Inland Revenue Act To Destroy Collective Voice

MEDIACOM-RELEASE-PSA

Management at Inland Revenue are showing contempt for their workers with an orchestrated attempt to sideline the PSA - and its 3000 tax members - from contract negotiations, the PSA said today.

An, in a frightening development, IRD managers have been calling staff and harassing them into signing out of the PSA and taking up individual contracts, PSA organiser June Hoddle said.

IRD have `offered' a paltry one off payment ($1600) for a contract set up designed to end collectivity and force workers - especially new employees - on to basic individual contracts.

"The PSA was willing to discuss greater flexibility on the collective contract but we are simply not prepared to hand over to managers the power to change our members' terms and conditions of work at will," Hoddle said.

"Now with the carrot of the up-front money and the stick of their own coercion and bullying tactics they are intent on laying waste to the very asset they seem incapable of valuing - their staff," she said.

"IRD have even offered a little more money to hundreds of people who will be made redundant - some from next month - in an effort to `buy out' work conditions for the years ahead. This is as cynical and blatant as it gets," she said.

IRD managers consistently refused to negotiate any of the principles PSA members see as necessary to improving the service and culture at the trouble-plagued department.

PSA members have strongly backed their union's call for a collective contact based on consultation, fairness and partnership - an approach aimed at restoring pride in the workplace and in the service PSA members provide to the New Zealand community.

But, in line with the anti-worker strategy of their hired guns - industrial consultants, Greene-Hanson - IRD on Friday closed off the contract talks with a non-negotiable ultimatum.

"Now IRD managers are out and about `encouraging' members to by- pass their union and sign up. We are getting our message out for members to not have a bar of it but this pressure is the last thing these staff need," she said.

ENDS.... MEDIA RELEASE FROM THE PSA

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