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3 May, 2000A government manual "advises" senior civil servants on negotiating tactics.
AUSTRALIA: The ICFTU's Asian and Pacific Regional Organisation writes in a recent "Labour Flash" about an Australian government handbook which gives guidelines to senior civil servants when dealing with employees on "how to lie, confuse and discredit and to provide misleading information as negotiating tactics". Newspapers reported that this form of training was developed by the Workplace Relations Ministry. It seems the most controversial section of the manual concerned advice on how to discredit union negotiators by associating them with "some unsavoury connection" and to support a case by providing biased misinformation.
The manual was reportedly prepared so that individual governmental departments could handle their own negotiations on wages and working conditions.
One can well imagine the strong reaction of the public sector employees. The unions say that this proves -- if proof is indeed necessary with the prevailing anti-union conservative government, employers and press in Australia -- the government's unwillingness to bargain in good faith.
The Executive Committee of the International Metalworkers' Federation, at its last meeting in December 1999, issued a statement saying that it was "deeply concerned about the situation of working people in Australia", and that the government was seeking to destroy the country's labour movement by enacting legislation which blatantly attacked workers' rights.
Upon learning of these new "negotiating tactics", the IMF's general secretary, Marcello Malentacchi, said that "knowing what we know about this anti-union government, we are not surprised about such underhanded methods, only that they were so careless as to allow this information to come to the public's attention. Having ratified six of the seven ILO core conventions, they have a responsibility to see that workers' rights are fully respected, not trampled upon."
The manual was reportedly prepared so that individual governmental departments could handle their own negotiations on wages and working conditions.
One can well imagine the strong reaction of the public sector employees. The unions say that this proves -- if proof is indeed necessary with the prevailing anti-union conservative government, employers and press in Australia -- the government's unwillingness to bargain in good faith.
The Executive Committee of the International Metalworkers' Federation, at its last meeting in December 1999, issued a statement saying that it was "deeply concerned about the situation of working people in Australia", and that the government was seeking to destroy the country's labour movement by enacting legislation which blatantly attacked workers' rights.
Upon learning of these new "negotiating tactics", the IMF's general secretary, Marcello Malentacchi, said that "knowing what we know about this anti-union government, we are not surprised about such underhanded methods, only that they were so careless as to allow this information to come to the public's attention. Having ratified six of the seven ILO core conventions, they have a responsibility to see that workers' rights are fully respected, not trampled upon."