Tom Flanagan, Lismore
Thirty people gathered in the departures area of Lismore airport on July 15 and chanted "shame ACON, shame" at representatives of the AIDS Council of NSW (ACON) as they waited to board their return plane to Sydney.
The picketers included employees of the Lismore AIDS Council, and supportive union delegates and members from the Australian Services Union (ASU) and the National Tertiary Education Union as well as a number of women students in Lismore to attend the Network of Women Students Australia conference.
At the centre of the dispute was the Lismore AIDS Council ASU delegate who had been the subject of a disciplinary meeting as a result of sending out an ASU newsletter via email. ASU regional organiser John Driscoll, who was present at the airport picket, was quoted by Workers Online saying, "It seems the activist has been disciplined because he distributed a union newsletter critical of his employer. If that was the standard for discipline, there would be very few union delegates in a job."
ACON acting CEO Alan Brotherton responded in a media release claiming that the disciplinary action was taken against the staff member not for sending union material, but for sending an email "which our staff, including union members, considered offensive, racist and homophobic". The media release stated that "the ASU's newsletter contained offensive and discriminatory material about HIV+ women, people from other cultures and gay men and disparaged our many dedicated volunteers".
While characterising the newsletter's content in this way, the ACON media release did not quote any of the allegedly offending material.
Perhaps the best way to shed some light on this issue is to look at the content and context of the newsletter. It was the first issue of a NSW-wide newsletter for ASU members employed by ACON. It explained that union membership in ACON is growing and that the ASU is trying to build a delegate structure with representatives on each work site.
The newsletter discussed the concerns of staff about particular changes in HIV health promotion that are in process, associated with a possible relocation of a men's and a women's health promotion team to the Positive Living Centre (PLC).
These concerns included matters of staffing, availability of private space for women and clients of the men's team, and fears that particular new positions may not be peer identified — i.e., that in the men's team, non-HIV+, non-gay males may be employed. Similarly, the newsletter presented staff concerns in regard to a position in the women's team: "Staff are very much of the view that the position should go to a HIV+ woman, who is adequately trained and resourced to do the job."
The allegation of "offensive and discriminatory" content, referred to in the ACON media release, may relate to following passage in the newsletter: "Staff maintain that it is clearly evident that the PLC is completely inappropriate for women. Female clients of the project are more likely to be heterosexual, from a NESB [non-English speaking background] and often feel confronted and offended by gay male clients. The PLC is clearly seen as a positive gay men's space."
It thus appears that ACON staff have conveyed to the union leadership that a predominant client group of the women's project in that area (non-English-speaking-background heterosexual women) are more inclined to feel confronted and offended by gay male clients. The union has printed this information in its newsletter and is charged with being "offensive, racist and homophobic".
To this outside observer it seems that in raising this matter within the union, the ACON staff were not vilifying anyone, but seeking to ensure that all their clients face as few obstacles as possible in accessing the services of ACON. If some members of a client group have homophobic attitudes (no-one can deny that such attitudes exist in the community), it is important that these attitudes don't prevent people accessing the services directed at this client group.
These kinds of issues should at least be openly discussed within an organisation with as important a task as ACON. Newsletters such as the one produced by the ASU appear to have an important role in this regard.
[Tom Flanagan is a member of the National Tertiary Education Union, a former Community and Public Sector Union delegate, and a former member of the Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group and the Sydney Stonewall Committee. He is the Socialist Alliance candidate for the federal seat of Page.]
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, July 21, 2004.
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