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Issue No. 146 | 26 July 2002 |
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Crean-ite Is Not A Dirty Word
Interview: Trans Tasman Cole-Watch: The Full Story Unions: The Right To A Life Bad Boss: Phoenix Rising Politics: The Virtuous State International: The Champions History: Mandatory Mums Corporate: Network Governance Review: Navigating The Doublespeak Satire: Hector The Galah Found Hiding Poetry: Eight Days a Week
The Soapbox The Locker Room Postcard Week in Review Bosswatch
 No Need To Import IT WorkersKangaroo Court Horrifies ReaderSite Reunites Redundant WorkersCarr Off CourseThe Banners of GreedJoin The PartyShocks and Stares
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Interview Trans TasmanInterview with Peter Lewis
********* The impression we get of the Clark government over in Australia is that it is a fairly progressive Labour government, that's had a lot to offer for the working people. Is that the experience on the ground within the union movement? Very much so, the Labour government has delivered exactly what it promised it would do. It got rid of the Employment Contracts Act, it nationalised workers compensation, and moved to introduce whole new regimes for health and safety and employment. Those are just employment or industrial related issues. They've also stepped out and engaged in a whole discussion with the unions around rebuilding the state sector, which was stripped right back here during the 80s and 90s. So there's a whole focus on rebuilding capacity back into the state. Most importantly, they have also carefully crafted out a role for unions in industry and economic development, which is quite novel in New Zealand. So basically, it's been a lot more than just helping unions by getting rid of the ECA, its also about giving us some pathway forward. Given all this you'd expect a sign off by the unions of a second term in the Clark Government. But was interested to see that some unions aren't actually endorsing Labour, they are saying: go for a number of parties. What's the thinking behind that? Well, you've got to look back here, at a couple of things. Firstly, we've only got four unions actually affiliated to the Labour Party. In the last 10 or 15 years, there's no tradition of being a part of the Labour party, and that stems mostly from the reforms carried out in the mid 80s by Labour. So, essentially unions aren't bound into a formal linkage. I think also there's been strong support in proportional representation to prevent those sorts of excesses we had in the 80s and 90s, and so for a lot of unions it is not natural for them to say we support Labor alone, it is more natural for them to say: we don't support the Nationals' program and look for a Labour led coalition government. Without that direct affiliation, what sort of policy input have your affiliates, particularly through the Council of Trade Union, had in the policy that Helen Clark is taking to the electorate? A very good one. We're very pleased with it and we're very pleased with the policy the government have put out for the election. Our linkages have been both informal and formal. Informal, through the policy development process as it's being worked through, and more formally there's a formal set of consultations with the CTU. But basically we've been working really closely over the last three years. So the pre-election period has been merely a continuation of the work we've been doing since Labour came to power. The theme we're running is, there's a lot being done, and there's more to do. You've obviously seen the debate within the Australian union circles between the unions and the ALP and the degree of input the unions should have, do you have a perspective on that? Well, its an interesting debate from outside of the fray, but it's academic in the sense that we don't have that direct linkage between the unions and the New Zealand Labour Party. Its' interesting to watch as the unions in Aussie fight to ensure their voice is heard, and obviously we would strongly support that. It's important that unions get right into the middle of that debate, to argue out our issues and our cases,. So, where its happening in New Zealand in a more informal way, obviously in Australia you have systems and structures to alert people within the party and obviously the unions are fighting hard to make sure those rights continue. Most Australians would be a bit ignorant of the history of the New Zealand Labour movement, but you're saying there was a period where there was a linkage and that's been broken over the 80s and 90s? Well basically, Labor did the dirty on working people and their families when they pushed the reform process far too far during the 80s and basically sold everything off, corporatised, privatised, sold the state. It set up an environment whereby the when the National Party came to power in 1991 it could introduce the ECA - by that stage the labour market was really the only market that wasn't deregulated in New Zealand. So people got incredibly bitter about that and said: look our own people have not looked after our interests and therefore why should we continue to look after their interests? As a result of that, the Labour Party splintered off into what was called New Labor and then eventually Alliance. You also saw another peak trade union council emerge, within the trade union movement, and essentially what's happened over the 90s is, we've managed to reunify both industrial Labor and now there's only the one peak Council; at the same time the Alliance and Labor come together in the last government has sort of unified them politically. And, that experience obviously, means that unions treat their relationship with the political parties, a little more discerningly? Yes, certainly that's the case. What we're trying to do here is craft out a formal relationship with government. Now this is intellectually, and politically obviously, a difficult task. If you look back at the factors we need to work with. Firstly, very few direct affiliates of the Labour party are trade unions and we've seen this slightly more standoffish approach to Labour. Secondly, Labour is not and will not be governing on its own, it needs to have a relationship with the other parties to form government. Thirdly, there was in the last government, another party, the Greens, which supported the Labuor alliance government outside of being part of the administration. So it's a complex brew and all parties need to respect the history of each other, understand the current environment, and work out what's the nature, the form and the function of our relationship with government. Now we don't want to go down the line of an Accord or what we call a Compact in New Zealand, because the time for that has actually passed in the New Zealand context. We're trying to craft that new relationship out on a sort of pragmatic issue based basis. Now, we were just starting to take the first steps in formalising that when the early election was announced, and so its been put back, but I know we'll continue should Helen Clark retain power. So both political labour and industrial labour are taking a very cautious approach, sensitively working towards what's the nature, the form and the function of that relationship. That's really the next exercise for the organised Labor movement as a whole - to shape out that relationship with government. I guess in the absence of a formal mechanism, a lot of it comes down to personal relationships and a network within, between the two wings of the movement. Is there a strong union heritage within the group of elected leaders you've got at the moment? Well, there's obviously a number of union MPs and we'll see more union MPs come in. Unfortunately one of the employees of the CTU, Carol Beaumont, director of our organising centres, who has done a terrific job for us in this role, is one of them and we would'll be sad to see her go. You also have a number of a number of the cabinet ministers in particular who have former union officials working directly with them in their offices. The thing that we've found one of the most difficult issues to deal with is that the apparatus of the state just has no concept at all about dealing with unions. That's not because of any lack of will from the politicians or the ministers, it's simply the system and the officials are not used to having organised labour come on to the radar screen. Now we're three years down the track of this government, and we assume Labour will get back in again, and we're still struggling with that issue. It's obviously ian issue that the ACTU and the Australian trade union movement is going to struggle with when they turf Howard and his lot out as well. I can't emphasise enough that it's an incredibly difficult issue getting unions back into the mix of governmentsance and leadership in the country. You've just got to really argue to your core politicians to let you back in the door again. This is a really critical issue and for industry policy, economical development issues, all those sorts of things. They have to accept that organised labour is back and is an effective voice for working people and their families. Having said that, it's a hell of big ask for unions as well, because in New Zealand, unions have been so used to defending their patch from attacks under the ECA, we've got to get them out of that trench and get them going forward. That's a hell of a big resource issue, and shift in thinking as well. So it's not just a big demand for the bureaucracy, it's a big demand for the trade union movement. All the central organising that the CTU can do is we can of open the doors and the windows for unions to hop through, but unions have to do it themselves, and that's a big ask. There's no secret that you guys were absolutely decimated over the 80s and 90s. Has the advent of the Clark government helped you pull the numbers back, are you starting to trend back the right way? We've shown pretty good increases over the last couple of years, but no where near as good as what we'd like. What the Clark government did was it set the framework for us to recover. But it still leaves an enormous ask for unions and organising, particularly in greenfield areas. I'm not that convinced that we're actually across that yet. What Helen Clark and the government has actually said is we'll change the frameworks, and we'll also change the culture so the word 'union' comes back into the vernacular, but we're not going to do your work for you, we're not going to go out there and force people to join unions. Now that's something that we accept and broadly speaking, our union say that's exactly the right way. We do have some emerging issues around collective bargaining, we're not seeing that grow as quickly as what we would have liked and we would be hoping to work with the new government around ways to stop employers undermining collective bargaining. That's an issue that is becoming increasing sharp as employers seek to undermine collective bargaining. Finally, the NZ CTU has joined the Labor Net family, although I understand its met its own resistance back home. What's that experience taught you about the pros and cons of globalising the movement? First of all, our affiliates are really wrapped with our new website and we're having a great number of hits and people are using it already. Out of that we're generating more work for the developers Social Change Online as other unions look to come out and use their technology. Also our links with NSW Labor Council, Victorian Labor Councils, ACTU, obviously our affiliates in New Zealand feel really comfortable with that, they just say that's a natural for what's a working class movement anyway. We would did receive some feedback from developers in New Zealand saying, we could do that, but the point is we're doing this in partnership with credible partners, which are peak councils in Australia, it just makes sense to do it that way It's a great thing that the Workers Online news feed for instance, now sits on the CTU site. Have you other ideas of how you'd like to mature those links between the Australian and New Zealand Labor movement? Well in terms of technology, we'd like to see our feed sitting on the peak Council sites in Australia. I think we need to find better ways of letting each other now what's going on inside each of the different movements, and I don't think we do that tremendously well at the moment. My background in the finance sector union has meant that I had to take a close interest in what's happened in Australia, and I think we need to look at how we can do that technically, but also I think Australian unions need to continue to pay attention to developments within New Zealand. I think that's really important. There's a major review on at the moment around the closer economic relations between Australia and New Zealand. Now it's not the biggest trade agreement that either country belongs to but its really significant, particularly for manufacturing on both sides of the ditch. Now that's the sort of thing we should be working very closely together on, and yet all we hear from is business - we're not getting in and making sure our voice is being heard.
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