Australian Social Workers - Take Heed

I have recently received some communication from people within the Australian Association of Social Workers which is quite distressing. The Association is continuing to have difficulties with their hierarchy and continues to be split

For some time now I have deliberately remained outside the membership of the Association as in the recent past it has been managed by a group of people who, without meaning to demean either their integrity or honesty, have been unsuccessful in their roles. In short they have brought the Association to its financial knees.

I am afraid that what was once a magnificent example of volunteerism, where a group of professional people joined together to bring into existence an organisation which could adequately represent all of the social workers in this country, is in the doldrums.

Management decisions of the organisers have meant that it was formed into a company and as such run by a Board. The Board, while seemingly accountable to the members does not appear to heed them at all.

In a normal company people who pay their money into the company receive some shares in the company and the Board serves at their pleasure, because they can exercise their shares and vote people on or off the Board. This ostensibly happens in the AASW but alas does not seem to happen in any way which can be regarded as 'fair'.

The membership of the Association is centred in two states, NSW and Victoria. In these states the membership of the Association is the largest by far of all of the other locations around the country. Yet, the constitution has determined that each Branch of the Association will be represented by a Director. Thus Tasmania, the Northern Territory, Hunter, the ACT, Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia which between them have less members (or shareholders if you will) than NSW and Victoria combined nevertheless have a voting block which comprises 7 votes versus the two from NSW and Victoria.

There are executive members of course and these can even the numbers somewhat, essentially it is the members in NSW and Victoria who gather the major amount of the income for the Association through their activities and their membership numbers who have the least votes on decision making.

Is this fair you ask? After all the Senate in Australia has a similar issue. The smaller populated states have equal representation to the larger ones so as to ensure that the more populous locations cannot bully those with a smaller population.

It could be fair. In the AASW at present though it is the members of the Board that appear to be the bullies.

In the last few years they have so mismanaged the affairs of the organisation that they needed to take all of the monies raised by the larger states with their activities and bail themselves out of financial trouble. This has meant of course that all of the funds that are raised by the members in the more populous states in the hope that they would receive some adequate recompense for their dues in the form of services has been squandered and people are told they should expect to raise more money so that even more can be sequestered by what seems like a Board that does not believe it is responsible to its shareholders.

In an earlier time I advocated a solution which could work within the Association - namely that the Association should be a 'shelf company' one that has its executive etc but is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Branches of the Association. In order that it continue to survive as a functioning entity it should offer to provide services to the membership which if considered useful would be paid for by the members in the Branches. In other words it would be a purchaser provider relationship. If the National Office of the Association did not come up with services which the members wanted to purchase it would go out of business.

That would be enough to make the Association's management accountable.

Perhaps it is time for the members of the Association to take stock of their management and to root out those who seem to be incompetent at delivering what is needed. That is sound management and representation for and on behalf of the membership