BY SUE BOLTON
MELBOURNE — The ACTU executive's choice of guest speakers at the peak union body's 2003 congress, held August 18-21, left a bitter taste in the mouths of many unionists.
On the second day, Qantas board "chairman" Margaret Jackson was addressing the congress on work and family policies at the same time that the airline company was provocatively bringing in three labour-hire workers to do baggage handling at Melbourne's Tullamarine airport. This sparked an immediate walk-off by baggage handlers.
Jackson used her speech to appeal to unions to work with management to restructure and strengthen Qantas in the global aviation market. However, her speech was all about strengthening Qantas' profits with nothing about strengthening job security or increasing wages for Qantas workers.
Jackson wasn't the only boss to speak at the ACTU congress. Cheryl Woollard, the "human resources manager" at Autoliv, appeared on the same panel to talk about workplace flexibility. However, union organisers report that workplace flexibility Woollard-style is all one way — flexibility to suit Autoliv. For example, Woollard wants workers at Autoliv to have the "option" of cashing in their long service leave.
The congress focused on three main themes — policies relating to the future of work, such as casualisation, low-paid jobs and long working hours; building support for a "fairer" Australia by calling for taxes to be used to ensure equal access to essential services; and, renewing the union movement by reaching out to workers through campaigns.
Progressive policies on some of these issues were adopted. However, that doesn't mean that the ACTU will coordinate union action to fight for the implementation of these policies. The content of the adopted policies will guide the ACTU's strategy of running test cases on these issues before the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC).
It is highly unlikely that the ACTU will coordinate cross-union campaigns against the federal Coalition government's next round of anti-union legislation or against its cuts to Medicare.
For at least the last couple of decades, it has been extremely rare for the ACTU to coordinate cross-union industrial campaigns on any issue. The ACTU officials prefer to limit themselves to running test cases in the AIRC and lobbying MPs.
The only example of a cross-union action which I can recall the ACTU has coordinated in the last 20 years was the cavalcade to Canberra on August 19, 1996. This was organised in response to the Howard government's proposed draconian anti-union laws and massive budget cuts to basic health and education services. The rally outside Parliament House, in which the cavalcade culminated, involved 20,000 workers from a wide range of unions.
AIRC test cases
During the congress, ACTU secretary Greg Combet and ACTU president Sharan Burrow announced that the ACTU had launched, or was about to launch, several test cases in the AIRC.
Among them will be a test case to give job security to thousands of casual workers by allowing them to choose to become permanent after six months. If successful, this would give these workers access to entitlements received by permanent staff, such as paid sick leave and paid annual leave. Combet pointed out that such a test case is necessary given the steep increase in casual employment from 13% in 1982 to 27% in 2000.
A test case is already before the AIRC to double unpaid maternity leave to two years and give return-to-work mothers the option of part-time work.
Burrow threatened that the ACTU would launch a test case on paid maternity leave unless the federal government agreed to introduce a taxpayer-funded 14-week scheme.
Combet announced that contract call centre workers had won a new award, under which they will receive penalty rates for work performed between 7pm and 7am, Monday to Friday as well as casual loadings of 20% for the first 12 months of the award. The new award will apply to three out of seven major employers.
A debate over a cap on working hours was avoided on the congress floor when ACTU assistant secretary Richard Marles agreed that a 48-hour work week should be a goal in enterprise bargaining rather than a cap, and that any test case to establish it in awards would not affect low-paid workers who depended on overtime to make up a living wage. The NSW Labor Council had vigorously opposed a cap of 48 working hours a week.
The main problem with the ACTU is that the political undercurrents reflecting serious differences in strategy are rarely debated openly on congress floor. A great deal of behind-the-scenes arm-twisting and horse-trading ensures that only watered down compromise motions are debated.
Although certain compromises are necessary at times, the fact that the ACTU exists as a permanent compromise between right-wing unions, which are more responsive to employers' demands than members' demands, and militant left unions, with fake left unions as mediators in the middle, means that it is almost impossible for the ACTU's affiliates to ever unite around a single industrial campaign. This is why the ACTU's bread-and-butter activity is restricted to lobbying parliamentarians and running test cases in the AIRC.
Pilbara example
There were two examples of this in the 2003 ACTU congress. One was in the debate around the role of the Australian Workers Union (AWU) in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Two delegates from the BHP mine there and two union activists from Rio Tinto's Hamersley Iron mine came to the ACTU congress to put their case.
These four unionists are all involved in the Pilbara Mineworkers Union. The PMU is not a new union but an organisation involving members of all five of the unions in the region — the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), the Electrical Trades Union, the Transport Workers Union (TWU) and the AWU.
Kevin Quill from Hamersley Iron addressed the congress, describing the process of re-unionising the Pilbara. He explained how many workers in the Pilbara come from anti-union backgrounds and are suspicious of unions. It was only through the success of the campaign against a non-union section 170LK agreement in 2002 and the PMU's pursuit of a state award that many of the workers had begun to lose their distrust of unions.
However, this process was rudely halted when the national officials of the AWU signed a new federal award with Rio Tinto that ensured exclusive coverage for the AWU. The AWU national officials took this action without any consultation with the workers or with the state branch of the AWU. The federal award signed by the AWU includes components which the Hamersley workers knocked back when they voted against the non-union agreement in 2002.
This is exactly the sort of action which exacerbates the trend of declining union membership. Overall union membership fell in 2002, with unionisation in the private sector now below 18%.
The Pilbara workers distributed a leaflet calling on the ACTU congress to "hear our plea for assistance and take whatever steps you can to prevent the AWU from being able to go through with the federal award". The ACTU executive refused to allow a specific motion calling on the AWU to withdraw the federal award it is attempting to impose on Hamersley Iron workers. Combet declared that "we will never allow the floor of the ACTU to be used to attack another union".
Instead, the ACTU executive proposed a general motion on how to deal with demarcation issues. The AWU's actions have already broken the spirit of that motion, making it meaningless.
AWU national secretary Bill Shorten responded to the discussion by saying that he believes that "freedom of association gives you the right to join a union but not any union".
During the congress, there was also a split in the left caucus over the question of non-union agreements. The CFMEU and the Victorian branch of the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia (TCFUA) wanted the ACTU's industrial relations policy to make a clear call for non-union agreements to be abolished.
The fake left unions led by AMWU national secretary Doug Cameron and the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union (LHMU) leadership argued that if non-union agreements were abolished, then the employers would resort to individual contracts. The same argument was later put to the delegates by Joe De Bruyn, the right-wing national secretary of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA). The CFMEU/TCFUA amendment was defeated on congress floor by a small margin.
One difference between this congress and previous ones was the rather unenthusiastic response given to the addresses by ALP leaders.
In 1994, there was an almost total standing ovation for then Labor prime minister Paul Keating. This year, despite valiant attempts by the SDA, AWU, LHMU, the NSW branch of the TWU and a couple of others, the standing ovation for federal Labor leader Simon Crean only involved about a quarter of the delegates. Even fewer were prepared to give a standing ovation to Victorian and NSW Labor premiers Steve Bracks and Bob Carr.
With a federal election only a year away, Combet used his opening address to drum up support for the ALP. However, he was forced to acknowledge that state public sector unions had to deal with state Labor governments as employers and that "there is a lot of anger about [the ALP's] approach in some states". But then he asked if the problem might be that unions weren't making the case for unions effectively enough within the ALP.
The glossy ALP election 2004 kit that was given to each delegate made clear that the ACTU leadership is prepared to forgive almost any crime against unions which an ALP federal government might dish out.
From Green Left Weekly, August 27, 2003.
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