Recent Developments in Employment Relations
81
Bargaining 2000
to re-entrench the award system as the
benchmark for employment conditions in the
sector. A priority which the draft agreement
includes is that agreed wage rates be rolled into
relevant awards.
The 1999–2000 round of negotiations was
marked by a massive swing away from negative
cost-cutting as the basis of productivity
bargaining. Under the Coalition, agencies were
encouraged to negotiate agreements that ‘linked
pay increases to the achievement of quantifiable
performance targets [and] improved work
practices’ (DETIR 1998:71). In fact, for many
agencies, this was a necessity because they had
to cover any pay increases out of existing
budgets. In submissions to the task force,
employees and unions had criticised this aspect,
arguing that it was difficult, if not impossible,
to measure accurately improvements in
productivity in many service areas (Taskforce
1998:130). The QPSU argued that it was
unrealistic to expect wage increases to be paid
for out of savings at agency level and demanded
full supplementation from Queensland Treasury
(PSV 7(2) 1999:7). This position became a
central plank of Bargaining 2000, the strategy
that the union brought to negotiations. The
government ultimately concurred; in November
1999 Minister Braddy announced the new core
agreement had been reached without ‘trade-offs
… cuts to services and jobs’ (Braddy 1999a).
Wage increases contained in the draft agreement
were lower than the average 4 percent wage per
annum rises reported for the previous round
(DETIR 1998:71). Nonetheless, commercialised
units, which have the capacity to generate
additional income, may still realise higher
outcomes although their room to manoeuvre
may be limited by competition.
However, Bargaining 2000 involved much
more than a demand for salary supplementation
and wage gains. In its emphasis on employment
security, the strategy reflects the elevated
concern for job security in the contemporary
public sector, and the playing out of a traditional
tension within the union movement over the
relative weight to be placed on job security and
wage levels. If employees vote in its favour, the
draft agreement has the potential to arrest the
casualisation of work in the sector and
strengthen its internal labour market. Training
provisions in it are directed particularly, but not
exclusively, at employees in lower classifications
as a way of recognising and building their
opportunities within the public sector’s internal
labour markets. Bargaining 2000 also sought
Discussion
The approaches of successive Queensland
governments to public sector employment over
the past decade have been driven by three
distinct, and not necessarily consistent, agendas.
The first, a tendency of governments of all
persuasions, has been to use the public sector
workforce to model their broader industrial
relations agendas (Gardner and Palmer
1997:521–43). The federal government’s current
enthusiasm for individual contracts or Australian
workplace agreements is a good example of this.
The second agenda, typically labelled
managerialism,2 is much more concerned with
overhauling the internal organisation of the
public sector, especially in the way in which
resources are deployed. Economy, efficiency
and effectiveness are key words in the lexicon
of this agenda and it is characterised by
corporate management systems, performance
monitoring, devolution of managerial
responsibilities, flexibility and customer service.
The final agenda is concerned with the political
relationship between government, public
servants and their unions. Despite considerable
downsizing in some jurisdictions, state
governments remain sizeable employers and the
interactions with their employees can impact on
their standing with the electorate. Voters’
assessments of governments are shaped by their
performance and their ability to deliver services.
Protracted industrial disputes with public sector
employees, especially with teachers, nurses,
public transport workers and the like, can
adversely affect this assessment. Moreover, as
Hall (1998) points out, public servants are
voters. For Labor governments, the historically
close relations between party and unions present
critical challenges when the party is in office.
During the 1990s, in Queensland successive
governments have balanced these agendas
differently. The Goss Labor government, which
preceded the Borbidge–Sheldon coalition,
prioritised the managerialist agenda. Prior to
the 1989 election, Goss committed a future
Labor government to an ‘overhaul [of] the whole
© National Council of the Institute of Public Administration, Australia 2000