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Union push for
PS job security
The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) has claimed that a permanent workforce was essential for the public sector to best serve the Australian community and that the alternative was an insecure Public Service that could not perform its role adequately.
The comments were made in the CPSU’s submission to an independent inquiry into Insecure Work in Australia commissioned by the Australian Council of Trade Unions.
Branch Secretary of the CPSU in Western Australia, Toni Walkington said in the submission that it was in the community’s interests to have a permanent, independent PS that provided frank and fearless advice to the Government of the day and delivered services in an impartial manner.
| Claims permanency is best |
She said the overwhelming prevalence of fixed-term contracts at higher levels had resulted in the politicisation of the PS.
Ms Walkington said Public Servants who were insecure in their employment could be compromised or limited in their ability to give frank and fearless advice due to the tenuous nature of their employment.
“The loss of knowledge and skills from the sector when contracts expire also has a detrimental impact on the quality of the Public Service as a whole,” Ms Walkington said.
She said insecure work was “rife” in the public sector while permanent work was decreasing and the use of fixed-term contracts was widespread.
She said that in 1994, 85 per cent of employees were permanent compared with 71.2 per cent in 2009, seeing a reduction of almost 14 per cent in a 15-year period.
Ms Walkington said there were high numbers of workers on fixed-term contracts which pointed to the widespread misuse of contract employment in the public sector.
She said the lack of financial security on a fixed-term contract hampered the worker’s ability to plan for the future and get approval for bank loans. This was particularly difficult when a worker was the sole income earner.
Ms Walkington said the lack of certainty about future employment put a lot of stress on the employee, both emotionally and financially and this stress often had an impact on the employee’s family.
Edition 122, 31 January 2012
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