So what are the key issues for the Australian union movement during one of the most significant economic events of the last century? What dominates unions’ “response to the global financial crisis” to be considered at the forthcoming ACTU Congress?
Protectionism, via “buy local” requirements that would waste taxpayers’ money in government procurement, and an end to free trade agreements.
Internationalism, with calls to dob the Government into the International Labour Organisation.
Opposition to lifting a retirement age that was established 100 years ago and hasn’t been changed since.
A return to pattern bargaining, ignoring the circumstances of individual businesses and the benefits of greater workplace flexibility.
And then there’s unions’ responses in other areas. Keeping consumer-punishing tariffs on imported motor vehicles. Opposition to letting parents see how their kids’ schools compare to others. Opposition to any emissions trading scheme that might see some industry lose jobs, even if other industries gain jobs. Reflexive opposition to privatisation.
Most of this agenda could have been written in the 1970s. In fact, it was. Australia’s union movement has not developed intellectually in the past 30 years, despite the parliamentary Labor Party under Bob Hawke realising twenty years ago the need for an open, competitive Australian economy and the urgency of reforms that would get us there. But unions appear to still want Australia to be a sheltered workshop, hiding behind protectionist walls, with businesses heavily regulated and consumers kept ignorant of inconvenient facts.
The response of the Right to the economic crisis has been profoundly flawed. After they finished trying to blame governments for the financial meltdown, conservatives in Australia and the US have persistently argued against economic stimulus and government action to address the crisis, apparently preferring a Herbert Hoover-style approach of letting the economy flatline for a few years.
Australia’s union movement appears to be every bit as reactionary and moribund. The crisis has tested both sides of the ideological divide and found both sorely wanting.
It’s all very well to wish a plague on both houses, if you actually present an idea of your own for consideration. I do not see one in this editorial.
One point, sadly most of our economic and social infrastructure is stuck in the 70s, which was last time they had any sizable investment!
Seán Marshall
The protectionist talk from the unions is very disappointing. I was shocked by their insistence that government tenders should give Australian tenders a 20% price advantage ( ie an Australian tender that is 20 % higher should be chosen over the foreign tenderers).
This is primitive stuff and shows a mindset that should have been abandoned decades ago.
David, theyre just following the US
Again a critique itself that is stuck in late 20th C rationalism without regard for the reality of resource decline. Let’s not just sit our our hands being armchair econonomic critiques (far too easy). The logic of constant unlimited growth is about to die. The unions position is protectionist in the sense that it aims to protect local business from the predatory behaviour of global corporations. What is needed is a fundamental rethink of `local’ and local buying by all Australians. Forgot buy Australian – that’s too imprecise a tool for the style of protectionsim needed in the future. We need major efforts for re-localisation of economies and infrastructure. Local regional currency projects are one tool to achieve this in the longer term and we are doing just that! The Sunshine Coast hinterland is currently developing the Baroon Dollar. (www.baroondollar.org)