've repeatedly seen [Mr] Lloyd and various politicians try to underplay CPSU members' support for industrial action," she said.
"We've also seen Cory Bernardi and John Lloyd do their amusing Estimates double act when they pretend various numbers really represent all CPSU members who took action, even though agencies told staff, in writing, not to record industrial action.
"Two of the government's largest agencies, the ATO and DHS, sent out all staff emails asking CPSU members not to record various forms of action.
"If our action is not well-supported, why does Immigration always send desperate emails asking people to volunteer for surge deployment or strike-breaking whenever industrial action is on – all this makes Commissioner Lloyd and Minister Cash's line a little silly."
Australian public service commissioner John Lloyd said the figures generally showed the number of union members participating in actions was low, even though a significant number of union members might support industrial action when voting in protected industrial action ballots.
Mr Lloyd, whose commission was tasked with setting the direction for the Commonwealth bureaucracy, said agencies had reported minimal impact caused by industrial action in most cases.
"The contingency plans they have put in place are limiting the impact of the action on clients," Mr Lloyd said.
Senator Dean Smith, who put the question on notice, said the figures "confirmed the steady slide of unions into irrelevancy".
"Even in Canberra, which is supposed to be a hot-bed of union activism, what has been shown is that workers in the public service are behaving in a responsible manner," Senator Smith said.
"The overwhelming majority of staff at various departments and agencies are refusing to engage in union-engineered stunts like work stoppages.
"This calls into question the effectiveness of the union leaders behind such tactics."