Trevor Cook

Australian unions TV ad and comments on ALP links

The Australian Unions (ACTU) TV ad campaign has apparently driven an upsurge in membership, it has also caused some discussion on facebook of the approrpiateness of the links between unions and the ALP:

Melissa Ohaeawai Wednesday That's great, however people will also continue to leave unions in droves as long as unions continue to support the ALPs clearly anti-worker agenda both financially and by a lack of public criticism of bad policy.  If we really want a return of union power, we, as union members (for what else are unions if not their members?) need to fight for better laws and not support bad policy that hurts workers. I'm no fan of the Liberals, (disgust might be closer) but make no mistake: they and the ALP serve the same masters.

Shane Burke Good to see a positive..the unions collectively need to get stuck into the ALP,after all thats where they started.

Keryn Anderson Don't confuse the ALP with the ACTU. The ACTU haven't lost their values and will always remember who they are fighting for - workers and their families. Unfortunately most of the ALP have forgotten why they are there. Time to get rid of the dead wood I say. Bring on this election.

The pro-ALP links are mostly around the idea that Abbott would be a lot worse.

Interestingly, some internal union critics of the 2007 Your Rights at Work campaign argued that it did a good job of getting the ALP elected but not much to help re-build membership.

One senior national official of an affiliated union told me (thesis p258):

Well, the first failure of YR@W was that in all the conversations I had with Robbo[1] and with Greg Combet, Robbo was about him and Greg was just about the next election.  I kept saying what happens if we lose and what happens if we win.  It’s not just about getting Labor elected its about getting a stronger movement which actually entrenches Labor for the future.  Their focus was definitely just the next election.

---

[1] John Robertson, Secretary of UnionsNSW during YR@W campaign and later ALP Opposition leader in NSW Parliament.

 

 

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Ged Kearney, the Accord and Batman

The Accord 30 years on

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Ged Kearney, the Accord and Batman

I think it is a shame that the ACTU president, Ged Kearney, has ruled herself out of the pre-selection race for the ALP's safest federal seat of Batman.

It is not surprising.

Women still find it much harder than men to win ALP pre-selection for safe seats.

Officials from non-affiliated unions find it even more difficult.

The parliamentary representatives of the ALP are mostly drawn from that half of the union movement that has a formal affiliation with the party.

Affiliation matters because it shapes the composition of the federal caucus, it is about backroom power not on stage talent (so David Feeney)

The ALP doesn't represent unions it represents affiliated unions.

Affiliated unions are mostly blue collar (plus a right wing catholic cabal clled the SDA).

If they weren't so powerful inside the party, they would be a sort of harmless local labour movement version of Brigadoon.

Kearney, a nurse, is much more representive of the modern union movement than many of the apparatchiks in the federal caucus who used the union movement as a stepping stone to parliament.

The typical Australian unionist today is female, university-educated, working in the community services sector.

Kearney also shows some strength and vision.

Last Friday at a bit of a love-in to celebrate the Accord - 30 years after the Hawke Government was elected (see my previous post on this event) she bravely touched on the reality of the Accord (its failings as well as strengths) and the way in which nostalgia for the old corporatist adventure has become weight in the saddle bags of modern unions.

After praising the Accord, and criticising the business community, Kearney moved on to some important reflections.

Here are some key sentences:

But there is today, some mythologising of the Accord. For those of us in the leadership of today’s union movement, it sometimes feels like a heavy cross to bear. 

The comparisons that are made with the ACTU of the Accord era are often plainly wrong, and they fail to acknowledge the vastly different economic and political environment of today.  

Radical changes which have taken place over the last 30 years in the way governments operate and in the structure of the union movement mean the way the two relate to each other – particularly when Labor is in power – is much more complex than it was 30 years ago.

Unions today have deep reservations about entering into a formal agreement on policy, but it still makes sense for us to manage differences and find common ground where we can. 

Neither was there a great appetite from either the government or the union movement for a new Accord when Labor came to power for the first time in a decade in 2007.

From the perspective of the union movement, there was a wariness about what had over time become known as the “failures” of the Accord, as I outlined earlier.

Since the Accord, the way unions achieve reform has changed. We have mobilised into an independent campaigning force, capable of multiple campaigns at the same time.

Times and circumstances have changed, necessitating new demands, new campaigns and new methods. 

My thesis strongly reflects these sentiments which I picked up in many interviews.

The key problem is that line about "an independent campaigning force".

How politically independent is the union movement when half of it, the affiliated half, seems to be treated as a career path for ambitious young men (and some women)?

Photo is by Mark Phillips and was originally published on the ACTU website.

Where's the evidence, Joe (de Bruyn, SDA)?

The SDA leadership continues resist reality, damaging the PM and the ALP brand in the process. This was in business insider a few days ago: 

"Some apparent dissidents in Australia’s largest union, the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (or SDA), are today calling on the organisation’s boss to reveal the research which he claims shows most of the country’s retail sectors workers are opposed to same-sex marriage.

That boss is Joe de Bruyn, a member of the national ALP executive and hugely influential figure in Labor party circles. The union, known as the SDA, has over 200,000 members.

A conservative Catholic, de Bruyn is a fierce opponent of same-sex marriage and says the majority of SDA members agree with his position.

Now a group called SDA Members for Equality want him to reveal the research that de Bruyn says was conducted a couple of years ago. The Canberra Times reports:

Mr de Bruyn said the union had “some years ago” discussed with a representative sampling of members the view that marriage was between a man and woman and received overwhelming support.

“We believe that this continues to be the view of the overwhelming majority of the members of the union,” he said.

The request by SDA Members for Equality is a reasonable one. It’s hard to square de Bruyn’s comments with the published polling which for some years has been showing around 60% or more of Australians support same-sex marriage.

(And that’s before asking why an organisation that represents people working on shop floors needs a trenchant position on same-sex marriage in the first place.)"

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The Accord 30 years on

At the end of next week a 'special symposium' will be hosted by Macquarie University to mark the three decades since the ALP-ACTU deal helped to elect the Hawke Government in 1983. The good and the great of the Accord era will be there (Hawke, Crean, Kelty etc) as will many enthusiasts from the academic community.

The Accord was Australia's odd experiment in corporatism at the national level. Odd because the labour movement (or at least its leaders) seemed to embrace corporatism at the same time and, at least on the political side, with the same enthusiasm as it embraced the neo-liberal agenda then sweeping the anglophone world.

Whatever its merits, I found in my thesis that today's union leadership are split over the Accord. Split in intresting and important ways. Here is an excerpt:

The ACTU’s adoption of independence and external lobbying involves a direct rejection of the dependence and internal lobbying approach involved in the social democratic style Accord arrangement. The adoption of union revitalisation strategies is based in critiques of the impact of these social democratic arrangements on union vitality and membership engagement.

In fact, for the critics inside today’s union movement, the Accord is viewed through the lens of a contemporary focus on re-building membership. The Accord was good for working people, but it was, they say, bad for unions.

While a few interviewees found merit in both the Accord and the organising model, seeing them as appropriate responses to the circumstances of their times, most leaned one way or the other.

ALP reform links for 23 April - campaigns, union challenges, power-sharing and the ALP's choices

Anatomy of a modern campaign - Pollytics (Crikey)

Essentially we’re just applying the best of the resources of the early 21st century, to early 20th century community organising. But what that actually requires under the bonnet is a level of political information and analytics that’s never really been needed by a campaign before, so that it can be transformed into the knowledge required to enable the people with the real skills – our union campaign folks and our organisers – to achieve magnitudes of order more than they ordinarily could do without it.

(UK) Trade unions face difficult times, but challenges shouldn't be exaggerated - LSE

These are depressing times for trades unions, because we are facing a period of loss. However, its important not to get carried away with the sense of liquid fear that pervades unions in decline. The decline is not happening to the same degree at the same time everywhere, rather there are still opportunities for unions to secure real gains for working people. This might well mean moving from Marx to Freud, swapping one bearded bloke for another, and mourning the loss of a utopian dream of internationalism and decent work. However, such mourning would allow us to move beyond a position of denial and drop the stalled attempts at ‘renewal’, so as to work towards a more realistic goal of securing real gains for working people. This is a painful process for those of us who have invested so much in our unions, but it does then free us up to aim for a more achievable future. At a time when the magic solutions are running out unions need to play on their strengths, which include a pragmatic insistence that something is better than nothing and a realistic assessment of which unions can still deliver it.

More on the power broking in WA ALP - Sunday Times

It had been rumoured for months that union heavyweights Dave Kelly and Joe Bullock the respective bosses of the powerful Left and Right factions of the WA Labor Party had done a deal that would see both of them end up with cushy jobs in politics.

This week the deal was consummated when Bullock got the top spot on the Labor ticket for a Senate position guaranteeing him a job in Canberra at the expense of his supposed mate, WA Senator Mark Bishop, and Senator Louise Pratt, who has the No.2 spot.

Kelly's Left faction (United Voice) this week delivered the numbers for Bullock's ascendancy, at the expense of one of their own, Pratt, who is also part of the Left.

Bishop was stranded and will now retire from politics.

Informed sources say the Left's support for Bullock stemmed from the fact that the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Union secretary delivered Kelly the numbers to stand for the seat of Bassendean, which he won.

Sources say Bullock also gave his blessing for Simone McGurk another of Kelly's union mates to be pre-selected for the seat of Fremantle.

"Bullock wanted the No.1 spot for the Senate so badly that he was willing to give Kelly control of the Labor caucus by having more Left-aligned MPs," a source said. "This has members of Bullock's own faction scratching their heads."

Ged Kearney on the ALP-unions relationship - ACTU

Labor has always seen itself as a community-based party engaged with people where they live and work.

The relationship between the ALP and our affiliated unions is at the heart of our vision for a Labor Party that speaks for, and seeks government on behalf of, working people.

The industrial and political wings of our movement can come together, campaign around this issue and deliver real dignity to some of the most vulnerable people in our society. 

In doing so, we can once again reconnect with working people at home and at work, and speak to their lives.

This is a challenge the union movement is united around – regardless of the election result on September 14.

But for the ALP, it is ultimately a choice. 

Labor can choose to join us in that battle, and as Daniel Andrews indicated yesterday, Victorian Labor is clear in its resolve to do so.

But there is an alternative. That alternative is to turn inward, and play a divisive, futile blame game. 

Make no mistake – that’s what our opponents want. They would love nothing more than to see the energies of the labour movement diverted away from organising and representing working people by a messy fight about the relationship between organised labour and political Labor.

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Labor preselects former Abbott ally in WA

This is an excerpt from David Marr's recent Quarterly Essay on Tony Abbott, which was reproduced on Martin Whitely's website earlier this week after the WA ALP Branch pre-selected (yet another) extreme right wing SDAer, Joe Bullock, to help prevent the federal ALP caucus adopting a modern approach to issues like marriage equality:

…In those summer days in early 1976 the course of his (Abbott’s) political life was set. In the heady atmosphere of that secret forum young Tony was recruited for Bob Santamaria’s Movement. The men who did the work Peter Samuel, the Bulletin’s cranky political correspondent; Warren Hogan, the embattled professor of economics at Sydney University; and Joe de Bruyn, a hard-line Catholic union official about to assume lifetime (national) leadership of the shop assistants’ union (the SDA).

…Santamaria deplored the Pill, homosexuality, rampant materialism, married women in the workforce, environmentalists, drugs, abortion, anarchy on campuses, economic rationalism, dissident theologians, divorce without proof of guilt and their cult of moral autonomy of the individual. What he saw at stake here was the authority of family, church and state, indeed legitimate authority in every field of life.

…(Abbott) pledged his troth to Santamaria. It would be a year before he met the man face to face but he fell in love that weekend. “I have been under the Santamaria spell ever since.” He regarded him until his death in 1998 as “the greatest living Australian”.

…(Abbott) believed the path Santamaria was inviting him to take was essentially religious. In the old man’s obituary a couple of decades later he wrote: “His real role was to create a type of secular religious order, something like a band of political Jesuits, a group of men and women whose religious values translated into strong commitment, not necessarily to any political party, but to a set of social principles.”

The tactics were not so lofty. The Democratic Clubs (of which Abbott and Bullock were members) were small and their membership carefully controlled. The correct line was strictly enforced. They used tactics Santamaria developed to fight Reds in the unions: provocative campaigning, ceaseless leafleting and infiltrating rival organisations. They called themselves moderates but their position was extreme: as far to the right as the Maoists and Trotskyists on campus were to the left. They were accused of rough-house tactics and wrecking what they couldn’t control. The student newspaper Honi Soit reported: “This organisation has a long history of politically motivated violence – whether as vigilantes for vice-regals, smoke-bombers for Saigon, poster pullers for political reaction, or bullies for by-elections.”

…His (Abott’s) fellow warriors (in the Democratic Club) loved him in a slightly protective way. “Tony was a warm, sociable individual, a ton of fun,” recalls Joe Bullock, who is now state secretary in Western Australia of de Bruyn’s SDA union. “People warmed to Tony. He was very personable, very quick with the common touch he still has. But he was enthusiastically hated by those who hated him. He was seen as a very worthy opponent with a capacity to win. We all thought Tony would be a force to be reckoned with when he grew up and we’re still waiting.” Great things seemed to be at stake. Bullock says: “Everyone thought they were engaged in a bigger battle. I thought I was engaged in a battle between good and evil.” …His (Abbott’s) plan was to win presidency of the SRC (Sydney University Student Representative Council) and collapse it from above. He was well underway. In May, he had taken control of the campus Liberal Club. It was Joe Bullock’s idea: “I said we need a banner to fight under. We’ve got have something that can draw people to us. The Labor Club was extreme left. There was no chance of knocking it off. But the Liberal Club was a dreadful bunch of dilettantes and social climbers. And there were not many of them. So I said: “Let’s knock off the Liberal Club.’ But Tony was really reluctant. ‘Oh, no, I don’t want to join the Liberal Club.’ He made it clear his loyalties were to Labor. Eventually, I persuaded him against his better judgement to join.”

When will the ALP leave the 1950s behind it?

SDA kills its own in WA

Unions gang up to flick Senator - West Australian

Senator Mark Bishop pulled out of last night's ALP preselection ballot that saw the most powerful left-wing and right-wing unions conspire against the resurgent blue- collar section of the party.

It is understood Senator Bishop may not have received a single vote if he had contested because of a deal between his right-wing retail workers union - the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association - and the dominant left-wing union United Voice.

Under the deal, SDA boss Joe Bullock, Senator Bishop's one-time friend and union ally, grabbed the top spot on Labor's WA Senate ticket, 109-61, relegating sitting Senator Louise Pratt to second.

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Labor's rotten borough approach to pre-selection contests

In 18th century, rotten boroughs (or electorates) were controlled by the country's great families, who used this distortion of the electoral system to control the country through the House of Commons as well as the Lords.

William Pitt the Younger was 'elected' to Parliament from a rotten borough, but as prime minister he pursued a modest program of electoral reform which included abolishing 36 of these rotten boroughs.

Recently, there have been press reports of ALP pre-selections in several states.

In Queensland:

Ms Newton will benefit from a factional deal that saw the Australian Workers' Union seize control of Labor preselections in Sandgate and Nudgee in return for backing a Left candidate Peter Freeleagus in the federal electorate of Capricornia.

But senior figures in the ALP insisted the AWU will not run a candidate in Nudgee because to do so would spark outright "war" with the rival Labor Unity faction. The former failed candidate in Nudgee, Leanne Linard, is being touted to stand again.

In Western Australia:

Hospitality union United Voice is withholding support from (Senator Louise) Pratt, who is backed by the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), accusing her of enlisting right-wing union support.

Pratt is also said to be "facing a challenge from Joe Bullock, head of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association (SDA) in Western Australia."

At the same time in WA:

In the past 12 months, the number of MUA members who are also Labor members has increased more than fivefold to 850, up from 150 a year ago.

This means one in four of the 3500 members of the ALP is now aligned to the MUA.

While recently in Victoria:

The safe Labor seat in Melbourne's south-west is seen as part of Senator Conroy's ''patch'' under a 2008 carve-up of seats that was designed to end factional brawling when selecting Labor candidates.

Senator Conroy is backing his own former staffer, Telstra executive Tim Watts, for the seat.

But he has been infuriated by the nomination of Kimberley Kitching, a prominent member of Senator Conroy's Labor Unity faction who is now running the Health Services Union Victoria No. 1 branch.

We seem to have grown so used to the idea that ALP pre-selections are just internecine power struggles between union officials, faction leaders and prominent MPs that it no longer prompts much concern, or even surprise.

Of course, it is so complex that only those directly involved have much hope of understanding what is happening, but it seems to all have about the same relationship to democracy as the franchise in 18th century England.

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Views of my PhD thesis on Scribd (on why union affiliation has become a burden for unions and the ALP) have climbed 20% in the last couple of weeks, now at 1220.

Community backs beseiged gay Labor senator - Star Observer

In a joint letter signed by some 22 LGBTI rights advocates, the group said they were concerned amid reports Pratt was facing a challenge from Joe Bullock, head of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association (SDA) in Western Australia.

Whatever happened to warts and all review of ALP? - Ben Westcott, Crikey

Two years on from a comprehensive review to overhaul the Labor party, the party has squibbed on most of the significant reforms proposed. The report, written by Labor identities Steve Bracks, John Faulkner and Bob Carr in 2011, is gathering dust on a shelf. And the federal Labor government is at a catastrophic low in the polls as it appears to be on course for an electoral wipeout.

Given the extensive and long-running media coverage of Labor’s malaise, Crikey decided to investigate how much of the Labor review has been implemented. This confirmed that less than half of the report’s recommendations have been enacted, with the rest either rejected or delegated to committees and lost in Labor’s internal bureaucracy.

Many of the rejected reforms tried in some way to curtail the exceptional powers of union leaders and high-profile party members. These included direct election of the president and vice-presidents by the party base, and rulings to stop the national executive interfering in preselection battles. Another recommendation to hold US-style primaries for seats was adopted but severely watered down following pressure from powerful union leaders. Federal primaries have been expressly ruled out, while a limited number will be trialled in upcoming state elections in NSW and Victoria.

Labor factions jockey for ueensland poll positions - Courier Mail

Ms Newton will benefit from a factional deal that saw the Australian Workers' Union seize control of Labor preselections in Sandgate and Nudgee in return for backing a Left candidate Peter Freeleagus in the federal electorate of Capricornia.

But senior figures in the ALP insisted the AWU will not run a candidate in Nudgee because to do so would spark outright "war" with the rival Labor Unity faction. The former failed candidate in Nudgee, Leanne Linard, is being touted to stand again.

Queensland Labor MPs beaten in the federal election could be parachuted into winnable state seats - Courier Mail

It is believed Shayne Neumann and Yvette D'Ath are in line to bolster state ranks after a likely wipeout in the September 14 federal poll.

Mr Neumann and Ms D'Ath would take up the state seats of Ipswich and Redcliffe respectively - covering the federal electorates of Blair and Petrie, which they now represent. 

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(Thesis on unions-ALP relationship)

Dirt flies in Gellibrand preselection - SMH

Former attorney-general Nicola Roxon has lashed out at ''misogyny'' within Labor ranks, after the release of an anonymous dirt sheet attacking a candidate in the preselection battle for the safe seat of Gellibrand.

Covered also in the Australian

A SCANDAL sheet making defamatory claims about a candidate's sexual history and honesty while working for the Health Services Union has poisoned Labor's attempts to run an orderly preselection ballot for the federal seat of Gellibrand.

Unions mount court challenge to donation laws - National Times

The laws, introduced by the O'Farrell government in 2011, ban donations from anyone other than individuals on the electoral roll and restrict what individual unions affiliated to a political party can spend on campaigns.

They also prohibit the payment of affiliation fees such as those paid by unions to Labor and restrict the ability of Unions NSW and business or environment groups from receiving money from member organisations to run political advertising.

US embassy explains ALP pre-selections - Cable 25 February 2009

In Australia, nominations for state and federal parliamentary seats are called "pre-selections." Meetings are held at the district branches of each party and the members choose a candidate. Because this is a small-scale, parochial exercise, ALP pre-selections are controlled by those who can bring the most local ALP members to a meeting. The factions, and the unions which back each faction, can always ensure that enough members turn up to a branch meeting to determine the outcome (sometimes known as "branch stacking"). For this reason, even though the unions are now less than 20 percent of the workforce in Australia, they retain a disproportionate share of political power within the ALP. 

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