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Challenges for the Australian Labour Movement

Challenges for the Australian Labour Movement

in 2011 and beyond

By Brian Boyd, VTHC Secretary

April 2011

The media obsesses about parliamentary processes. Many words are written and spoken about the ‘personalities’ of Prime Ministers, Leaders of the Opposition, MPs, even how they dress and who does their hair! Much of it is a load of rubbish. But sometimes the ‘argy-bargy’ between the main political parties can reveal the main dichotomies within Australian society that impact on working-peoples’ daily lives.

The organised labour movement, especially unions, should bring these contradictions to the fore for discussion. In turn ordinary people need to be mobilised regularly in order to win respect and achieve gains. It is a struggle to sort the wheat from the chaff. The way the monopoly owned media report and present things is often quite insulting.

In recent times there has been much public debate in how to tackle climate change. The huge profits made by mining companies has also caused much angst and hand wringing. On one hand the ALP federal government seems incapable of breaking through decisively in order to convince the population it has worked out a way forward. On the other hand the deeply conservative forces use Abbott and Co. to sow confusion with opportunist sloganeering and shallow hip-pocket arguments.

Politicians of all shades play up to working people. They are desperate to win their allegiance thinking ahead often only to the next election.

Media commentators write endlessly about who is ‘winning’ this battle for the ‘hearts and minds’ of working people.

Before 2007 many workers were insultingly called “Howard’s Battlers”. Leading up to the 2010 federal election some spin doctors tried to portray them as “Abbott’s Army”. After the recent NSW State Election (March 2011) they called them “O’Farrell’s Battler’s” because of the many ALP seats lost in Western Sydney.

This ‘ownership’ battle around the ‘aspirations’ of working people by the parliamentary parties shows why they just don’t get it.

The conservatives love to claim most workers deep down ‘aspire’ to becoming business people. Their courting of working people is desperate, looking for converts, not because they believe working people deserve respect for their work and a fairer share of the wealth they create.

The ALP constantly struggles with how to take on their responsibilities to the people who created it in the first place, while courting big business to give them a go.

Some commentators on occasions get close to the heart of the matter.

Michael Thompson in The Australian (2/4/11) wrote about the “traditional working–class supporters” of Labor, the “core working-class constituency”, “rusted on Labor die hards”, the “working-class heartland” and so on.

Thompson expresses concern that the ALP has been taken over by so called ‘progressives’ “to the exclusion of Labor’s working–class supporters”. While he surrenders the term ‘progressive’ too easily to the opportunists within the ALP, he does not shy away from the still valid term – ‘working – class’ to make his point.

In a 1999 book Labor Without Class, Thompson expressed concern that ALP traditional supporters will turn to “other political parties” searching for anyone “who speak to their values”. For the record, Thompson hastens to emphasise that Labor’s heartland are quite capable of embracing the causes of “equality for women, tolerance of other cultures, care for the environment and like issues”, without jettisoning their basic working-class aspirations.

Michael Thompson goes over briefly the 1996, 1998, 2001 federal elections and how the results showed the ALP allowing the ‘drifting away’ and ‘defections’ of the working class.

He mis – diagnoses however the 1999 failed ballot for a republic, over-emphasising the “blue – collar outer suburban electorates… solidly voted no!” There were more concrete reasons for this unfortunate failure – the purposefully poor presentation of the referendum question by John Howard and how certain pro – republicans undermined the cause with a self - righteous and over ambitious stance.

Thompson’s curious targeting of what he calls the “Whitlamite generation” is also a distraction from crystallising the problems facing the modern ALP. It should be acknowledged the Gough Whitlam ‘experiment’ of 1972 – 75 broke the stranglehold of the Cold War Menzies era; it ended our disgraceful “all the way with LBJ” mentality and our equally disgraceful involvement in the Vietnam War, with Whitlam pardoning a generation of anti-war youth; Whitlam challenged ASIO for its dealings with ultra – right groups like the Utashi, be exposed the hold the US has on our foreign policy by revealing the secret operations of U.S spy bases like Pine Gap; Rex Connor tried to get some value out of our mineral riches four decades before the current mining tax debate, only to fall foul of common and maybe even a dirty tricks operation and Whitlam promoted, via “seed” monies an Australian Cultural renaissance in literature and cinema (e.g. “Sunday Too Far Away”) in the face of U.S. product overkill swamping our TV screens and the like.

But certainly Michael Thompson shines a worthy light on how main stream political parties cause distrust and cynicism by playing games with working – people.

Between 2005-7 hundreds of thousands of organised Australian workers took to the streets, organised in their workplaces and campaigned in their communities to a level not seen for a long time, to get rid of the anti-worker and anti-union Howard government. They achieved this historical mission, including (it should never be forgotten) the unseating of Howard himself.

Since then careerist apparatchiks have suggested that all the ALP “has to do is mount a WorkChoices scare campaign and the blue and white collar workers with come running back to Labor with their tails between their legs”, writes Thompson. Before the last federal election (August 2010) the ALP polling showed their campaign was not hitting home. In the last week the ALP grabbed hold of the union movement’s issue: “WorkChoices-Never again”. It was a reluctant switch of emphasis as Gillard and Co didn’t want to talk IR. They didn’t want to concede, as some in the union movement, were saying, that the then new Fair Work Act was already exposing the claim that “Work Choices was dead”, was simply not true. There was nowhere near the enthusiasm from organised workers in the lead up to the 2010 federal election, compared with the pre – 2007 federal election period. They had nothing to fight for especially in terms of workplace rights and the ability to achieve better wages and conditions.

In the lead up to the 2007 election the employers had pushed for influence on the then ALP opposition and its agenda. Ms Heather Ridout of the AIG was very influential. After that election Ridout was given special status by the ALP government. This influence continued up to and beyond the 2010 federal election as well. Many within the labour movement warned the federal ALP that the employers would always be ‘fair weather’ friends.

Now that we have a minority, ALP government in Canberra, with tenuous arrangements in place, the employers are moving up looking for harsher IR legislation to further weaken workers rights. Heather Ridout is leading the charge using code – claiming that is current IR laws are making businesses “uncompetitive” and “less productive”. She has complained that the “bargaining process” and unions concerns about “jobs security” and “sham contracting” is negatively impacting on employers.

This development highlights a key, unresolved contradiction facing the Gillard government – how to promote business and economic development while allowing Australian workers to have a fair deal.

The employers don’t want working people to have workplace rights - it is as simple as that. Ridout might have been the more ‘acceptable’ employer representative in recent years but at the end of the day she knows who butters her bread. She knows Gillard is in a hard place, and is not phased.

The Federal ALP has conducted a review of its performance in the lead up to the August 2010 federal election and the poor result achieved.

Some of those commenting on the result will say anything to avoid making a comparison between 2007 and 2010.

Simply the 2007 result was characterised by a focused, determined union movement campaign that delivered. 2010 wasn’t.

Some Laborites want to visit the links between the ALP and the union movement, but only to lessen the voice of organised workers. While it is begrudgingly acknowledged “unions played a key role in the campaign against John Howard’s WorkChoices” some what union influence within the ALP to “have a closer relationship to union coverage in the workforce”.

This is code for less union influence on policy development and more influence to go to Party careerists.

Everyone talks about the “return to core values” but many want to deny organised labours’ effective input. The lesson of 2007 is not sinking in. An effective, anti-conservative campaign by a unified union movement can add a 4-5% vote winning margin to an election.

But more important is in any election scenario key pro- worker policies need to be articulated and promoted so organised labour can be motivated. Trying to sell economic growth for the sake of it doesn’t do it. All the more reason for an independent and unified union movement that sees through the hype and circus of parliament and focuses on the essential issues that will improve the standard of living and the rights of workers.