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

By Brian Boyd
VTHC Secretary
2nd December 2010

It seems a long time ago now but there was a federal election back on August 21^st. Both the ALP and the ACTU have been conducting internal reviews of the campaign preceding the national ballot.

The ACTU Executive received a detailed report on its review at its most recent meeting held on the 30/11 and 1/12, 2010.

Called the “Report of the Review Panel – On the ACTU Election Campaign 2010”, it made some pertinent observations and illustrated some of the self-imposed restraints the ACTU operates under.

Firstly some of the key observations:

“The 2010 ACTU election campaign was run in the shadow of the success of the 2007 Your Rights at Work campaigns’ activism and coordination…

“The 2010 ACTU election campaign again focused on Work Choices as the major theme to the campaign, under the banner Work Choices Whatever the Name, Never Again…

“The 2010 ACTU election campaign included things like:

· TV, radio and print ads

· Working with the ALP

· Leaflets, corflutes, etc

· Websites, twitter and social media

· On the ground activities in key seats.

Although the review is silent on this, there was no effort asked for or attempted to mobilise workers and the community for big anti-Abbottt/WorkChoices rallies as had occurred in 2005-2007.

The ACTU analysis noted:

”November 24, 2007 was a great day for the Australian union movement and the ACTU. On that day the Howard government was defeated in an election that was dominated by WorkChoices after an inspiring three year campaign driven by the activism of union members with the ACTU in a prominent leadership role.

“A government which had kick started its 11 years in office with a wave of anti worker laws and a vicious attack on the MUA, was beaten at the ballot box in an election fought on workers’ rights.

”It was a victory against a government for which the destruction of the union movement, collective bargaining and collective action was an article of faith.

It is worth remembering that the entire period of the Howard government was punctuated by legislative attacks on workers’ rights and unions before the attack on the rights of working people was taken to the limit through WorkChoices.

“Both the union movement and the ALP had a common objective – to get rid of the Howard government.

This commentary is quite an accurate summary of the core motivation of the previous election campaign leading up to November 2007.

Yet very quickly after the result the Federal ALP leadership re-cast the narrative to claim the campaign was all about “Kevin 07” and very little about the anti-WorkChoices’ anti-Howard theme.

The review makes another sharp observation:

The next three years (ie after 2007) saw key points of friction between unions and the Labor government which saw much of the energy and goodwill from the Your Rights at Work campaign dissipate and made it difficult for unions to mobilise their membership and the community in support of the Labor Government at the 2010 election. Issues included:

· Concerns about the final form for the Fair Work Act

· The failure to abolish the ABCC

· The award modernisation process threatened to reduce the pay and conditions of many low paid workers

· The OHS harmonisation threatened to lower standards especially in NSW & QLD.

· Teachers felt under attack by the Rudd government.”

What happened leading up to the 2010 federal election?

The review makes the following point:

“After the 2007 Federal election the union movement had a campaign infrastructure and activist base which had been fired up by the WorkChoices campaign, widespread community support for fundamental union values and an engagement by young people.

“As a movement we failed to find a role for this network when the focus shifted to the new Fair Work laws. This led to the demobilisation of our activists who were politically organised.

There in fact should have been a targeted campaign to win a new Fair Work Act that really killed off the WorkChoices laws and their intent completely. Not a half way result.

The review suggested many in the union movement became caught up with the “three year electoral cycle” and the machinations in the national parliament eg leadership changes.

The review also went on to dwell on Abbott’s ascendency, the mining tax, Rudd’s leadership and newspaper leaks. This concentration on the minutiae is not helpful for explaining why a national union movement wasn’t focused on what was required to maintain our central agenda on behalf of working Australians.

It also doesn’t explain why an effective campaign didn’t materialise in the lead up to the 2010 federal election.

Such a campaign would have had to be based on quickly resolving “the tensions between unions and the [federal] Labor Government over the Fair Work Act and other policy differences’, as the review points out.

Definitely rank and file workers would have wanted to mobilise and fight for a better result than the one that occurred if they knew a second term ALP government was going to deliver further progressive IR changes..

While the ACTU ‘election 2010’ review document calls for the ACTU to adopt and “develop an energetic and independent political agenda” for the future, it still wants it promoted by things such as:

· The ACTU retain the capacity to engage in paid media expenditure, that is embedded and supportive of the over-riding campaign plan.

· Labor should be held to account on key issues for unions/union members and their families. Unions should engage with their local candidates prior to and after elections.

· Meetings should be established with the ALP National Secretariat every three months.

· … setting up regular monthly shopping centre stalls to promote unionism.”

While there is a reference to “full throttle campaigning” around major issues eg leading up to elections, there is still no suggestion that workers en masse are mobilised strategically in order to protect gains and win more improvements. It is all low key, low visibility stuff!

The review commented::

“Union affiliates described the varying levels of engagement of their union in the [2010] election and the ACTU campaign. What is apparent is that a situation evolved whereby individual unions largely coordinated their own election activities, and these varied immensely. Union election activities included election forums, events to determine candidate positions, TV ads, radio ads, material in union journals, member phone calls and house visits.

“In general there was a lack of union engagement and involvement in the ACTU campaign and almost no affiliate cited successful examples of membership involvement in the election, beyond handing out on polling day. Your Rights at Work campaign structures were not able to be ignited into activity in any real way, and it is clear that these networks have not been