A Coalition government minister has launched an attack on the main public service union over one of the key flashpoints in Commonwealth's long industrial dispute.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Human Services Minister Alan Tudge has accused the Community and Public Sector Union of putting its own interests and those of the Labor Party above union members working at the giant Department of Human Services.
But the union hit back on Monday, saying the minister's comments were "misleading, inaccurate and insulting", and pointing out that many of the DHS public servants resisting the government's industrial relations policies were not members of any union.
Mr Tudge is the third minister to preside over the dispute at the key department since the election of the Abbott government in 2013 but has not previously had much to say about the industrial strife wracking his portfolio.
Public servants at Human Services have now emphatically rejected three times workplace deals developed under the government's hardline Abbott-era public sector bargaining framework that the unions says contains big cuts to pay and conditions.
But Mr Tudge says average public servants at the department, which runs Medicare, Centrelink and the Child Support Agency, are each more than $2000 worse-off because of the union's resistance to the proposed workplace departments.
Know more? Send your tips to ps@canberratimes.com.au
"Due to the CPSU's ongoing campaign of drawn out negotiations and industrial action, the average public servant in the Department of Human Services has forfeited around $2000 in extra pay since 2015," the minister's statement read.
The minister spoke in the wake of a Fair Work Commission hearing in Canberra on Friday where the union agreed to call-off a two-week period of industrial action at Human Services.
The department applied to have the action declared illegal under the Fair Work Act, arguing it was aimed against DHS's controversial "robo-debt" recovery program and not the ongoing industrial strife.
Mr Tudge said "the hearing ... showed once again that CPSU officials are taking advantage of their members for political purposes.
"Workers typically have part of their wages docked when they take industrial action.
"For senior CPSU officials to tell their workers that they're striking over pay and conditions when actually it's about political point scoring for the Labor Party is disgraceful," he said.
"It's clear that the union is acting in their own best interests and the best interests of the Labor Party – not the interests of their members."
But CPSU National Secretary Nadine Flood said the minister's comment were misleading, inaccurate and insulting.
"Mr Tudge's misleading and inaccurate comments are deeply offensive to hardworking DHS staff and demonstrate exactly why bargaining remains a mess and further strike action is on the cards," the union leader said.
"Over 20,000 DHS workers – unionised and not – have voted three times against these agreements, not because the CPSU has some magical power to get them to vote against their own interests, but because they know a dud deal when they see one.
"If Minister Tudge thinks people on average wages in DHS can't understand a bargaining deal after three long years in dispute with this government, it's further proof that he is not across his portfolio. "
Correction: An earlier version of this article quoted Human Services Minister Alan Tudge saying the average CPSU members working in his department paid $1000 in union fees a year. The minister's office has advised this was not correct and the actual figure is $700.
