Victorian Parks Staff Who Closed Gates Should Be Sacked

The solution here is very simple.

Parks Victoria employees have taken it upon themselves to lock the public out of Victorian parks this Easter as part of a Community and Public Sector Union industrial campaign.

When non-union workers were employed to open the gates, CPSU members returned and locked them.

Who the fuck do you pieces of shit think you are? The parks are public land ie. they belong to all of us, not you. You have no legal right to refuse anyone access to them unless specifically directed to do so by the Victorian government. Do you turds think you can try to ruin people’s Easter as an industrial blackmail tactic without a public backlash?

The Victorian government has been extremely weak in handling this issue. Once the union decided it would try to hold the public to ransom and ruin people’s Easter holiday plans, the gloves should have come off.

The government should have issued an order that all park gates were to be left open on Thursday evening. Entry to all parks would be free for the holiday period. Any employee ignoring this and closing the gates would be sacked. Any employee who turned up to work, but instead of actually working, closed and locked the gates should be sacked and charged with trespass and public nuisance. If the police refused to lay charges, the DPP should have been instructed by the attorney general to do so. After the smoke had cleared, the government could have agreed to reinstate the sacked workers in return for a 2.5% pay rise, contingent each year on no go slow campaigns.

During normal opening hours, there should have been employees (contract or otherwise) manning the gates with instructions to prevent anyone closing the gates, physically if necessary. A few big, nightclub bouncers would have done the trick.

If some union members had been really stupid and tried to block access with a picket line, they may have found themselves removed by angry members of the public. If not, the police should have been called in to do it. They have just received a 4.5% p.a. pay rise for the next 4 years, in return for productivity gains. Well, here’s your chance to demonstrate some productivity, boys: arrest these CPSU dickheads.

The combination of keeping the parks open and free entry would have ensured majority public support. The Coalition only holds government in Victoria by a slim majority (45 - 43), but it does control both houses. I doubt being tough with unions trying to ruin Easter for people in pursuit of a 6% pay rise would have lost them many swinging votes, particularly given the results in NSW and Qld and with the federal government so on the nose.

Slimy wanker, Julian Kennelly, a spokesman for the CPSU tried to pretend the industrial tactic had some public support:

"The public have been extremely supportive today when they have turned up to find themselves turned away".

… and then admitted it didn’t:

"There will be some people who will be angry."

No shit, Sherlock! I’m surprised none of your dickhead members were bashed. If you make enough people angry, simple statistics argues some of them will snap.

When the rangers were refusing to participate in controlled, hazard reduction burns and other dangerous activities as part of their campaign, they had some public support. When Parks employees decided to refuse to clean toilets and collect rubbish ie. do the normal part of their jobs, some people rightly asked: “Why are you being paid if you’re not working?” Now they have actively tried to sabotage people’s holiday plans, any moral position they might have had completely disappeared and many people have turned against them.

The lack of credibility in the CPSU campaign is revealed by its contradictory claims. On one hand, they complain about being short staffed, since the land area under management has increased by 20%, but staff numbers have not. This is fair enough. I think most people would support what appears to be a logical argument for staff increases.

However, the main sticking point of the industrial campaign is that the Victorian government has offered pay rises of 2.5% and the union wants 6%.

6%? With inflation at half that and interest rates at near record lows? Get fucked! It’s not as if you’re highly skilled labour, opening gates, cleaning toilets and telling people where they can’t park. You just don’t deserve 6%. The pay claim is clearly a bargaining device.

Where has the push for more staff gone? What about the proposed change in policy whereby Parks Victoria can transfer employees to any park in the state? Is that even true? Where have the valid arguments regarding employment conditions disappeared to? If you got the 6%, would you hypocrites accept staffing levels and the new transfer system (if that is even true and not union propaganda)?

This is where unions hurt themselves. They have a couple of valid points and have been offered a pay rise. The police got more than 2.5% because maybe they were underpaid for the danger of their jobs (the quid pro quo should be less corruption and a MUCH better attitude toward the law abiding majority of the public).

But instead of keeping the public onside, the CPSU have decided to take a confrontational stance with us. You will lose as a result.

Some people might wonder how my above position is in keeping with Liberalism. You will only be confused if you think “liberal” means what it has come to mean in the United States: a hand wringing, wet, lefty. But that’s not what it really means. It’s been hijacked: by the conservative right as pejorative and by the left as a badge. Both groups are fuckwits who would destroy a great political tradition.

People should have the right to organised representation in the workplace. In fact, they probably need it if they are employed by government or a large corporation. What their representation should not have the right to do in a modern, open society is facilitate an organised campaign to destroy other people’s amenity or harm their prosperity in support of industrial action. Where physical action is taken to interfere with other people’s right to enjoy their free time (as with closing parks) or their right to conduct business, it should be met with physical action.

Australian society is not so rife with oppression that Victorian park rangers must physically disrupt it in order to argue a wage offer up from 2.5% p.a. to somewhere below 6%. This is a case which should be settled by a workplace arbitration commissioner.

Afterword: The only contact details I can find for Julian Kennelly are the CPSU head office number (03) 9639 1822 and his email: jkennelly@spsfv.com.au.