Journal Archive
Industrial Officer heads
home - to Victoria
By Brett Williams
Tying enterprise bargaining outcomes to Focus 21 indicates the police department's industrial naivete, according to senior industrial officer, Chris Kennedy.
Just before his resignation from the Police Association took effect this month, Kennedy described SAPOL management as "bordering on the dysfunctional".
"There doesn't appear to be any great exercise of management control," he said., "They've set up thousands of little project teams that are all running off - there's no co-ordination."
Kennedy's frankness is no surprise to his colleagues. His former boss and Police Association president, Peter Alexander, says that he loves a good argument and isn't a "yes man".
"Chris has handled an enormous workload and given us eight, years of commitment in the industrial relations area," Alexander said. "He's always put the interests of the individual member first, and I've enjoyed a good working relationship with him, as has everybody else. He will be a loss."
While Kennedy, 35, has enjoyed his time with the Police Association, he feels the need for a change after doing "the same thing for eight years".
He'll leave the Association with strong memories of its major pay campaigns of 1991 and 1995. He remembers the '95 dispute as "long and difficult", and says that both were physically, emotionally and intellectually draining on those steering the agenda.
Kennedy believes, however, that member confidence in the Police Association was bolstered by the successful outcomes of those campaigns.
Although he came to the job with no experience of police, he didn't expect them to be "wildly different from workers elsewhere".
Now, after meeting and dealing with hundreds of police, he says they're probably only different from other sections of the workforce in a collective sense, and not as individuals.
"I've always loved working with them," he said. "I've found them to be very friendly and caring people.
"They're very strong on notions of justice. That sense of justice goes beyond their dealings with the community to how they're treated in the workplace.
"(But) I suspect that, the further they get from actually living and breathing policing in the street, the less strong their sense of justice becomes."
And, to those who would criticize the police way of life, Kennedy highlights the Fitzgerald report on police corruption in Queensland. He emphasizes that even Fitzgerald found that not all aspects of police culture were negative.
"There are," Kennedy said, "some very good things about police culture: a strong degree of solidarity (and) good support. I don't think that exists in a lot of other areas of the workforce."
Kennedy plans to return to his home town of Melbourne later this year and look for work with another trade union. Before he leaves Adelaide, however, he'll complete his masters degree in industrial relations.
Meanwhile, with what he believes is strong member support, and dedicated employees and elected officials, Kennedy sees only positive signs for the Police Association's future.
"We've shown ourselves to be a good trade union over the last six or seven years," he said. "The Association has embarked upon a deliberate strategy to increase membership participation rates, and we've put big efforts in to try to involve women more.
"In the last two years we've captured government's attention and (indicated) that policing actually should get a greater degree of attention than they've given it in the past.
"I don't think we could be said to be weak in terms of our resolve."[End]
