Union strategy and structure in a decentralised environment: An exploratory study of the Community and Public Sector Union

Union strategy and structure in a decentralised environment: An exploratory study of the Community and Public Sector Union Michael O’Donnell, John O’Brien* and Anne Junor* Australian National University and The University of New South Wales* The paper examines the strategic and organisational responses of the union covering Australian Public Service (APS) employees, the Community and Public sector Union (CPSU), to the challenges of managerial and industrial decentralisation in the APS. Since 1987, the regulation of work in the APS has undergone several forms of decentralisation. Like other employers in the federal industrial relations jurisdiction, the APS has responded to changed industrial relations legislation between 1988 and 1996 by relocating wage bargaining to workplace level, and, latterly, to individual level. The paper highlights that the changes to the CPSU’s structure provided the conditions for a new model of democratic legitimation in the union in the form of Divisional Councils and Sections comprised of workplace delegates. In addition, while the reorganisation of the union facilitated a union strategy compatible with the ACTU’s organising and bargaining models, the union continued to face a bargaining environment involving both decentralised agency bargaining and central oversight over the bargaining process by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations.