We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now… you can almost see the high-water mark — that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back. Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
For nearly three decades, union members have watched the wave roll back, as tectonic shifts in the economy and constant political attacks emaciated our proud collectives.
The crest must have felt momentous. To be a unionist in the post-war era, as memberships boomed and dividends flowed, must have inspired what Thompson called “a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning …”. But the wave broke in the mid ’90s and the union movement floundered.
The ACTU’s recent autopsy of the failed “Change the Rules” campaign, handed down by former Queensland Labor MP Evan Moorhead earlier this month, has given pause for reflection — why are unions in near-terminal decline?
What went wrong?
Unionists usually offer one of two answers to this question.
The first is political repression, as Change the Rules emphasised — the best efforts of unions have been progressively hampered by laws that stack the deck against them. This is undoubtedly true, as Australia’s industrial relations laws are uniquely draconian and may get worse if Morrison can sway the crossbench. Red tape is now so restrictive that union officials can be charged for drinking tea on the job.
The connection between union membership and better pay and conditions, though still evident to some, are consequently less clear to the masses. As ACTU secretary Sally McManus said, “the promise of pay rises once removed” through the Fair Work Commission, subject to myriad restrictions and caveats, means dividends are now less obvious to many than, say, tax cuts.
The Moorhead report thus supported the goal of legislative reform to reverse these trends, but recommended clearer messaging to inspire support.
Conversely, some unionists emphasise the movement’s own failures as the main reason for their downfall. On Friday, former ACTU leader Bill Kelty told The Australian: “You don’t become a whinger and complain about the system.”
Even some unionists who support legislative change think that unions have failed to remain “industrially relevant” amidst economic change, and many believe that improving organising methods would more reliably bolster union power than the fickle fortunes of political campaigns.
Losing company
A third treatise, less popular among activists, is that broader economic and demographic changes have placed unions at a structural disadvantage.
Homogenous shop floors have fragmented as service industries have grown and supply chains have complicated, giving workers less common cause to rally behind. Significant chunks of labour’s traditional base have also been co-opted into the petit-bourgeois. Imagine the construction worker on six figures with a negatively-geared investment property, who plans to retire on tax-free superannuation and franking credit refunds.
The blurring of the wage-earner/asset-owner categories complicates efforts to foster solidarity. The “aspirational class” might not oppose workers’ rights, but they cannot be relied upon to consistently organise and vote in unions’ best interests, often comfortable with their existing arrangements over radical calls to Change the Rules.
Furthermore, increasing proportions of Australian society have retired, giving them no reason to join or support unions. And workers-turned-superannuants’ interests become entwined with capital, giving retirees few reasons to show solidarity with workers at the ballot box.
Unions have lost “their people”.
Organising the next generation
Who can replace the unions’ deserted base? We must look to the next generation of young workers to breathe life into our ailing collectives.
Millennials have much of their working lives ahead of them and have greater interest in real wages than “entrepreneurial” tax-schemes. They share union values and have demonstrated their willingness to protest. But they have lower rates of membership, as they often work in de-unionised industries and haven’t grown up with a strong union presence in their lives.
The most inspiring industrial action today is that which overcomes structural barriers to teach young workers the value of standing in solidarity. Hospo Voice, for instance, was launched by United Voice as Australia’s first digital-led union in 2018, and has innovatively employed digital tools to organise the largely young, casual and part-time workers of the hospitality industry.
“We find workers online, via social media, through petitions and other online actions, and our leaders start organising conversations with those workers using a text messaging platform,” Ben Redford, Victorian secretary of United Voice, told Crikey. “This is likely to work in other industries that are fragmenting, where jobs are becoming more insecure and where the barriers to talking to workers face-to-face are becoming more and more formidable.”
They’ve used these methods to both industrial and political ends, recruiting more than 1000 members, winning significant compensation from wage thieves and influencing state and federal moves to criminalise wage theft.
Conversely, Change the Rules responded to a fragmented public by trying to be everything to everyone. The campaign poster in my office breakroom had such a litany of goals listed that I had to squint to read them. Much like the ALP’s failed federal campaign, the ACTU provided a shopping list of policies without communicating a vision.
Hospo Voice returns to the roots of unionism, overcoming obstacles to unite workers behind a common purpose. Their unique model is no transferable silver bullet for the union movement’s woes. But we can only hope their novel engagement with the macro-trends affecting the union movement is modelled by its leaders.
My generation literally cannot afford another 30 years of watching our working rights recede.
What do you make of the future of the union movement? Write to boss@crikey.com.au and let us know.
Benjamin Clark is a member of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance.
The single moment that sealed the fate of the union movement? The Accords, introduced by none other than the ‘working class hero’ Bob Hawke during his term as Prime Minister. The ACTU and almost every other union and their careerist officials at the time took the bait like chumps and those who refused to take the bait were forcibly deregistered, by a Labor government. Actions which Labor or the ACTU didn’t like, were dismantled – take the Pilots Strike, which Hawke sent in strike breakers to deal with.
Since then, many of the major unions have become infested with careerist hacks looking for their seat in Parliament rather than looking after their members.
In terms of failed campaigns – the ACTU and other unions themselves need to stop with the obsession of using their resources to get Labor elected and instead direct those resources into supporting and initiating wider industrial campaigns. There was a reason why as the “elect Labor, they are for workers” language, while completely ignoring their history in government, increased leading up to the election that the turnout at the big rallies declined – because workers aren’t buying that bullshit.
Unions which have a rank and file leadership who aren’t there just for cushy seats in parliament or to prop up Labor, with nothing to lose, actually do a better job of representing their members, building strength and unity and consequently, growing their membership. There are a few examples of such unions: the CFMMEU (particularly the ‘C[onstruction]’ and second ‘M[aritime]’), the ETU, some sections of the ASU, some sections of the HSU (VAHPA in particular) and the ANMF (though this also serves as the professional association for nurses), are all growing. The NUW are also doing well (though their merger into United Voice is questionable – though UV are campaigning visibly around early childcare with their Big Steps campaign and there’s Hospo Voice as well) and the Victorian Ambulance Union, which recently split from UV, is also an interesting development. There’s also RAFFWU.
Also, union growth won’t rest with entirely online or social media. Digital presence is part of the strategy and an important one but isn’t a means to an end as people tend only engage with content online that they’re familiar with. Growth happens on the ground through workplace organising and campaigning as well as face to face conversations. The eschewing of the organising model in favour of the servicing model is also stifling union growth.
Yes, all true.
I’ll third that.
Re the Accord.
Yes, that was a pup sold to the Unions by the same team that got rid of free higher education so that the better off could have tax cuts. That’s right, Hawke and Keating. The union leadership who “bought” it at the time should hang their heads in shame
Could not agree more: the AEU’s only purpose seems to be to keep its officials in power while the most egregious abuses of power by admin in schools are brushed under the carpet. Teacher requests for support are dismissed and if the discontent in the school threatens membership levies an inquiry that achieves precisely nothing is carried out, sort of like a Royal Commission whose findings are ignored.
One of the first victims was the Customs Officers Union which had fewer than the required 5,000 members.
At the time the Australian Customs Service had scarcely 4,000 in toto.
And didn’t that work out well – and had absolutely nothing to do with the Paddington Bear Affair, did it Mick?
Industrial laws are the key. It is they which permit or prohibit.
Fair Work’s path from Keating’s Industrial Relations Act 1988 via Keating’s Industrial Relations Reform Act 1993 then Howard’s Workplace Relations Act then WorkChoices was evolutionary, not revolutionary. Fair Work is a moderated and rebadged WorkChoices. Today’s ACTU is attacking the Fair Work Act introduced by Julia Gillard as prime minister and overseen without amendment by Shorten when he was Gillard’s workplace relations minister.
None of Coalition heads of government Tony Abbott nor Malcolm Turnbull nor morrison so far have made any substantive changes. Why should they? Hawke then Keating then Howard did the workers over very thoroughly.
Successive Laberal laws mean that both the Labor class traitors and the Coalition have stripped working people of the right to withdraw their labour (whether spontaneously or through unions), which means that they have no ability to apply the industrial strength to force good outcomes. Thus both the Labor class traitors and the Coalition have gifted extensive rights and powers to the bosses. Nor does Labor under class traitors Shorten now Albanese show any desire whatever to redress that imbalance.
Senator Lambie (on her then 6-figure salary and expectation of 6-figure Retirement Allowance from 55) justified hostility to industrial action by saying in effect that “annual above-inflation pay increases for the past 14 years” were not a logical (indeed necessary) sharing of large profits and productivity gains but a windfall gain for which workers should be deeply grateful.
Anti-worker ideologues have obviously been highly successful with their message not only that workers are doing undeservedly well, but that industrial action in support of wages and conditions was abnormal, undesirable and virtually un-Australian.
Look to the gross social and economic inequalities of Imperial America for the result of such policy. Trump built his success on it.
As one of the Change the Rules foot soldiers, I do not consider it a failure. I think campaigns like this one can take a decade to win, and, we should push forward with it. One error in my view was that the ACTUAL nature of the penalties for union action were not made public. “In protected” industrial action can bering draconian penalties for both participants AND organisers. Change the Rules should bring this forward, but, did not.
At the same time, there are still some 1.8 million trade union members. Sure. its not the 3+million of years gone by, but, its not piddling either. Enough to have a massive impact.
As for the breaking up of large shop floors, making it harder for unions, this followed the reduction of tariffs. I wonder if the real objective of that move was actually to weaken organised labour?
Oh, I have done and do play a small role in my enterprise and industry union.
I also campaigned with the Change The Rules campaign. There were numerous instances where I had to explain what it meant to people who aren’t natural unionists (but are sympathetic) – but once I elaborated and explained the actual goals of the campaign to them, as stipulated in a document that the ACTU released outlining their demands, and said that ‘legislation is increasingly favouring bosses and big corporations at the expense of workers rights and conditions; and that this needs to change’, most of those people were completely on board.
Unfortunately, the advertising and publicity around that didn’t highlight the issues it was supposed to be campaigning on. If Joe Bloggs on the street doesn’t know what “Change The Rules” actually means right off the bat, how is a $20 million dollar advertising and publicity campaign with the main message “Change the Government to Change The Rules” going to persuade people? On this count, the campaign was definitely a failure.
Then there was the whole messy direction of the campaign. It started with “Change The Rules” ‘the current system is broken’, ‘neoliberalism has entrenched inequality’, Sally McManus would beam loudly and with authority. Then there was a period of nothing, then suddenly, “Australia Needs a Pay Rise” and a complete rebranding emerged. Then it became “Change the Government to Change The Rules”, with Sally McManus and the ACTU leadership subsequently their language, proclaiming at one stage at this point that Daniel Andrews (whose government in Victoria privatised large chunks of disability healthcare) is “the best boss”. They reeled us in with populist rhetoric, softened up the populist element and funnelled us to effectively campaign uncritically for the Labor Party.
I agree with Matt, while the “Your Rights at Work” campaign exposed Workchoices as the pile of crap it was and led to a change of Gov. “Change the Rules” was clumsy,confused and completely useless.
Ben Clarke says “Millennials have much of their working lives ahead of them and have greater interest in real wages than “entrepreneurial” tax-schemes”.
However, actually, the reverse is true. They are more likely to get tax breaks (and the reductions in social services that accompany them) than wage rises, and, if the coalition can sell that idea, they are creating a problem for the left.
However, this the percentage of the GDP going to profits to grow, and, keep the % of the GDP low.. a great outcome for capitalism.