Politics and the Accord
By Peter Ewer, Ian Hampson, Chris Lloyd, John Rainford, Stephen Rix and Meg Smith
Pluto Press, 190 pp. $16.95
Reviewed by Steve Painter
Finally, out of the trade union left comes an honest attempt at a critique of the ALP-ACTU Accord, piecing together a view which the authors admit is "known instinctively by most unionists, even if the doubts of individuals are suppressed for reasons of self-preservation".
In the preface also, the authors provide some insight into the attitude to open discussion in the higher levels of the trade union movement, noting that some who assisted with the book "may prefer anonymity" due to a continuing "interest in paid employment". Four of the authors are former metalworkers' union staff members who resigned from their jobs because of growing disillusionment with the Accord, and particularly Accord VI.
As might be expected given the authors' considerable experience in the union movement through the '80s, the critique of the Accord is the book's strongest point. It presents a revealing inside look at the various stages of the Accord and their successive failures. It describes, for example, how Australia Reconstructed was modified by the ACTU hierarchy until the fanfare surrounding it "had more to do with selling the austerity of the second-tier wage system than actually reforming Australian economic policy".
The authors accept that "whatever the arguments on the left, it is undeniable that the nature of legislative reform under the Accord has mutated from proposals to free up the union movement from restrictive laws, to concrete changes which make the movement an extension of the government's celebrated 'micro-economic reform' agenda, a central element of which is enterprise bargaining".
This is one of the authors' main points of departure, as they argue that enterprise bargaining moves in the wrong direction, further breaking down working-class solidarity and the very basis of trade unionism, and helping to create favourable conditions for employer-sponsored corporate unionism. They are particularly alarmed by sections 115 and 118 of the federal Industrial Relations Act, which jointly open the door to bureaucratic single union deals, with companies picking the union that suits them best in the context of a union "rationalisation" imposed regardless of the views of rank and file members. The authors acknowledge that the present wave of union amalgamations is not leading towards the long-sought goal of industrial unionism.
They also trace the union movement's present problems back to long-term strategic weaknesses, particularly the failure to go beyond "labourism" to a broader working-class politics. They point out that "the victors for control of the early Communist Party of Australia were unionists prepared to work within the current institutions of and say that on the left of the movement the Accord was an attempt to respond to a long-developing crisis growing out of the exhaustion of "the tactic of wages militancy" in isolation.
This, and a lot more information, opinion and analysis on the long-term weaknesses of the union movement, make Politics and the Accord a very useful and informative book, and one that will no doubt be discussed a great deal among progressive trade unionists. This is not to say all of the opinions are accurate. The dismissal of "Scargillism" as a form of the failed "wages militancy" is little more than a repetition of Marxism Today-style received "wisdom", though the authors reject the post-Fordist quackery once pushed by that now-defunct magazine.
After a sound critique of the Accord, the authors seem to lose their way when they come to political strategy, though they admit that they wisely haven't attempted to develop a complete strategy. They do identify many issues vital to a strategy, but they seem to overbalance badly on the question of training and skill formation, outlining an approach so long term it is likely to be meaningless to unionists grappling with everyday problems.
While industry development and skill formation are important, they can also be overemphasised. It is dubious that business will accept union advice on the best ways to develop Australian capitalism, and equally dubious that the union movement should devote its resources to such an exercise, though it is important that unions be able to point out how the country might be run more justly and more efficiently and mobilise their members around such questions. Politics and the Accord seems to try a little of both approaches.
The final chapter, "Beyond Labourism", lists a range of issues that unions need to take up if they are to make themselves more relevant to the needs of a changing workforce and a changing society, but it has little to say on the biggest question: the role of Labor in labourism. How can the union movement go beyond labourism while Labor stands in the way? Should unions disaffiliate from the ALP and try to build another party, should they at least stop funding Labor until it breaks with economic rationalism, should they take the approach of the United Mineworkers and only fund and support selected candidates (all Labor so far) who satisfy their criteria of serving the interests of mineworkers and their communities?
The authors can probably be excused for leaving the development of a broader working-class alternative in the too-hard basket, as there are no easy answers. They do say that since the dissolution of the old CPA its successor, the New Left Party, "has yet to establish an ideological identity likely to mobilise what is otherwise a potentially significant constituency".
This is a stimulating book, with much that is useful, some groping towards answers, and all of it worthy of serious discussion.