Trevor Cook

The Accord 30 years on

2013-05-20T16:59:24+10:00

At the end of next week a 'special symposium' will be hosted by Macquarie University to mark the three decades since the ALP-ACTU deal helped to elect the Hawke Government in 1983. The good and the great of the Accord era will be there (Hawke, Crean, Kelty etc) as will many enthusiasts from the academic community.

The Accord was Australia's odd experiment in corporatism at the national level. Odd because the labour movement (or at least its leaders) seemed to embrace corporatism at the same time and, at least on the political side, with the same enthusiasm as it embraced the neo-liberal agenda then sweeping the anglophone world.

Whatever its merits, I found in my thesis that today's union leadership are split over the Accord. Split in intresting and important ways. Here is an excerpt:

The ACTU’s adoption of independence and external lobbying involves a direct rejection of the dependence and internal lobbying approach involved in the social democratic style Accord arrangement. The adoption of union revitalisation strategies is based in critiques of the impact of these social democratic arrangements on union vitality and membership engagement.

In fact, for the critics inside today’s union movement, the Accord is viewed through the lens of a contemporary focus on re-building membership. The Accord was good for working people, but it was, they say, bad for unions.

While a few interviewees found merit in both the Accord and the organising model, seeing them as appropriate responses to the circumstances of their times, most leaned one way or the other.

Current union officials were evenly split on the merits of the Accord, while former officials were either supportive of the Accord, often seeing it as a high point for the union movement, or offered no definitive opinion. It must be stressed, however, that the sample sizes are small, and the distribution of opinions is such that it is hazardous to draw strong conclusions about the relationship between the period in which interviewees held senior union positions and their attitudes to the Accord and its impact on union membership size. Nevertheless, the interviews contained much commentary and analysis that was suggestive of a generational shift in thinking on these issues.

Unsurprisingly, union officials with differing perspectives on the merits of the Accord tend to emphasise different aspects of the Accord experience. Supporters of the Accord tend to emphasise its policy successes, while detractors tend to see it as having adverse consequences for the union movement, in particular perceptions of unions being ‘too close’ to government and the impact these perceptions may have had on union membership numbers.

One interviewee, for example, argued that the problems with the Accord were outweighed by these lasting policy achievements: “Everybody knew whatever the criticisms were of the Accord and we’ve got plenty but there was an institutional position for unions within that, there was a seat at the table, unions were not just asked to exercise wage restraint but there was actually a negotiation which saw things like superannuation and Medicare, these sort of social benefits were part of the deal.

Another interviewee, however, argued that the ‘well-‐known’ negatives of the Accord tend to be forgotten by an older generation of union officials who remain nostalgic about the Accord era: “There’s always a perception that the old guys in this group (smaller unions) do want an Accord. I think a few of them hark back to it, look back with fond memories. A very fuzzy memory as well, they remember all the positive aspects and they don’t remember the negatives”

Other interviewees argued that it is the positives of the Accord that have been forgotten and that history has been re‐written by the union movement’s new leadership. An interesting part of this perspective is that it rejects the (apparently) widely held belief among contemporary union officials that the Accord was an era characterised by low levels of member involvement and mobilisation, and, consequently, declining union membership: “The Accord was the high point for the trade union movement both in terms of what it was able to achieve and how it was able to mobilise workers around it. I think the re‐writing of history bagging the Accord has been mainly by people who weren’t there. The collapse in union membership and all that post dates the Accord. Union membership pretty much held up during the Accord. It flattened in the 80s but didn’t start to decline until the 1991 recession.”

The contrary idea, however, that the Accord did involve a reduction in member mobilisation, was the more popular among interviewees. This idea that unions stopped doing all the member-‐engaging activities they used to do before the Accord is also evident in the interpretation many interviews placed on the meaning of union revitalisation. For instance: “It (the Accord) served the government better than the unions, quite frankly I think there is a whole range of things we stopped doing in that period.”

Some interviewees also attributed much of the success of the Accord to Hawke and his special, or unique, relationship with the trade union movement. Again, this line of reasoning is strongly supportive of the view that the Accord was a one‐ off, almost a temporary diversion for Australian unionism: “Hawke wanted that relationship to work, he wanted that relationship, and clearly he saw benefits both for his own government and for the union movement through the Accord. As I say, I think at the time it worked well.”

For interviewees that are strongly critical of the Accord, the link between membership disengagement and membership decline is almost an article of faith, and clear evidence that the corporatism of the Accord, while good in policy terms, was bad for unions in organisational terms.

For these interviewees, an obvious causal relationship exists: “I can only compare and contrast the union density numbers in Australia with the UK during the Thatcher period. We actually went down faster. Whatever else the Accord delivered it didn’t deliver sustainable union density.”

The link between member disengagement and elite negotiations between the ACTU leadership and the leadership of the FPLP is also taken as axiomatic by many interviewees. In this view, the Accord excluded not just members, but also the most senior levels in union hierarchies; it is as if a whole generation of lower and middle union leaders was disenfranchised by the Accord: “The Accord was a dismal failure. A combination of Kelty, Keating, the Metals, the NUW under Sword, made some very fundamental strategic mistakes. Rather than trying to capture the opinion of the workforce and lead it and develop it they came up with a model they said was going to improve the country and there was very little ownership amongst the union secretaries, union officials, all democratically elected, and more accountable than most politicians in many regards.”

The Accord processes, with their emphasis on top‐down management of the union movement, were seen as even less useful during the tough years of the Howard Government; several union interviewees suggested that union officials had to re‐learn the basics of unionism: “The structure of the Accord process almost relegated union members to the position of observers. What we have learnt through the Howard years was that workers have to be more than observers they need to be participants. Because the Accord was negotiated at a peak level between the leaders of the ACTU and the prime minister and treasurer of the day it wasn’t as inclusive and consultative and engaging as we need it to be in the new millennium. “

An interviewee with direct experience of the Accord era, denied that it was the Accord itself that was the problem, rather the fault was with union leaders that failed to use the opportunities created by the Accord structures and processes: “It’s crap; if your members weren’t involved you weren’t trying hard enough because the Accord provided a framework for really significant campaigns. Superannuation came because there had been a 4 or 5-‐year union campaign. The structural efficiency principle – great opportunity for unions to get not just real pay rises but also give workers real control over the working environment. It’s true a lot of unions just treated the Accord as ‘every six months I turn up and I get a pay rise’. But the more effective unions actually used it as an opportunity and won quite historical breakthroughs”

Perhaps the strongest criticism of the Accord by today’s union leadership, however, was that unions had become too close to government and therefore too dependent on the ALP. This criticism is related to the argument about membership disengagement by over‐reliance on elite leadership negotiation, but it goes further and points to emerging expectations that union members have for independence in the unions‐ALP relationship.

The concern was expressed by one interviewee as a reversal of the belief that the ALP wants independence in the relationship more than unions do: “The Accord was a fundamental error, not because it did bad things for working people, but because it was bad for the unions, it tied us and made us a government agency. Too close. Which is an interesting thing because there is always this view that the unions want to be closer and the party doesn’t. Often that’s not the case. Being too close hurts us as well.”

ALP reform links for 23 April - campaigns, union challenges, power-sharing and the ALP's choices

2013-04-23T19:53:11+10:00

Anatomy of a modern campaign - Pollytics (Crikey)

Essentially we’re just applying the best of the resources of the early 21st century, to early 20th century community organising. But what that actually requires under the bonnet is a level of political information and analytics that’s never really been needed by a campaign before, so that it can be transformed into the knowledge required to enable the people with the real skills – our union campaign folks and our organisers – to achieve magnitudes of order more than they ordinarily could do without it.

(UK) Trade unions face difficult times, but challenges shouldn't be exaggerated - LSE

These are depressing times for trades unions, because we are facing a period of loss. However, its important not to get carried away with the sense of liquid fear that pervades unions in decline. The decline is not happening to the same degree at the same time everywhere, rather there are still opportunities for unions to secure real gains for working people. This might well mean moving from Marx to Freud, swapping one bearded bloke for another, and mourning the loss of a utopian dream of internationalism and decent work. However, such mourning would allow us to move beyond a position of denial and drop the stalled attempts at ‘renewal’, so as to work towards a more realistic goal of securing real gains for working people. This is a painful process for those of us who have invested so much in our unions, but it does then free us up to aim for a more achievable future. At a time when the magic solutions are running out unions need to play on their strengths, which include a pragmatic insistence that something is better than nothing and a realistic assessment of which unions can still deliver it.

More on the power broking in WA ALP - Sunday Times

It had been rumoured for months that union heavyweights Dave Kelly and Joe Bullock the respective bosses of the powerful Left and Right factions of the WA Labor Party had done a deal that would see both of them end up with cushy jobs in politics.

This week the deal was consummated when Bullock got the top spot on the Labor ticket for a Senate position guaranteeing him a job in Canberra at the expense of his supposed mate, WA Senator Mark Bishop, and Senator Louise Pratt, who has the No.2 spot.

Kelly's Left faction (United Voice) this week delivered the numbers for Bullock's ascendancy, at the expense of one of their own, Pratt, who is also part of the Left.

Bishop was stranded and will now retire from politics.

Informed sources say the Left's support for Bullock stemmed from the fact that the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Union secretary delivered Kelly the numbers to stand for the seat of Bassendean, which he won.

Sources say Bullock also gave his blessing for Simone McGurk another of Kelly's union mates to be pre-selected for the seat of Fremantle.

"Bullock wanted the No.1 spot for the Senate so badly that he was willing to give Kelly control of the Labor caucus by having more Left-aligned MPs," a source said. "This has members of Bullock's own faction scratching their heads."

Ged Kearney on the ALP-unions relationship - ACTU

Labor has always seen itself as a community-based party engaged with people where they live and work.

The relationship between the ALP and our affiliated unions is at the heart of our vision for a Labor Party that speaks for, and seeks government on behalf of, working people.

The industrial and political wings of our movement can come together, campaign around this issue and deliver real dignity to some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

In doing so, we can once again reconnect with working people at home and at work, and speak to their lives.

This is a challenge the union movement is united around – regardless of the election result on September 14.

But for the ALP, it is ultimately a choice.

Labor can choose to join us in that battle, and as Daniel Andrews indicated yesterday, Victorian Labor is clear in its resolve to do so.

But there is an alternative. That alternative is to turn inward, and play a divisive, futile blame game.

Make no mistake – that’s what our opponents want. They would love nothing more than to see the energies of the labour movement diverted away from organising and representing working people by a messy fight about the relationship between organised labour and political Labor.

USYD's Spence 'backs' Dalai Lama visit

2013-04-23T19:31:08+10:00

This evening Sydney University's embattled vice-chancellor sent out this email to students:

Dear students,

As you will know, the proposed visit of the Dalai Lama to the University in June has been the subject of sensationalist and misleading media reports. Throughout discussions regarding the potential visit of His Holiness, the University and I personally have been consistently committed to the principle that academics can invite to the University anyone whom they believe has a legitimate contribution to make to public debate. It is not within the power of a Vice-Chancellor, or anyone else, to withdraw an invitation issued by an academic unit to an outside speaker, absent concerns such as public safety.

I am therefore pleased to advise that the Director of the Institute for Democracy and Human Rights, Professor John Keane, has this afternoon made the following statement.

“The Institute for Democracy and Human Rights (IDHR) at the University of Sydney and representatives of His Holiness the Dalai Lama have agreed to host an on-campus lecture for students at the University of Sydney, in mid-June 2013. This will be the first engagement of the Dalai Lama during his Australian tour.

The IDHR looks forward to hosting His Holiness the Dalai Lama under the theme ‘Education Matters’.

The University of Sydney and IDHR remain firmly committed to the principle that academics are free to invite to our campus anyone who has a legitimate contribution to make to public debate.

It is hoped the mid-June event will form part of a determined commitment of the University of Sydney to develop a constructive dialogue on matters concerning Tibet and the wider region.”

Yours sincerely

Michael Spence

DR MICHAEL SPENCE

Vice-Chancellor and Principal

Labor preselects former Abbott ally in WA

2013-04-20T09:53:23+10:00

This is an excerpt from David Marr's recent Quarterly Essay on Tony Abbott, which was reproduced on Martin Whitely's website earlier this week after the WA ALP Branch pre-selected (yet another) extreme right wing SDAer, Joe Bullock, to help prevent the federal ALP caucus adopting a modern approach to issues like marriage equality:

…In those summer days in early 1976 the course of his (Abbott’s) political life was set. In the heady atmosphere of that secret forum young Tony was recruited for Bob Santamaria’s Movement. The men who did the work Peter Samuel, the Bulletin’s cranky political correspondent; Warren Hogan, the embattled professor of economics at Sydney University; and Joe de Bruyn, a hard-line Catholic union official about to assume lifetime (national) leadership of the shop assistants’ union (the SDA).

…Santamaria deplored the Pill, homosexuality, rampant materialism, married women in the workforce, environmentalists, drugs, abortion, anarchy on campuses, economic rationalism, dissident theologians, divorce without proof of guilt and their cult of moral autonomy of the individual. What he saw at stake here was the authority of family, church and state, indeed legitimate authority in every field of life.

…(Abbott) pledged his troth to Santamaria. It would be a year before he met the man face to face but he fell in love that weekend. “I have been under the Santamaria spell ever since.” He regarded him until his death in 1998 as “the greatest living Australian”.

…(Abbott) believed the path Santamaria was inviting him to take was essentially religious. In the old man’s obituary a couple of decades later he wrote: “His real role was to create a type of secular religious order, something like a band of political Jesuits, a group of men and women whose religious values translated into strong commitment, not necessarily to any political party, but to a set of social principles.”

The tactics were not so lofty. The Democratic Clubs (of which Abbott and Bullock were members) were small and their membership carefully controlled. The correct line was strictly enforced. They used tactics Santamaria developed to fight Reds in the unions: provocative campaigning, ceaseless leafleting and infiltrating rival organisations. They called themselves moderates but their position was extreme: as far to the right as the Maoists and Trotskyists on campus were to the left. They were accused of rough-house tactics and wrecking what they couldn’t control. The student newspaper Honi Soit reported: “This organisation has a long history of politically motivated violence – whether as vigilantes for vice-regals, smoke-bombers for Saigon, poster pullers for political reaction, or bullies for by-elections.”

…His (Abott’s) fellow warriors (in the Democratic Club) loved him in a slightly protective way. “Tony was a warm, sociable individual, a ton of fun,” recalls Joe Bullock, who is now state secretary in Western Australia of de Bruyn’s SDA union. “People warmed to Tony. He was very personable, very quick with the common touch he still has. But he was enthusiastically hated by those who hated him. He was seen as a very worthy opponent with a capacity to win. We all thought Tony would be a force to be reckoned with when he grew up and we’re still waiting.” Great things seemed to be at stake. Bullock says: “Everyone thought they were engaged in a bigger battle. I thought I was engaged in a battle between good and evil.” …His (Abbott’s) plan was to win presidency of the SRC (Sydney University Student Representative Council) and collapse it from above. He was well underway. In May, he had taken control of the campus Liberal Club. It was Joe Bullock’s idea: “I said we need a banner to fight under. We’ve got have something that can draw people to us. The Labor Club was extreme left. There was no chance of knocking it off. But the Liberal Club was a dreadful bunch of dilettantes and social climbers. And there were not many of them. So I said: “Let’s knock off the Liberal Club.’ But Tony was really reluctant. ‘Oh, no, I don’t want to join the Liberal Club.’ He made it clear his loyalties were to Labor. Eventually, I persuaded him against his better judgement to join.”

When will the ALP leave the 1950s behind it?

SDA kills its own in WA

2013-04-16T06:21:45+10:00

Unions gang up to flick Senator - West Australian

Senator Mark Bishop pulled out of last night's ALP preselection ballot that saw the most powerful left-wing and right-wing unions conspire against the resurgent blue- collar section of the party.

It is understood Senator Bishop may not have received a single vote if he had contested because of a deal between his right-wing retail workers union - the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association - and the dominant left-wing union United Voice.

Under the deal, SDA boss Joe Bullock, Senator Bishop's one-time friend and union ally, grabbed the top spot on Labor's WA Senate ticket, 109-61, relegating sitting Senator Louise Pratt to second.

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