Workers’ details given to unions

In Labor bid to boost union membership, government hands over contact details of almost all public servants employed in past eight years.

New data from Education Minister Grace Grace shows the government has shared information of 83,200 employees since ­December, 2015.

The contact details of almost all public servants who have worked for the Queensland government over the past eight years have been shared with ­unions, under a Labor bid to boost their membership.

The Australian has been told the work details of about 242,000 full-time equivalent workers – the size of the public service now – have been given to their relevant unions since the Palaszczuk government came to power in 2015.

Only those who actively opted out of the process did not have their details sent.

New data from Education Minister Grace Grace – also the Industrial Relations Minister and the first woman elected as general secretary of the Queensland Council of Unions – shows Education Queensland has ­supplied three unions with information for about 15,400 employees in the past 12 months alone, and a total of 83,200 since ­December 2015.

The United Workers Union, the Queensland Teachers Union and the Together Union were given employees’ names, work email addresses, office phone numbers, job titles, and salary bands, as part of the Labor government’s “union encouragement policy”.

At the end of June 2014, at the tailend of the Newman government, the Queensland Teachers Union had 42,441 members. In mid-2022, the QTU recorded 47,194 members.

The Queensland Nurses and Midwives Union has also increased in membership during the same period, from 51,686 in mid-2014 to 67,352 in mid-2022.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s government have shared details of workers with respective unions since taking over in 2015.

Health Minister Yvette D’Ath has formally refused to ­reveal how many Queensland Health workers have had their contact details supplied to the relevant unions, and the government says it is too arduous to compile the figures for the entire public sector.

The policy of sharing public servants’ work details applies to Queensland government departments and government-owned corporations, and requires managers and supervisors to offer their “active co-­operation” to encourage union membership. It was reintroduced by Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk in May 2015, after her defeat of Campbell Newman’s one-term LNP government.

Mr Newman had scrapped the policy early in his tenure.

Elsewhere in the country, The Australian has been able to identify only the ACT Labor government as sharing staff ­details with unions.

The ACT and NT Labor governments have union encouragement policies, which instruct public service managers to actively support bureaucrats’ right to join a union.

In Victoria, when a new public servant is hired or when they are inducted, unions have the opportunity to “provide a document to encourage new employees to join a union or employee association that has the right to represent them and their industrial interests”, but contact ­details are not given out.

The West Australian Labor government does not have a policy similar to Queensland’s.

In 2019, NSW Public Service Association secretary Stewart Little wrote to then-industrial relations minister Dominic Perrottet asking what was the NSW government’s policy on a union encouragement policy.

“The NSW Liberals and ­Nationals government maintains a policy of freedom of association and as such all NSW public sector workers are free to choose whether they wish to become members of unions or not,” Mr Perrottet responded.

Ms Grace said the education department’s agreements “reflect the requirement to provide new starter data to registered industrial organisations consistent with the Queensland government commitment to union encouragement policy”.

Industrial Relations Minister Grace Grace joined by The Wiggles to launch a new song and electrical safety campaign, Boondall. Picture: Liam Kidston

When a public servant is hired, they are given an application form for union membership, information on the union, and are told the government agency they now work for “encourages employees to join and maintain financial membership of an organisation of employees that has the right to represent their industrial interests”.

“Passive acceptance by agencies of membership recruitment activity by unions does not satisfy the government’s commitment,” the policy states.

Public servants have the ability to opt out of having their details sent to a union, and all data is encrypted before being sent.

Ms Grace released the data for Education Queensland in response to a parliamentary question on notice from the oppo­sition, but Ms D’Ath said she could not release the same data.

“I have been advised this data is not a publicly reported measure and therefore is not a readily available report,” Ms D’Ath said.

Deputy opposition leader Jarrod Bleijie said public servants should be able to be represented by an industrial advocate of their choosing.

A spokeswoman for the ­Palaszczuk government said it “respects the important con­tribu­tions made by registered unions, and actively encourages union membership”.

Additional reporting: Georgia Clelland, Rosie Lewis, Paul Garvey, Rachel Baxendale