It does raise the question on whether the Labor Party should allow individual voting members (which has tended towards branch stacking) or whether it should revert to its old system where only unions decided on public office candidates.

It is a social democratic party or a labor party? A very interesting question. Can the two be resolved?

James, I find it very difficult to appreciate the nitty-gritty of government–union relations when ALL our federal and state governments have for decades been chronically out of touch with the constituency and chronic panderers to the big end of town.

This is the biggest problem with our so-called democratic system. It is apparently insurmountable. We simply CANNOT expect our governments to protect us from the looming threats to our future wellbeing. We can only expect them to react as the pressures bite.

We only ever have the ‘choice’ of voting for one manic pro-growth party or the other, with no chance of any sensible sustainability-oriented party getting in.

We apparently can’t expect any party to convert our ever-increasing collective wealth into real improvements in health, education and overall quality of life.

So with this reality, the nature of government relations with certain unions, or of them upholding or not upholding core principles therein, really doesn't seem to amount to a molehill.

"Clearly, it would be ludicrous for ETU to hold out hope for better treatment at the hands of a Coalition government whether at the state or federal level."

As someone who has worked in the energy industry in Queensland for almost 30 years including during the Joh years and as an ETU member (forced) during the campaigns of the 80's the previous statement says more to me about the authors politcal leanings than the realities of how workers have been treated by ALP and Coalition governments in Qld.

In my view treatment of workers has been far more destructive under the ALP than under the Coalition. Maybe the need for a union with party political agenda's and loyalties which all to often have been placed ahead of workers well being is lessened when the Coalition is in power so if the issue is how the ETU is treated rather than how workers are treated there may be some truth to the claim.

Where was the ETU during the Maddock years when workers were having careers trashed and seeing the network run down for the sake of cash flow to George St? Where was the ETU when Beatty was claiming he knew nothing about what happening to the network during that period? If he did know nothing then why had the ETU not briefed him?

During the last round of EBA negotiations the ETU was happy to take a large pay gain for it's members and aid in quashing the concerns of members of other smaller and less powerfull unions.

It's time unions started representing their members rather than the government. Breaking affiliation with the ALP would be a good start.

R0bert

Anybody who thinks that the ALP has a particular interest in workers is living in the past.

Firstly, due to a misunderstanding the older title:

"The ETU's self-destructive threat to leave the Labor Party"

... was retained, instead of my preferred title:

"What will disaffiliation from the Labor Party achieve for the ETU?".

I have been told that that cannot be changed now that the newsletters have been sent out.

As I hoped to make clear from the article I am not necessarily against the ETU disaffiliating from the Labor Party, but mere disaffiliation, without taking other positive steps towards achieving effective politcal representation in our state and Federal parliaments will achieve little for the ETU.

Lev, it's hard to be able to prescribe the best democratic structure for the Labor Party. Whether more weight is given to unions or party branches, there will still be problems in the current circumstances. The problem will never be fully solved until the rank-and-file party members and union members become more active and remind their officebearers and parliamentary representatives that they are there to serve them instead of things being the other way round.

Ludwig,

I totally with your point that sustainability and population stability are the critical issues of our epoch. On my blog (http://candobetter.org/blog/3) I make this clear.

However, it will be extremely difficult to fix that if we don't fix the current situation where our democratic institutions are nearly always manipulated in order to frustrate the best interests (and even clear stated will of the public in the case of the current attempts to privatise NSW's electricity - see http://candobetter.org/node/630).

The corruption of the Labor Party to turn it into yet another party that governs, without consulting either the electorate or its own constituency, in the interests of our selfish elites is a major facet of this problem.

When we fix that, then we stand a much better chance of confronting the dire threats we face.

One path towards fixing that is for unions like the ETU to insist that Labor Parliamentarians represent their members instead of land speculators, mining companies, financiers and other corporations.

(Thanks to those who made other comments. More later)

James Sinnamon (author)

I would think that the Queensland Government may have as its priority ensuring the public have access to affordable and reliable energy supplies. They may also want to do that at the least cost to the public purse.

I am not sure exactly how the ETU figures in that equation ?

Should the people of Queensland have to pay extra for their power to keep the ETU happy and affiliated ?

It is said that Labor is not what it used to be, but then again neither is anything else. There are coherent arguments for competition in energy generation which will benefit consumers , many of those poor souls who don't earn anywhere near what the ETU members are earning will pay less for their power.

The issue of ALP democracy - I wonder if the simplest way to achieve a more representative party is to give a vote to all ALP members and to registered members of affiliated unions. That would broaden the base of the party. They could periodically elect a State council which could then select parliamentary candidates and an Executive. While unions would have an advantage in that they could promote their candidates for the Council they would have to work at it. It would also be possible to have rules which would enable a more open process.

Westernred's claim that the ETU stands in the way of Queenslanders receiving cheaper power is ideological claptrap.

It presumes that the Queensland's electricity utilities are rife with inefficiency and outrageous feather-bedding and that the only way that it can possibly be fixed is by having the whole operation handed across to private operators who will then, under the supposed discipline of a competitive market be driven by market forces to remove the feather-bedding.

The unstated assumption is that the private corporations should be allowed to be as ruthless as they wish to their workforces in the same way that other privatised corporations have been to theirs (e.g. Telstra, see http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2007/s1952054.htm) As long as it can be claimed that we are getting cheaper power or, more likely, power that is cheaper than it would otherwise be, we should not concern ourselves with the loss of jobs, wages, training opportunities, career paths and basic dignity for the electricity workforce.

The case for privatisation has been argued many times online and examination of these discussions (see, for example http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2008/06/19/the-power-of-persuasion/ http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2007/12/12/nsw-electricity-privatisation-a-quick-look/) will reveal that the sort of nonsense that westernred is trying to peddle doesn't stand up for long.

The 'competition' of which westernred writes is self-evidently nonsense. The only way to have true competition would be to have each house connected to two or more electricity grids. As our governments are not quite stupid enough to allow a repeat of the kind of idiocy that led in the 1990's to both Optus and Telstra fibre optic cables being laid in front of each house in the cities of Australia whilst regional and rural areas missed out altogether, we will be left with a pretence of competition in which different suppliers feed their energy into the same grid. How individual consumers are to distinguish between power from one source and power from another when it reaches their house is not clear.

Common sense would tell us that any 'efficiencies' gained, even if the workers working for the different competing suppliers are turned into slaves could not possibly overcome the still necessary duplication.

Too true daggett. I think we all know the cost/competition argument is a furphy. Competition certainly hasn't meant extensive mobile phone coverage over Australia, even in non-remote areas.

Would it be naive to suggest it is time for the unions and Labor to part ways? Unions, like any lobby group, need to focus more on representing their members rather than acting as a wing of any political party. The thousands of dollars that go into the ALP coffers from the unions every year could be better spent on campaigns like defeating the unfair aspects of WorkChoices and promoting fairer workplaces. Perhaps union fees could even be reduced to attract and assist members. Afterall it is a collective, not a profit making enterprise.

Political parties and governments represent all Australians not just one sector (in theory) and they should not be wings of any group, either the business lobbies nor the workers'. The ALP and the Coalition need to be able to fairly represent the interest of both to come up with a fair and balanced system.

Labor has long evolved from its union and working class origins. I am pro-union but believe that unions should evolve to be able to interact equally with whichever government is in power and act truly in the interests of their members at all times without concession to any other political motivations.

Pelican,

Your observations are correct, but some of them miss the point. The Labor Party has obviously drifted away from its original purpose, as I have pointed out in the article. If it was true to its original purpose it would be acting as a political arm of the union movement rather than unions acting as the wing (presumably industrial) of the Labor Party.

If you look objectively at our supposedly democratic system you would understand that it is a myth that the likes of Anna Bligh are in any way representing the broader community when they trample on the rights of ETU members, or, for that matter, the residents of the Mary Valley, the Sunshine Coast, Redland City, West End in Brisbane or when the forcibly amalgamated many local governments last year.

Ordinary people are not being represented in parliament.

The way democracy should work is that parties who represent the interests of ordinary members including workers, farmers, small businessmen or whatever, should openly and transparently represent the interests of their constituencies. If the worker's party or parties can't form an outright majority, then they should form coalitions with other groups. Of course, the should still try to ensure that the reasonable needs of all members of society are met.

What we have instead are governments which secretively, behind closed doors impose the agendas of our wealthy elite upon the rest of us.

This must change and i think the ETU, for its part, should do what it can to make sure that one way or another, its members and other workers are properly represented in Parliament, and they should certainly not tolerate politicians who are openly opposed to their interests to continue to govern in their name.

It really boils down to whether or not you accept that workers are entitled to political representation, whether or not through the Labor Party. I say they are. Australia's business interests and the corporate news media would have us think that they are not.

I didn't realise the number of assumptions I was making!

I agree that the distribution of power is efficiently fixed to one operator, but they do not also have to produce the power or even retail it to the consumer. There can be more than one generator source.

Let's posit a hypothetical example - In an integrated electricity grid a private energy producer operating in NSW says "We can provide Queensland with power at 20% of the current cost". They may well be a highly efficient high tech outfit who pay their staff small fortunes.

I don't think that Quiggin makes a case one way or the other , but given his stated "social democratic perspective" I suspect it would be a "public good - private bad" sort of argument.

Westernred, if you make huge logical leaps in your contributions, then perhaps you should not be surprised if others make assumptions about what assumptions you have made.

Perhaps you should explain more clearly why you think the ETU is preventing Queensland consumers from receiving cheaper electricity, if not by preventing the elimination of jobs, the reduction of wages and the destruction of training and career opportunities.

In my experience, pro-privatisation ideologues presume that all the public share their beliefs that it is inherently a good thing for workers to be screwed (as they were by Telstra) in order that we get cheaper services (and, of course, ignore the fact that consumers still missoout anyway because money is siphoned away to shareholders, stockbrokers, merchant bankers and CEOS, etc).

---

It remains to be seen if any private operator can provide power significantly cheaper than what could be done by a government operator, except by screwing its workforce, variously cutting corners and shifting costs previously borne by the the electricity utility onto the broader community.

However, if this were possible, there is no reason why the Government could not enter into a contract with such a provider to provide power into the grid.

However, any suggestion that consumers receiving power through such a single grid should be able to distinguish between electrons received from different providers and, accordingly pay their bills directly to the different providers, is self-evident nonsense.

---

When I referred you to the articles by John Quiggin as just two of a number of possible examples of discussions about privatisation, I was making the point that the sort of arguments put by you don't stand up for long in these discussions. I wasn't simply referring to just the articles, by John Quiggin.

The only assumption I have made is that the ETU are opposed to Labor / State Government policy on corporatisation , a policy which is designed to encourage competitaion for power generation with potential cost savings.

If the distributor of electricity can buy power from a variety of sources they will be able to pass those savings on to the consumer.

Just because the Labor Party was formed in the 1890s does not mean its thinking needs to be of that vintage.

Westernred, really not sure on what grounds anyone can justify introducing competition into a natural monopoly.
From a marketing point of view there is no way to differentiate between one electron and another electron
economics tells you that the building of transmission pylons, substations, and providing an electricity grid is a massive barrier to entry
physics tells us that a third of the electricity generated is lost in resistance every 200 km of travel

It's sad that the only effective opposition to the modern market madness is the ETU who have lost their historic platform for airing their grievance or point of view.

The Labor Party no longer enjoys the support of its traditional 1950s supporter, factory workers and tradespeople and its losing the intelligensia that Gough collected in the 1970s. Rudd is probably further to the right than Malcolm Fraser and might even make old Ming look moderate.

James

I don't think the Bligh Government's actions are anything new. From the very first days of labor representaton in parliament there were critics saying essentially that the party was not representing workers but helping capitalism.

The party admittedly has changed over the years and its social composition is more white collar workers (but still workers!) and petit bourgeois than in the past. There are still however a large number of ex union officials. Those paid ex-officials are not workers or members of the working class. (More on this later.)

The role of the ALP is to manage capitalism, not necessarily to implement reforms for workers. That is why the history of Labor Parties around the world is one of attacking their supporter base (workers) to help capitalism run according to its bizzare logic.

You argue that workers need their own poltical party. That is true. The question is whether it is a pro-capitalist party (like the ALP) or a pro-worker party. We need to be clear that a party formed by the trade union bureaucracy will govern in the end for the bosses, not workers. This is because paid union officials are not workers. They are the retailers of workers' labour power to the bosses and so have a material interest in the continuation of the exploitative wages system.

One final point. Rather than fretting about political representation, the ETU could launch an all out strike campaign for better wages and against privatisation (ie to defend jobs and living standards.) That's the way forward for the union movement (and it would actually increase membership too).

Once the ETU has used its industrial power to win real wage increases and defend jobs, then we can sit down and talk about what is the best way to express this militancy politically.

Daggett

“If it was true to its original purpose it would be acting as a political arm of the union movement rather than unions acting as the wing (presumably industrial) of the Labor Party.”

I agree, but the fact is the Labor Party has moved so far to the Right and away from those early origins. While they are better than the other lot, the ALP has very much evolved away from a heavy pro-worker/pro-union platform. Rudd’s famous mantra of “economic conservative” is still ringing in our ears.

Transparency is the ideal as you mention, but even without it, the actions of the Howard government for example, would betray any notions of acting in the interests of workers.

My point is (perhaps idealistic ) that if elected parties are expected to represent their constituencies to the detriment of other sectors, then this is not democracy. It might be the best we have got but the system can be improved. If particular lobby groups or unions are not powerful enough to represent their constituency then there is little representation for that group ie. workers or small business (whatever the case might be). WorkChoices legislation effectively reduced the power of the unions of which the effect was to deny any balance in industrial relations.

This is why I worry about parties being too aligned to one particular group or interest, as opposed to working in the interests of the Australian people as a whole and getting the balance right between the interests of business and the interest of workers and ordinary people.

Real democracy would include more input from the electorate either through referendums held at the federal election (perhaps) that would not only elect the new government but would set the direction on some policy or conscience vote issues. (And selling off publicly owned assets like NSW power and the Snowy Hydro). Naturally this would be unworkable and unwieldy for every aspect of policy and to that extent we rely on the elected government for representation.

First , if you have different sources of generation you can buy electricity from them, they can compete. It does not require separate distribution of the electricity.

I don't believe Labor is anymore Right than it ever was - it was Labor which was the main promoter of the White Australia policy at the beginning of Federation. Labor's economic policies reflected the prevailing managed capitalist views of the time which saw labor and capital in Australia reach a long term compromise (now ended).

Union officials and ALP hacks keep getting elected because they control the numbers. If you give a Union a bloc vote and then give the "proxy" to the Secretary it will inevitably end up with that person or their favourites being elected to Parliament, subjet only to arguing with other Secretaries about how to divvy it up.

Give the vote to ordinary Union members and I think you remove that problem.

Westernred, it seems to me that you are leading us around in circles.

As I have already written, it is conceivable that different power generation companies (in addition to those with excess power from, for example, roof-top solar panels) could supply energy into a grid, but once that energy gets into the grid, there is no practical way that consumers can distinguish between power supplied by one company as distinct from power supplied by another, as Billie and I have already pointed out.

In such circumstances, why would consumers, instead of getting on with their lives, want to be bothered deciding how much electricity should be fed into the grid by each supplier on any given day?

If that decision is to be made, it would be far better left to the entity controlling the grid. Only blinkered ideologues believe that it is not possible for this to be done well by a power supply utility that is publicly owned and accountable to its owners through parliamentary democracy.

---

Passy, I don't entirely disagree with what you write. The free market capitalist system is an obvious failure and needs to be replaced by something else. I would still term the replacement 'socialism', although a form of socialism which takes into account the physical limitations of our badly degraded natural environment (See "Trotsky's Biggest Blindspot" by Sandy Irvine at http://candobetter.org/node/392)

However, the path towards that can only be found if workers and other ordinary people assert their right to have input into the political decisions which affect their lives. At the moment, they are being told that they should not have that right.

I am aware of how Labor parliamentarians have let down their constituency since very early in their history, but I think we have to bear in mind, that they are not altogether alone in this. As examples, I would also include a number of far left organisations amongst those which have let down the Australian working class.

(tobecontinued)

(continuedfromabove)

However, back to the central issue:

It is obvious that workers and many other ordinary sectors of society are not being represented in Parliament. All the parties, including the Labor Party, are pursuing the agendas of the corporate sector to the detriment of everyone else.

This highly undemocratic situation should be challenged whenever and wherever it is possible to do so, and that includes inside the Labor Party.

What the ETU is threatening to do has already been done on almost innumerable occasions in past decades. Unions disaffected by Labor Government policies have spat the dummy and have disaffiliated, but have never seriously attempted to set up alternative political parties to represent their interests of the members. Had they done this and had resolved to hold account to their constituencies any of their Parliamentary representatives, then they could have easily been in a position to challenge the Labor Party by now, or have even eclipsed them.

Consequently, there has never been anyone to turn to except even more reactionary political organisations such as the Liberal Party. Inevitably when these parties form government, they attack workers even more viciously than the Labor Party. This has caused all those unions who had previously indignantly repudiated the Labor Party to meekly come back under its skirts, and after decades, the political landscape has not moved forward an inch.

Inevitably, if disaffected unions follow the trajectory that the ETU seems intent on heading, we will, at best, only be back to where we are today after yet another two decades.

As to union militancy being a panacea, I have my doubts. Certainly more union militancy, rather than less is needed today, but a simple outbreak of industrial action, without regard by the trade unions for the broader economic, ecological and political factors could lead us backwards as the 1979 "Winter of Discontent" against the Callaghan Labor government only helped bring about the anti-worker neo-liberal counter-revolution of Margaret Thatcher.

(tobecontinued)

Daggett

I have been away and so am only now responding to your points.

I've begun reading the article about Trotsky's biggest blindspot. Its crticism of Trotsky on the environment is based in part on the idea that there are limits to growth, or as the author puts it:

"Now there certainly could and should be specific advances in many aspects of modern life. The issue is the possibility of open-ended and across-the-board advancement. Contrary to Trotsky and most socialist thought, there are insuperable limits to what humans can sustainably do, with diminishing returns and increasingly negative trade-offs taking their toll."

I think the author is confusing two societies - socialist and capitalist. Certainly under capitalism there do appear to be limits. But actually the problem for capitalism is over-production.

I would contend that the grundnorm of capitalist society is the extraction of surplus value from workers and the accumulation of part of that surplus, profit, in an ongoing cycle of extraction of surplus and re-investment. It is this process, in my view, that is the fundamental cause of the environmental destruction going on. If this is correct, then to end that destruction we workers must end the profit system and replace it with a democratic society in which production occurs to satisfy human need. As Rosa Luxemburg wrote, the choice for humanity is socialism or barbarism. (And to preempt those on the right, Stalinism is not socialism, and neither was the Stalinist USSR a workers' state. It was state capitalist.)

I'd recommend a small pamphlet from Socialist Alternative (www.sa.org.au) on this. It's called Capitalism: It's Costing us the Earth. There are more sophisticated trotskyist or quasi-trotskyist analysyes now available, building on Trotsky's work, thought and life, but this is a good start.

TBC.

Daggett

Also, on another point, I don't see militancy as a panacea. I just think that 25 years of trade union collaboration paved the way for Howard and his twin, Rudd. As the BLF used to say: If you don't fight, you lose.

There hasn't been a lot of fighting going on since the Accord concentrated power in the hands of the union officials and gave some of them seats in the Hawke and Keating Cabinets (more or less) while at the same time destroying rank and file organisation and producing the massive reductions in union membership we have seen.

If the ETU could build itself into a militant union defending jobs, (eg through shutting Qld down to push privatisation off the agenda), gaining real wage increases and thus industrially challenging the rule of capital as a consequece, then I think it would be time for discussions about a party to the left of the ALP based on militancy and a clear poltical analysis about the need to overthrow capitalism for the benefit of all humanity.

Passy, thanks for your responses.

Briefly, for now, whilst this may be drifting a little off-topic, I will just post a short response in turn from Sandy Irvine.

The critique of my essay on Trotsky (http://candobetter.org/node/392) seems to assume that the laws of geology, thermodynamics and ecology vary according the relations of production. Not so! At present it is not just a matter of Peak Oil looming on the horizon but also Peak Soil and many other inherent limits to production beginning to bite. Socialists should be arguing that those with the biggest shoulders and fattest stomachs should bear the brunt of the contraction that now cannot be avoided.

Sandy Irvine
Newcastle Upon Tyne
England

PS:
References to support the above assertions can be found at:
http://www.sandyirvine.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/

Daggett

I agree this issue is off point to some extent, although I think it is really worthy of further disucssion, perhaps with ana rticle from Sandy on OLO. (more of that later.)

In response to Sandy maybe the relations of production have become a fetter on the further development of humanity and the task for the working class is to burst those chains and free humanity to address the environemntal and other issues facing us. (I also think that we view "immutable" natural laws through the prism of the society in which we exist, crudely through the relations of production which prevail.)

Anyway, there is much to discuss on this topic (but maybe only between us!). Could I suggest Sandy offer a brief precis of the article about Trotsky's "blindspot" to OLO. It would need to be worded in such a way as to invite readers unfamiliar with Trotsky into the discussion, and critique what Sandy sees as we socialists seeming technological advancement approach.

Even under capitalism I am sceptical about peak oil, since the price mechanism creates the conditons for profitable exploitation of previously unprofitable reserves or new sources (eg oil sands in Canada) or new technologies and sources such as geothermal, wind power, solar power, tidal power and so on.

Indeed I wrote an article 25 years ago for the Nuclear Disarmamnet Party arguing for those alternatives and pointing out that although human need required their development it would not occur unless there was a profit to be made. This to me highlighted the conflict between profit and need.

I suspect the same argument could be made about peak soil (eg that heh solution is available or can be developed, but only outside the profit system). I don't know since this is the first time I have heard the phrase used. I'll do some chasing up to investigate it further (including reading Sandy's two references.)

Daggett and Sandy

I found this browsing the net on Trotsky and the environment.

It raises some questions but does I think give an answer of sorts to Sandy's critique of trotsky on the environemnt, including the quote from his Literature piece.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/jun2002/envi-j01.shtml

Passy, I agree that the discussion concerning socialism and physical limits of our environment needs to be had elsewhere. So I have created a forum topic "Home » Forums » Political Philosphies » Socialism » Socialism and the limits of our environment" at http://candobetter.org/node/673#comment-1021

You're welcome to add further comments either anonymously or through an account.

I will attend to the other points I have not responded to as soon as I have attended to a large number of chores that desperately need to be done.