Victorian Trades Hall Council. The voice of Victorian workers since 1856.Victorian Trades Hall Council. The voice of Victorian workers since 1856.

A General Right to Strike Not For Giving Away - 23 April 2007

23 April 2007

The union movement has a long history of struggle to win and protect the right to strike.
Since the 1800’s the employers and various governments have sought to impose penal laws against the right to strike. It was not until the 1993 ALP Keating government that labour laws were enacted which included some freedom for unions, when bargaining collectively on behalf of workers at an enterprise level, to access a limited right to strike.  It was called ‘protected action’ (i.e. protected against the common law and statute law so workers could not be legally punished in specific circumstances). This enterprise bargaining industrial action was not unlawful and accepted by all, including most employer organisations at the time.

The International Labour Organisation, the ILO, has over time established certain minimum standards that form the basis for union and worker rights.

For example there is the ILO convention No. 87 Freedom of Association and the Right to Organise Convention (1948), and the ILO convention No. 98, Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention (1949). Both were ratified by the Whitlam government in 1973 and are binding. Their status was further highlighted by the ILO Declaration on the Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work in 1998.

The ILO also emphasised their principle position on the right to strike back in 1983, with the following declaration:
"The right to strike is one of the essential means available to workers and their organisations for the promotion and protection of their economic and social interests. These interests not only have to do with obtaining better working conditions and pursuing collective demands of an occupational nature but also with seeking solutions to economic and social policy questions and to labour problems of any kind which are of direct concern to the workers” (emphasis added.)

This right to strike, as part of the ‘freedom of association’ concept remains a basic workers’ right and is ACTU policy. The union principle is to argue to be able to withdraw labour without sanctions, when aggrieved or affected workers are moved to do so.  Many issues do and can arise outside the enterprise agreement process.

Regardless, ‘Workchoices’ severely restricts protected industrial action, even within the enterprise bargain process, by making it compulsory for unions to comply with a complex legal process including requirements for secret ballots.

Australian labour history shows strikes occur via fair and democratic votes.  Union leaders do not force workers to strike. This has always been a conservative myth over many years. Democratic decision-making is important but no evidence compels the ‘lack of democracy’ allegation that is being used currently.  It is union business how union members’ meetings are conducted, it is not employers or government business.

Lets be blunt, Workchoices virtually extinguishes the right to strike.  This is a clear break from the century-old practice within the Australian Industrial history. Workers need collective rights to exercise economic pressure through promising to, or actually undertaking, industrial action (often as a last resort), in order to balance the unequal bargaining powers between employers and workers. Workers and their unions in dispute are now in twenty-first century Australia liable to be ordered back to work, fined, sued and even criminalised, with extremely high penalties.

These points need to be made because of the current debate around Federal ALP policy leading up to the 2007 Federal election.
The industrial wing is entitled to maintain and reiterate its own principles and beliefs, regardless of the political machinations at any given time in an advanced capitalist country like Australia.

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[The above statement is adapted and edited from a speech given by the VTHC Secretary before the taking of the Labour Day toast at the VTHC Labour Day Dinner Friday 20 April 2007 held at Moonee Valley Racing Club].

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