Current Union problems

1.While Unions were relevant and useful at one point in our history, they are merely secondary agents of Labor Party ideology and, along with the Local Councils, a training ground for future Labor Politicians. The public are sick of this.

2.Unions want your subscription fees but refuse to support one member against another which makes them all but useless in workplace disputes.

3. They were (are) notoriously Undemocratic, forcing the introduction of secret ballots.

4. Their bosses are often bullying, uncompromising and power hungry.

5. They provide a net LOSS to the community due to their wish to force employers to employ staff who are unproductive or in excess of numbers and thereby make workplaces unprofitable.

Has anyone noticed that the structure of the Australian workforce has changed? Employment in manufacturing has declined not because of evil governments or ACTU leaders but because technological developments fundamentally changed the nature of manufacturing itself. Similarly, the growth of ICT industries has been driven by small flexible companies, staffed and owned (often jointly owned by directors and staff) by ICT professionals who have no need for or interest in union membership.

For unions to survive outside the public service and the building industries, in the second of which many tradesmen prefer to work as contractors than as employees, they need to look at the friendly societies of the 19th and 20th centuries which provided essential services to their members at relatively cheap rates. Schools, health insurance, medical and dental services and so on might be fertile grounds for unionists to explore if they weren't so busy blaming everyone else for their failure to see what was going on around them.

Still, I always enjoy John's articles. He's a genuine socialist who cares about people and infinitely preferable to the current crop of environmentalist lefties whose anti-human tendencies are so disturbing.

Just back from Tom's launch in Canberra.

Inspirational!

Senior Victorian, you say:

"Has anyone noticed that the structure of the Australian workforce has changed?"

Tom agrees industries change. Not that long ago the public service began to expand. Public Servants became unionised through the actions of committed unionists building through argument, discussion and strikes.

Nurses and teachers were built into stronger unions through the actions of committed unionists and strikes over pay and conditions.

The problem is not the restructuring of the workforce per se, but the response of the present leadership and their dominant do nothing ideology.

Tom talked about the MUA and how that was built out of the struggles against casualisation.

Tom talked at length about the class collaborationist Accord, favouring Capital at the expense of labor. It could only be sold to other militants by (former) militant leaders with real respect in the workforce like Carmichael.

Tom makes the point that while it is not a one to one relationship the decline in membership closely mirrors the decline in strike activity.

Why did 500,000 people join the first demo against Workchoices? Why did we vote Howard out? Tom argues if the union movement had mobilised workers to take industrial action against Workchoices Rudd and Gillard would not have been able to get away with Workchoices Lite.

One quibble Senior Victorian. I too have my disagreements with environmentalists (they have no or little concept of class, let alone its determinacy of things) but I think it is clear the way capitalism organises itself is inimical to the long term interests of all humans, threatened as we are by climate change and other environmental degradations. Liz Ross's book, Capitalism: It's costing us the earth, might be worth a read.

I'd urge people in Melbourne and Brisbane to go along and listen to Tom make the point that the more militants there are, the more socialists with a vision for a better society involved in the struggles, working together and across unions and campaigns, the better able we will be to re-build unions into the fighting organisations workers expect.

Well done Passy, well written and argued. Might I suggest an article?
What about unsung heroes? I would contend the Howard Govt. would have self destructed much earlier if it were not for the controlling and limiting actions of the Democrats.
They may have been a failure in their own right, yet they managed to make the Howard govt. look if not good, then at least less bad. As soon as the libs had control of the senate, the people saw their true nature, and gave them the flick.
In the same way, we who lived through the 60's and 70's may remember the turmoil of strikes, but at the same time we remember the gap between rich and poor was monumentally smaller.
The unions made Capitalism look good. Witness the current crisis.
the hypocrisy is breathtaking. While workers are told any pay increases must be linked to productivity, CEOs like Sol truj (sorry can't remember the spelling) get an extra mil or two, even when share prices go down.
I'm convinced the problem is with representation. just as our political reps are NOT representative of average aussies in terms of income, super or benefits, so also are our union reps themselves in higher tax brackets.
The unions also have to realise that the Laboral party is no longer the only game in town. In fact, the unions would find a much more empathic home with the Greens or the now virtually defunct Democrats.
Has no one else noticed the parliamentary leader of the Laboral party is a multimillionaire employer of labour?
Who before the election was implicated in problems of underpaying workers?
The laboral party has sold it's soul to the Liberal party, and all it took was a (series of) pay rise(s).
and so have the union bosses.

Senior Victorian

I think another point is that manufacturing has not disappeared. The old battalions still exist and still have incredible although unused power. I am thinking here of transport, building, metalworkers and so on.

While the industries have changed, production is still an major component of our economy. If Transport Workers, or metal workers or building worekrs for example went on strike tomorrow, the place would shut down.

They don't take action anymore in any major way. What has changed?

I would suggest it is the union ideology of the leadership of the left unions. The economic crisis of the early 80s saw them retreat from a class based adversarial or conflictual model to one of collaboration. Essentially the new philosophy became what was good for the boss was good for the worker, and over time unions became the agents of the bosses in pursuing that agenda. They policed the workforce to make sure it did not strike for better wages and conditions. They traded off conditions that years of struggle had won.

Rank and file militants went along at first because they respected those left figures, people who had in the past led major strikes and won.

But as the rank and file became disoriented and disillusioned, the network of militants atrophied, and power became more and more concentrated in the hands not of the membership but of the officials.

The end result? Coverage at less than 20 per cent from a real peak at oen stage of 60 per cent. Indeed during the flood tide as Tom calls it (68 to 74) coverage increased 8 per cent, precisely becuse unions were taking action.a

I think their is another element here. It can be dangerous for capitalism if union officials don't have control of significant elements of the workforce. As membership numbers fall, this is more and more likely to happen. Workers can suddenly lurch into major industrial action if the "restraining" hand of union officialdom is not there.(Perhaps Fairfax was an example of this trend in a union context.)

May 68 in Paris is a classic example.

A big problem for the union in my opinion is the ALP, people see the union leader join the ALP and then their union pay over their dues to the ALP, or see them paying over their dues for ads that does not affect them

There was also a lot of corruptions in the unions, back where I work in the 90s the union official and the employer came to a deal and 2 weeks later the union official was driving around in a BMW. 1/2 the members quit the union soon after

The union just have not looked after the rights of their workers enough to warren memberships, they are always looking at what can the union official receive and which ALP seat they can get after an election