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Submission of the Health Services Union to the Senate Standing Senate Standing Committee on Education and Employment

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Submission of the Health Services Union to the Senate Standing Senate Standing Committee on Education and Employment Submission of the Health Services Union to the Senate Standing Senate Standing Committee on Education and Employment Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2019 9 September 2019 Authorised by Lloyd Williams, National Secretary HSU National Suite 46, Level 1 255 Drummond Street Carlton VIC 3053 Contact: Lauren Palmer HSU National Research and Policy Officer Introduction The Health Services Union (HSU) is a growing member‐based union with some 85,000 members working across health and community services sectors in every state and territory. Our members work in public and private practices and hospitals, and not-for-profit organisations. HSU members are social workers, paramedics, disability support workers, aged care workers, community workers, psychologists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, podiatrists, diagnosticians, doctors, nurses, medical scientists, medical librarians, pharmacists, administrative staff, cooks and cleaners. The work of our members is at the heart of strong, healthy and connected communities. HSU members are incredibly proud of the work they do in providing care and giving a voice to society’s most vulnerable. Most HSU members earn sub-standard wages and work in arduous conditions; they are Award-reliant, employed on precarious or casual arrangements, work with little-to-no formal supports from employers, and face the threat of workplace violence on a daily basis. Yet day-in and day-out, they offer unwavering commitment to those in need. The HSU is a driving force to make Australia a better place. We work to ensure the rights and entitlements of not just our members, but all working Australians, are protected and advanced. We engage in campaigning, workplace activism and education, as well as providing a range of services and support to assist members with many aspects of their working and personal lives. The work and advocacy of the HSU is in recognition of the inextricable link between accessible, quality and safe healthcare, and meaningful social and economic participation. The Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2019 (the Bill) seeks to introduce extreme regulations for unions, despite an effective and stringent governance regime already in place. The Bill will allow for undue interference in the democratic operation of unions and poses a serious threat to the rights of workers, including the freedom of association, right to collective bargaining, and choice of representation. The Bill is not just an attack on unions; it is a brazen display of Government disdain for the rights and voices of working Australians. The Bill is an attack on the aged care worker holding the hand of your loved one in their final days. It is an attack on the disability support worker advocating for those who cannot advocate for themselves. It is an attack on the allied health professionals who carry out the research that makes Australia a world-leader in healthcare. It is an attack on the paramedic who tended to your child in their medical emergency. The Bill is an attack on the social fabric of our country. The HSU opposes the Bill in its entirety. While this submission has been prepared by HSU National, it is made on behalf of our branches1 and members Australia-wide. The HSU refers members of the Education and Employment Legislation Committee (the Committee) to the submission of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU). Th HSU supports the ACTU submission in its entirety. 1 HSU National is the trading name for the Health Services Union, a trade union registered under the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act 2009.The HSU is a federated union with individual branches for New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory and Queensland; South Australia and Northern Territory; Tasmania; Victoria (four branches); and Western Australia. The HSU story A history of workers joining together via union amalgamations – why the proposed amalgamation scheme ought to be rejected The HSU’s history dates back over a century when hospital workers began to formally organise in Victoria. Over the next few decades, the union continued to expand its coverage and establish itself in other states and territories, via a series of amalgamations voted on by the rank and file membership. The HSU as it is formally known today came into operation in 1991 after members officially voted to merge the Hospital Employees’ Federation of Australia and the Health and Research Employees Association in 1990. Throughout its history, the HSU has worked to secure and protect the rights of every worker–including the freedom to associate, to seek representation of their choosing, to collectively bargain for fair wages and conditions, and to carry out their jobs in safe workplaces. Given our union’s history of workers joining together via union amalgamations to best support and advance their interests, the HSU is particularly concerned by the proposed amalgamation scheme in the Bill. The Bill introduces a protracted amalgamation process, designed to provide various third party interests the maximum opportunity to interfere in and delay an amalgamation process. Most disturbingly, the Bill positions employer interests as of equal importance to the interests of union members in the FWC’s consideration of whether a union amalgamation ought to proceed. The case of a few bad apples – why the existing provisions work The modern HSU has an important story to tell about the effectiveness of the existing frameworks to address corruption and maladministration in registered organisations. The HSU shares this story with the Committee to provide evidence that the proposed legislation is unnecessary and an overreach of Government authority. The HSU has previously been affected by serious corruption and maladministration within two of its branches. An internal committee of HSU officers was established and with the majority support of the national executive, moved swiftly to investigate and address the wrongdoings it uncovered. The work of the investigative committee, operating within the existing legislative and regulatory frameworks, and despite resistance from the offending officials, built the case to formally eradicate the dysfunction and criminal activity within the union. In both cases outlined below, it was the work of these committed HSU officers that made it possible for the Court to remove the offending officers who had brought the union into disrepute, appoint an administrator to clean up the branches and install proper governance policies and procedures, and return the branch to the democratic control of the members via elections conducted by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC). HSU Victorian No. 1 Branch Over the course of a year, in and around 2008, the Victoria No. 1 Branch of the HSU became progressively more dysfunctional. At its root, the cause of this dysfunction was antagonism between two groups formed by members of the Branch’s committee of management and their supporters within the Branch membership. One group coalesced around the Branch President, who was also a paid employee of the branch. The other was led by the Branch Secretary. Disputes between the two groups gave rise to a series of events which severely undermined the functioning of the Branch. The result was that Branch officers were deflected and distracted from the pursuit of the industrial interests of the members. In 2009, the Federal Court, made a declaration, on application by the union, that the HSU Victorian No. 1 Branch had ceased to function effectively and that there were no effective means under the rules of the union by which it could be enabled to function effectively.2 The Court made an order approving a scheme whereby all elected officers offices of the Branch were declared vacant. An administrator was appointed in their stead, to have all the powers of the Branch Secretary, President and committee of management, subject to certain limitations. The scheme further provided for the conduct of an election of all offices by the AEC. A copy of the order is provided at Attachment 1. Through the course of the scheme, the parties were able to return to the court to seek amendments to the order as required.3 Additional actions were also taken in relation to the maladministration of the branch. The General Manager of the Fair Work Commission (FWC) successfully obtained declarations and pecuniary penalties against the union and several officers relating to the financial administration of the Branch.4 HSUeast Branch In late 2011, Ms Kathy Jackson, the Branch Executive President and National Secretary of the federal union, referred allegations of corruption levelled at Mr Michael Williamson, the Branch Secretary and President of the federal union, to the New South Wales Police. Ms Jackson referred the matter to the police at the urging of members of the federal union’s national executive, who were working to collate evidence and pursue suspected corruption within the union’s branches. The allegations also pertained to the counterpart state-registered HSUeast union, in which Ms Jackson and Mr Williamson held equivalent offices. Subsequent events uncovered corruption by Ms Jackson as well. The unhappy events in which both the HSUeast Branch and the state union were embroiled ultimately led, in June 2012, to a Federal Court declaration that the HSUeast Branch had ceased to function effectively and that there were no effective means under the rules of the union by which it could be enabled to function effectively.5 The declaration and consequential orders were mirrored in relation to the state union, under equivalent provisions of the Industrial Relations Act 1996 (NSW). The application was brought by the secretaries of all other branches of the HSU. The Court made an order approving a scheme whereby all elected offices were declared vacant and an administrator, being a former Federal Court judge, was appointed in their stead. The administrator 2 Health Services Union, in the matter of Health Services Union [2009] FCA 829.
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