An ice axe and a ‘gangland identity’ spice up public-sector union fight

An anonymous email landed in Victorian prison officers’ personal inboxes last month with a cryptic Gmail username: iceaxeforleon.

Only those with a keen interest in 20th century Russian history might have grasped the reference. Communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky died when the assassin Ramon Mercader plunged an ice axe into his head. Just like Mercader’s pickaxe, the email was pointed.

Its target was Jiselle Hanna, a Corrections Victoria project officer and socialist activist who has nominated to be secretary of the Victorian branch of the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU), which has 15,000 members spanning the breadth of the state’s public service.

Jiselle Hanna, a Corrections Victoria project officer, wants to lead Victoria’s public sector union.Credit: Penny Stephens

The email, headlined “A troubling campaign for union leadership” and addressed “Dear member”, raised “serious concerns” about Hanna’s campaign.

It had received “hostile endorsements”, both from the Victorian Socialists’ former Senate candidate Jordan van den Lamb, who had “described law enforcement officers as militarised pigs”, and to “known underworld identity” Mick Gatto, claiming her campaign had accepted a $1000 donation from him.

“Members deserve to know what kind of deal was struck in exchange for his financial support,” the letter said.

Hanna was seeking to portray herself as the head of a grassroots movement, but was in truth part of a calculated hard-left political campaign to infiltrate the public sector union, the email claimed.

Though the email was anonymous, its author left digital tracks. Supporters of Hanna used two-factor authentication to trace the Gmail account back to the staff email account of an employee of the Victorian branch of the CPSU.

The union faces its first fully contested election in more than 30 years, with Hanna seeking to defeat veteran Victorian branch secretary Karen Batt, who has held the position since 1993. In total, 38 roles are being contested.

The postal ballot, which begins on Tuesday, will be held at an uncertain time for Victoria’s public sector, which faces widespread job losses after Treasurer Jaclyn Symes foreshadowed in May’s budget a cut of about 1200 full-time positions.

The public service is also subject to an independent review, due at month’s end, which will recommend how to reduce the workforce towards its pre-pandemic share of employment.

Victorian Community and Public Sector Union secretary Karen Batt says members should stick with experience.Credit: Eddie Jim

Hanna heads self-described rank-and-file movement A Voice For Members, which has proposed its own savings strategy targeting “executive bloat” and urging less use of consultants.

The movement has candidates across the public service, in health, education, justice and among bureaucratic agencies.

Hanna said van den Lamb had launched the group’s campaign early this year, and that she knew him as a fellow political activist on the left, but she was not a member of the Victorian Socialists party.

She said that her campaign moved to return the $1000 donation purporting to be from Gatto as soon as they became aware of it.

Hanna said the Voice for Members campaign was driven by frustration among rank-and-file members over the outcome of the 2024 enterprise bargaining period, which resulted in an annual 3 per cent pay rise. The EBA received a 93 per cent yes vote among members.

“The whole basis of this campaign was we were going to build a rank-and-file group that was capable of putting pressure on the union in the next EBA, so this was a four-year project, so that we could fight for a [bigger] pay rise, better wages and conditions,” she said.

Hanna has referred the “defamatory” email sent to prison staff to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner and the Fair Work Commissioner, alleging it is a misuse of personal data and a breach of privacy to access union members’ personal emails for the purpose of political campaigning.

“This email was sent using a list of member email addresses not publicly available, and clearly sourced from internal union records. These details were entrusted to the CPSU by members for the purpose of union representation, not internal campaigning,” she wrote.

Karen Batt said the union had briefed its staff not to participate in the election campaign, and said she had no knowledge of the anonymous email to prison staff.

She lamented that it had been “a nasty campaign with allegations going backwards and forwards”.

“Members don’t like this sort of vitriol,” Batt said.

She urged members to show faith with her leadership and her team, arguing the union had consistently negotiated strong agreements with cost-of-living relief.

“We’re experienced, independent of any political group, and we support the interests of our members, not any external groups,” Batt said.

The Age contacted Gatto to clarify if the rejected donation was his, but did not receive a response.

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