CPSU accused of misleading Australian Taxation Office staff in pay dispute

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The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) has been accused of misleading Australian Taxation Office (ATO) staff over purported risks if the revenue agency’s new proposed enterprise agreement is voted down by staff and sent to arbitration at the Fair Work Commission (FWC).

In a full-scale rebuttal to a series of claims about the supposed dangers of taking enterprise bargaining claims to the FWC made by the CPSU in an all-staff email to Tax employees sent last Friday, the Taxation Officers’ Branch of the Australian Services Union has responded in kind, arguing Tax staff are being short-changed by an Australian Public Service-wide deal that fails to compensate them for lost wages.

The CPSU’s open attack on the ASU’s efforts to claw back previously sacrificed pay rises has cast a spotlight on how employees in some agencies do much better than others under service-wide bargaining where, in theory, one union negotiates a uniform deal for all public servants.

The sticking point for the ASU is that its members, and indeed ATO staff, went without the pay rises other agencies obtained during the Coalition lean years to hold the line and maintain workplace conditions that were being targeted and eliminated by the previous government.

Now, with conditions restored in agencies that previously lost them, but also pocketed pay increases, the ASU is telling Tax (and effectively the Australian Public Service Commission and Labor government) to pony up on the withheld wages, which Tax is refusing to do.

“The ASU is concerned you may have been misled by a CPSU all-staff report issued in recent days,” Taxation Officers’ Branch secretary Jeff Lapidos said in an ATO all-staff email sent by the ASU Tuesday.

“The Commonwealth’s proposal is a good deal for virtually all APS Agencies other than the ATO.  Staff in these Agencies lost workplace rights and conditions and got 2% annual pay increases for their trouble between 2014 and 2016.

“The offer would be a good deal for us if the Commonwealth restored the three 2% annual pay increases we lost. Doesn’t the CPSU think ATO staff need to recover our three lost 2% annual pay increases? Remember the CPSU represents staff in all APS Agencies. The ASU only represents ATO staff, so we put the interests of ATO staff first,” Lapidos told members and ATO staff.

The CPSU also warned ATO staff that “our extensive experience across the APS tells us that arbitrated bargaining outcomes can see employees go backwards on pay and lose existing, hard-won conditions.”

However, the ASU has countered that its “proposal relies on new commonwealth government legislation that came into effect in June 2023.  No arbitrations have been made under these new provisions.”

“The ASU has designed our approach to restrict any arbitration to the amount of the pay increase and lump sum payments. The ASU expects ATO staff will get a better pay outcome before Christmas 2024 by us using the new ‘Intractable Bargaining Dispute’ provisions,” Lapidos said in the all-staff.

“This can only occur if ATO staff overall insist we deserve and require a better deal by voting NO to any inadequate pay proposal. The FWC is required to arbitrate ‘as quickly as possible’.”

The reference to the restriction of arbitration to the specified sacrificed pay rises essentially ring-fences the ASU’s claim against arguments it could extend to other agencies.

As for the nuances of what’s intractable, or otherwise, Lapidos explained ASU’s perspective on what’s arguably a long-game approach, the steps taken so far, and those still needed.

Unlike many other agencies, unions still have access to ATO all-staff email lists for communications, a workplace right that was previously fought for by the ASU and kept.

“The ASU referred a bargaining dispute over the Commonwealth’s inadequate pay offer to the Fair Work Commission (FWC) on 17 January 24. The FWC convened a conference between the ASU and the ATO on 22 January. The CPSU were not invited.  The ATO refused to consider an increased pay offer,” Lapidos said in the ATO all-staff.

“The ASU told the FWC that we expected ATO staff would vote NO to the ATO proposal for a new Enterprise Agreement because it did not compensate us for our lost pay increases. The ATO asked the ASU to withdraw our dispute. We said we would withdraw our dispute on 28 February if staff vote YES.  But if ATO staff vote NO, the ASU would then make an application for the FWC to make an ‘Intractable Bargaining Declaration’,” the ATO all-staff continued.

“There would be a hearing on our application for the FWC to determine whether it is satisfied that there is no reasonable prospect of the ATO getting a YES vote. We suspect the ATO might want a second vote in the hope of avoiding the ‘Declaration’. If ATO staff are determined to get a fair pay increase, there will be no realistic chance of a YES vote. We expect the FWC to then conciliate between us to see if the Commonwealth will make an increased pay offer.

“If the Commonwealth won’t do the right thing by its staff in the ATO, a Full Bench of the FWC would arbitrate on our pay claim to resolve our dispute,” Lapidos said in the ATO all-staff email.

The push to get to arbitration is potentially a bad look for the ATO and the APSC because in the event the level-up is secured, it will confirm the commonwealth was short-changing Tax employees.

Or, the commonwealth could concede.

The ASU has previously taken the APSC to task over erroneous claims made by the public service paymaster while evangelising the alleged improvements in conditions in the bargaining offer.

The union demanded and secured a public correction to an example scenario used by the APSC in one of its Bargaining News communiques that supposedly demonstrated improvements in flexible working arrangements when they were already baked into existing conditions.

On Monday, the ASU wrote to ATO deputy commissioner for ATO people Alison Stott to flag a dispute over what was being said or put forward in ATO all-staff sessions for the proposed ATO Enterprise Agreement 2024 because it was misleading or not properly explained to employees.

The dispute is over “how clause 46 will alter the entitlements and terms and conditions of Executive Level 1 staff” and “which “reasonable business grounds” the ATO may rely upon if it refuses a request to work at home.”

Late last month the ASU challenged the ATO to get specific about how new work-from-home conditions would work, namely what constituted reasonable grounds.

That issue is a serious one right across the APS because it goes directly to where people may, or may not, be able to live and still do their work, and indeed the ATO’s recruitment and retention pulling power.

That in turn goes to the commonwealth’s capacity to efficiently raise revenue, and reform the taxation system so it is more evenly distributed in line with the policies of the government of the day.

The real question is what value the government and the APSC place on the proficiency and efficiency of revenue raising, and where that leads in the future.

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