Welcome to May Day, that annual occasion in which the abundance created by all history’s workers is acknowledged, the living labour of the many is upheld as the ongoing source of all value, and the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) writes an unreadable pamphlet.
Pamphlets have, of course, played a crucial role in the progress of organised labour. The truly mobilising document first places its worker at the centre of things, next locates their present conditions within a long history of injustice, and finally, having offered a brief but grand narrative of unequal social order, unites all readers with some upbeat promise about the loss of chains, etc.
The pamphlet directly addressed to a hitherto powerless class takes instruction from drama. An author does not only understand the fatal flaw of history’s newest villain, but can describe it so well that the reader commits to felling that target. If a c-suite is shown by the pamphleteer to be entirely dependent on its workers and “therefore produces, above all … its own grave-diggers” then its fall, and so the victory of labourers, become to the reader not only possible conclusions, but inevitable, and fairly entertaining to read about.
The document generated by the ACTU is directly addressed to no one. Like a lot of “professional” written works, this was not produced to stir readers, or even to have them. It exists as a proof that someone has written something.
No one writes sentences like,” We also need to create genuine deterrents to stop employers from preventing workers from joining their unions and speaking up about shared concerns” or “ The laws to protect the interests of working people should include a provision like the one in the tax laws that has the effect of stopping employers from doing things for the purp … zzzz” expecting to be read. The Change the Rules document, which offers dreary respect to Agnes, Delia and other fictional workers named for the aunts of an ALP frontbench, is not a manifesto for change, but a bureaucratic obligation to the Change the Rules media campaign.
It has been a decade since the ACTU undertook advertising of comparable scale. The Your Rights at Work (YRAW) campaign, its history chronicled here in 2009 by future Secretary Sally McManus, did a fair job of explaining to many the source of newly emerged workplace uncertainty: the Howard government’s passage of WorkChoices. Even if it cannot be agreed this moment of industrial lunacy was “dead, buried and cremated” by the Rudd government elected to power in 2007, it is generally agreed that those Howard amendments to the Workplace Relations Act were keenly felt by Australian workers.
Opposition to WorkChoices was largely down to “the seriousness of the issue”. Even McManus, in her 2009 assessment of the campaign, concedes, “that you can’t just make these campaigns happen”. She’s speaking here of organisers and not the mass of Australian workers, only 15% of whom take up union membership, making ours one of the least unionised OECD nations.
Still. McManus must be aware that the peak body she now leads was not the cause of widespread disdain for WorkChoices but merely an organisation that explained to many their real-life frustrations. The “seriousness of the issue” meant that the worker was “compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life.” (That’s how you write a pamphlet. Well, if you wish it to be read.)
Unlike YRAW, a campaign that couldn’t just happen, Change the Rules is a campaign that may not happen at all. As much as one might broadly agree with McManus that insecure work is a social and economic blight, that employers have too much power etc, one might not agree that his or her organisation has a plan grand enough to fill a genuine pamphlet.
McManus has thus far spoken a great deal about arbitration and, past exhortation to break unjust laws notwithstanding, legal tweaks. She appears as adversarial and engaging as is the ACTU document few will read. In her Press Club address, she makes two claims with all the appeal to the young worker of a bonus paid in Jonas Brothers tickets. One is that “Labor rebuilt workplace rights after WorkChoices”. Another is, “since then the world has changed; changed in ways no one could have foreseen.”
The secretary’s undisguised partnership with the ALP is a problem. The secretary’s statement that the current crisis, of all capitalist crises, was unforeseeable, will be repugnant not only to readers of The Communist Manifesto, but anyone who saw The Big Short.
Many works have been written on the revival of a trade union movement truly deluded that it is deluding others with its technocratic speech. I’ve nothing much of value to add. I will say, though, that if all union officials were to read, write or otherwise contribute to a pamphlet that could not only be endured by ordinary people, but understood and enjoyed, that might be a nice start.
Union officials of the nation unite. You have nothing to lose but safe seat pre-selection. You have, if you care to truly address workers, a movement to win back. Give that a go.
Happy May Day.
I clicked on the link but it was too much to ask for me to read the entire thing.
When I first read your piece, I thought that you were being a bit harsh, but no. You’re on point, Helen.
The union’s power comes from emotion and from making a case. God only knows that there is material aplenty. I blame the boring union guide, as shown, on modern marketing. Ben Chifley didn’t rely upon an army of post graduates armed with photoshop to frame his message. He spoke from the heart and laid the blame squarely upon the culprits.
I fail to see what’s difficult about reading this pamphlet. Well written, logical, organised and in plain English. As for Ben Chifley, what may have been appropriate for the world of the fifties isn’t relevant to the world of 2018. What is difficult to read is Helen’s piece.
Ok Howard. Compare what has been (cough) published by the ACTU and the Executive Summary of the Gonsky Report (either version). I don’t say that there latter is particularly well written but it is an improvement over something that looks like a Green Party pamphlet. The BCA et all will be dancing with glee. Others perceive the publication as a squandered opportunity. The major fault of the pamphlet is that it is not well written or, indeed, logical; it proxies as an irrational (no facts or links or even a coherent comprehensive sentence) polemic at best. If you are not convinced then so be it.
As to the “world of 2018” who do you think pays (in the long run via tax deductions etc.) for the excessive (?) retinue or entourage (or would the word ‘horde’ suffice) that follow Ministers and P.Ministers about these days. Another exemplar of the yanks at the end of the 60s that suggest that the ephemeral office of Minister is of some significance (akin to either Royalty or a fan club).
Howard, I think our mate Don Watson would be useful to consider here. (I refuse to believe there is a single Crikey reader who didn’t love Death Sentence at least a little bit.)
The problem is not that the writing is difficult to understand (Although I would say it does not qualify as plain English. Bit rich coming from me, I know, but I don’t use two verbs where one would do. See example, “We also need to create genuine deterrents to stop employers from preventing workers from..” It’s a written nightmare from which the reader longs to wake.) It is just so bloodless and businesslike.
Nothing wrong with a bit of persuasion and passion. Nothing wrong with writing words that stir. Loads wrong with writing something, probably by committee, that is as thrilling as the technical document that comes with your washing machine. You just don’t build a mass movement without a bit of sass.
Yes it may be bloodless and businesslike and it may be like a ‘technical document that comes with your washing machine’, but would you be okay with your washing machine coming with no instructions?
And what’s wrong with a document being written by a committee? If it’s on behalf of an entire organisation it is not just the views of one person. This document is only one tool in an arsenal. There are other avenues for providing the persuasion and passion that fires the imagination as you have done in your article.
I am curious to know the one verb you would use in your quoted example, without losing any meaning or context.
“We also need to create [genuine] deterrents to stop employers from [preventing workers from] blah”.
Is there anyone who would not concur that the words in square brackets are superfluous to the sentence? The word genuine is misplaced and hence contributes nothing other than annoyance at the inept writing of the author(s) of the document from the ACTU. Ditto for ..preventing.. etc.
Suggestions : either “create deterrents to stop employers” OR : “create deterrents to prevent employers”. Clearly the latter alternative is to be preferred but for the average block-head who struggled with the content of the daily-notices at school (and likely hasn’t read a dammed thing since) it isn’t going to matter.
However, to take issue with a statement of Helen’s : “Nothing wrong with a bit of persuasion and passion”. I tend to incline to the view that there is everything wrong with such an approach. The mere logic of the alternative view ought to suffice for persuasion and thus renders “passion” redundant (and frankly dangerous or at least undermining of the alternative approach).
I wasn’t able to respond to Kyle Hargraves, May 7, 2018 at 2:18 pm.
Thank you for your fine example Kyle. Maybe you could be seconded to the next publication committee.
However, When we are so focused on pedantry, sometimes we can’t see the trees for the Forrest.
Geez Helen, you’re so painfully correct.
Send it to Sally McManus.
Your last two paras are killers.
Happy May Day.
With regard to your first paragraph, Helen, the pamphlet is entirely readable : by an eight or ten year old at least. The content contained in the pamphlet is also directed to the comprehension of a ten year old. Were the pamphlet rewritten (with appropriate sentences, paragraphs and punctuation) for an adult audience its deficiencies would be only too apparent.
In particular the pamphlet (ergo its authors), apart from a number of inaccuracies, assumes that the industrial ills of Australia are peculiar to Australia. There is not a hint in the pamphlet that the matters identified (and the personal examples provided) are global, influenced by (advancing) electronic technology and, given an increasing concentration of capital, complex, and here to stay. At the very least the pamphlet OUGHT to acknowledge the trends over the previous 30 years and THEN provide a 21st century approach rather an implicit pine for relations as they were in the 1950s.
Such is JUST the problem of the Left. Those who have influence will not be told which, I suggest, reflects a union membership of 15% of the workforce. Frankly, I would have assumed something like 10-12 percent.
Yes, yes, Comrade Razor, as you so eloquently explained a while back, you could do a whole lot better interview than Leigh Sales, but whatever the “past-their-use-by date” problems of the copy writers at Sally Mc Manus’s ACTU, their copy is actually readable.
Perhaps it’s just another symptom of cognitive decline, but reading your copy is such hard work that I sometimes give up. I imagine a sort of electronic word blender: Take lots of nice fresh subjective clauses, a generous tablespoon of exotic cultural references and blend. Pipe out in a diverting pattern and serve. The ACTU’s point-form publication , by contrast, covers a lot of ground, making it useful for people who talk to others.
Your deconstruction work has set you up to write an artful, stirring manifesto. Just do it, It’ll help the campaign.
Love your line ‘Ben Chifley didn’t rely upon an army of post graduates…’!
Straight to the point, unfortunately.
Neil, If you are one of the perpetrators regarding the pamphlet, thenI can understand why it would be unreadable.
Using phrases never to be found outside Higher Ed, such as; ‘cognitive decline;’, ‘point-form publication’, and finally ‘deconstruction’. How the hell do you expect a worker behind a shop counter to understand your rhetoric? After all, aren’t these the workers who are less unionised than any other?
Helen’s piece was exactly what is wrong with ‘organisers’ today. Never seen a shop floor but aiming for both floors of government.
As matters stand I actually have some sympathy for Neil’s view in regard to Ms Razer’s writing; in deed the style frequently compromises the content. As to the common disposition to write as one converses I consider it to be extremely poor form but be that at it may.
However, I do disagree with the statement : “The ACTU’s point-form publication , by contrast, covers a lot of ground, making it useful for people who talk to others.” Frankly, there is no context and a discussion of ANY of the dot points (without the [historical] context) is going to amount to a bath in pooled ignorance at best. I regard this aspect of the article as Ms Razer’s principal point.
As to your own remark : Using phrases never to be found outside Higher Ed, such as; ‘cognitive decline;’, ‘point-form publication’, and finally ‘deconstruction’”
Amounts to vocabulary that is taken as given in this day and age – and is by no means confined to ‘Higher Ed’; almost an oxymoron too.
A metric of the extent to which technology is entrenched into common living is the quantity of technical worlds available and used by the common man (or should that be person nowadays?). One determines this metric by a scrutiny of contemporary literature and comparing the extent of the vocabulary over the comparative period. For those (if they exist) who do not comprehend the examples provided by yourself then they are “lost” – as to appeal to an adjective used by Milton – or, for that matter, Luther (in roughly the same conditions). In any event their perspectives, for apparent want of articulation, don’t matter.
> Never seen a shop floor
Neither have I for a number of decades but I began my apprenticeship in a trade and in life in one such enclosure. May I suggest that such an encounter may prove to be a useful experience for you. Your assumptions may become just a tad less romantic.
Oh! Kyle, what a precious little darling. Should I tease out or even unpack your use of ‘in deed’ instead of the correct ‘indeed’? How on earth did Lenin, Castro or Ho Chi Minh succeed without you and Neil showing them the correct verb to use with the phrase ‘workers’ struggle’?
I can see Mandela and Winnie arguing over the correct placement of a colon or semi-colon in their manifesto.
Even the great Karl may have turned to Freidrich regarding their confrontation of exactly where a paragraph should end, saying…what the fuck does it matter??? Let us just get it printed and see what eventuates.
On the other hand, I think you might be just taking the piss!
I think you are being a tad unfair here by comparing what is probably just a slight typo from Kyle to genuine grammatical errors he has identified. However, you make a very valid point about substance over style. What’s the message and do readers get it?
Obviously this document isn’t meant for everyone and isn’t perfect, but as far as I can see, all the relevant information is there. It may have been compiled by a committee but that probably just means there was widespread consultation in the process. That’s what’s important, not how perfect the publication is.
If nothing else, through Helen and Crikey, it has received much attention and in the final analyses this is what is important.
And yes, I think Kyle just may be taking the piss!!
Oh, Neil. I really never did say “I could do better than Leigh”. This would be a nonsense, as I have never once conducted a television interview and I’d imagine I have no talent for it.
It is surely permissible to say I feel that the work of Andrew Bolt ignores some issues”, for example, without being able to write a (purportedly) political column oneself. It is acceptable to criticise television (or art, or film, or political policy or road planning) without being able to produce it. If it is not, then journalism is truly over.
For me, the document says very little (it’s a bit of a vague thing that does not specifically demand or guarantee much) and it says this in a way that ain’t gonna get people yelling “Sally Sally” as they yelled Bernie’s name. Bit of passion would be good. But, again, I will say that the document is typical of so-called professional writing: it exists as a proof that something has been written.
It is not really addressed to us. And I don’t think it gives people at work good discussion points. BUT I do like the whole CTR thing of encouraging people to actually speak with co-workers.
Bit more of that, no?
It’s just not much chop. And I worry that the ACTU doesn’t trust us union members with a document that is plain and stirring. And, one that makes concrete demands. Bit, instead, gives it hazy enough to continue support for the ALP, which can’t fail to meet demands that aren’t actually there.
Thanks for such a comprehensive (and early morning ) reply to my whinges Helen.
What mostly set me off was the sense of frustration over the collective left spending so much energy having a go at one-another on personal or tribal ideological grounds -It’s a bad as fucking football or cricket what with the petty feuds, sledging ,glory seeking and reversion to silly stereotypes. True, Helen, you didn’t say you could do a better interview than Leigh Sales, but I thought I could see just a hint tint of green in the text. I see your point about critics not necessarily having the necessities themselves, but my anxieties make me wish that more people of talent would just get on with it themselves. I agree that we urgently need voices and inspiration , but FFS, for more of that to happen there needs to be some respect for a range of the voices and perspectives. The Libs for years maintained the broad church fiction to their electoral advantage. Meanwhile, back at the left, half the word count goes on niggles, hair splits, and Marxist insider point scoring .
I haven’t had a voice to really cheer for since Mick Young’s best parliamentary speeches and Gough became PM and freed me from the menace of Nasho. Perhaps it’s just a yearning thing. You’re generous with your unpaid words .ta, Neil
You were not the only one freed from Nasho when Gough and Lance Barnard abolished National Service as one of the first acts of their two man cabinet in November, 1972. I myself was already ten months into my service.
Personally I haven’t had a voice to cheer for since Paul Keating left Parliament. The neoliberal rot was cemented with the anti union, conservative mediocrity of the John Howard years where we saw the gap between rich and poor become greater and more entrenched.
Sally speaks in Cairns tomorrow. I’m struck by how the pamphlet is context free. She says the corporations have too much power. Well the weapons corporations have more power than most. But we have bipartisan support for war and war making. Will Sally speak about the militarisation of civil society? About the militarisation of our unis: a result of Labor policy supporting endless war with its master the USA. Our economy has turned from one based on fossil fuels to military. And the mantra of jobs backed by the Labour movement is underpinning it. The pamphlet could be easily used to argue for more jobs in defence and weapons manufacture. Blurrrrghhh. Thank Helen. Fresh!
Yet again I, being so honoured, have managed to have a post embargoed by Crikey that may see the light of day (sometime) on Wednesday. As to your conjectures I suspect that Sally will keep her speech as simplistic as possible (in line with the document) and thus : no – the militarisation if civil society will NOT be mentioned – but any number of the disassociated (albeit global) dot points will be raved into the ether.