PUBLIC SERVANTS in Queensland must be dreading coming back
to work after Christmas. There is a
growling fear that the public service will continue, literally, to be decimated
throughout the year.
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| Roman legionnaires: hoping for a good day and a centurion who can't count |
Decimation was a process used to discipline Roman legions or
cohorts that failed miserably in the face of battle. Every tenth man was selected to be killed, so
as to send a message to his fellow legionnaires.
There was no rhyme or reason: you were selected for
execution if your number came after “nine” on parade that day. Workers on George Street must be familiar
with the process.
The process of chopping away at public service numbers will
continue right through 2013, extending the dominant narrative of “job losses”
in Queensland politics right up until the election year.
Truly, perhaps, a death by a thousand cuts.
What must be surprising to the former councillors in charge
of the Queensland government is how long it actually takes to get rid of 14,000
people.
Tim Nicholls was interviewed on ABC Radio on Friday. If we carefully dissect what he said, we can
discern that the abattoir work will creep on in 2013.
The Queensland treasurer said that 7,500 state public sector
positions have been amputated so far. But
hey! The pain is almost over as the
final number won’t be 14,000.
The “real” number of job losses will be about 10,000 in
total, he said. The remaining 4,000 are “unfilled
positions” or “short term contracts about to end”.
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| Campbell Newman, Premier of Queensland |
He may be intimating that it is not “real” people losing their
jobs, but that is not so.
Public service job losses will still be about 14,000. Getting rid of “unfilled positions” or not
renewing short term contracts still means workers and voters losing their jobs.
An unfilled position could be someone’s substantive position,
which is a vacant position where the person employed in that job fills in a job
higher up the chain. Or the workplace
has been “re-organised” to move someone on.
In any case, an “unfilled position” is no accident. It is a device designed to get rid of costs,
or represents job cutting moves already happening.
Not renewing short term contracts is the biggie.
Many people who have joined the public service in last few
years have been on short term contracts, not employed as permanent employees. Whole units within departments are
substantially filled with people on contracts.
These are “real” workers who have not done anything wrong and
perform crucial front-line work. Yet they will go because they are easy to
sack. That’s why they were put on short
term contracts in the first place.
So there is still more pain to come. 14,000 will go, in some form or another, and
we are only half way through the job cuts.
And the final rounds of dismissals, redundancies or sackings
will be long, slow and painful. For
everyone, including the LNP government.
One, it will be difficult selecting which positions must
go. The “low-hanging” fruit has already
been picked, and the next cuts must come from workers performing the embedded
core functions at work.
Two, public service bosses will be reluctant to keep
slashing.
To be continually sacking people who are their work colleagues
is genuinely distressing.
What’s more, the power and ranking of a public service boss
is measured by the number of staff in their department.
They will find every which way to cut costs and keep staff, if
they can. In many ways, they will be deferring
the hard decisions.
So don’t be surprised is the big political story in
Queensland this year will continue to be job cuts and service cuts.
It will take a long time, and means the narrative of “job
cuts” will be the one you see in the media for the rest of 2013.
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