
Issue No 5		19 March 1999

Guest Report

Ray Hunt on Generational Politics

The labour movement is complacent, self-serving, and largely irrelevant to the career and political forces shaping Generation X, according to Ray Hunt *

Raised on a steady cultural diet of globalism, individualism, sport, America-worship, parochialism and visual imagery - the under 30s have little understanding of possible alternatives to the dog-eat-dog system of capitalism and unconstrained "competition."

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"Solidarity forever!" "Err ... umm, please explain, and make it snappy like."

This hypothetical exchange simply demonstrates how quickly inter-generational tensions have replaced the class warfare of old.

On one hand, there is no shortage of people who will tell you the young of today are selfish and violent criminals.

On the other hand, the under 30s rightly criticise the job-hogging baby boomers - who also dominate the labour movement - as the most selfish, shallow, complacent, self-indulgent and materialistic generation of scum-bags since Nero's yuppies sucked the Roman empire dry.

While there are all kinds of underlying causes for a rapidly expanding generation gap, it's hard to go past the fact that in 1990s Australia, there is little commonality of experience.

For the labour movement this means the democratic socialist notions that have propelled the movement since 1945 - the unquestioned assumptions, a commitment to collective action and a belief in the ability of the State to protect society's weak and vulnerable - do not mean anything to Generation X.

How could this be? Sneak a glance at the formative environment. The under 30s -raised on a steady cultural diet of globalism, individualism, sport, America-worship, parochialism and visual imagery - have little comprehension of possible alternatives to the dog-eat-dog system of capitalism and unconstrained "competition."

Their reality is a tacky - and shamefully unquestioned - world built on rugged wild-west individualism, beggar-thy-neighbour economics and materialistic bullshit.

Worse still - for two generations now facing the most negative career prospects in post-war Australia - the Trade Union movement is widely perceived as an irrelevant dinosaur.

Incredible stuff.

Yet beyond the power world of perceptions, there has probably never been a greater need for effective and democratic unions.

In the fast food joints, fashion sweatshops and hospitality businesses where unskilled young people try to shelter from the storm, most end up exploited and dumped like empty cans ... and that's just the way it goes.

McJobs or long term unemployment, a narcotic-pandemic and environmental degradation, youth suicide, the practical implications of user-pays philosophy and $400-a-week rents - these are the issues that bite the under 30s. Yet such legitimate concerns are either ignored or distorted by the baby-boomer elites and mass media drongos.

Yes, as a tub-thumping friend likes to say, capitalism always promises more than it can deliver - and this time it has really gone overboard - yes, American trade union membership is on the rise again, and yes, the balance of power in Australia has swung so far in favour of speculators and the idle rich that there is bound to be a backlash.

Really? In the face of an onslaught of truly Dickensian inequality and injustice, where are the alternatives?

Where is the focused public dissent?

And where the fuck has the labour movement been? Locked away in meaningless factional argy-bargy? Refusing to learn the obvious lessons of 1996? Getting its knickers in a dogmatic twist about the lost cause of privatisation?

My summation is simple: the movement often reacts to other people's agendas. We know how to say no. But when did the movement last set the agenda on social or youth policy? On energy and environment?

Collectively the best the labour movement has been offering as big picture solutions to the fifth class citizenship offered the young are patronising sermons or indifference; police crackdowns and an increasing tendency to 'duck' the issues that might upset rabid old white men like Alan Jones and Piers Ackerman.

The generally dismal outcomes of the Hawke/Keating era support the Generation X proposition that our society would benefit from new ideas, new people, new and more realistic perspectives and new political "products."

From street-level it's easy to see how out of touch the labour movement has become. The result? The movement's political influence will continue to decline along with social justice and industrial equity.

Yet, given the exploitative misery that work has become for the great majority of people at the end of the millennium, a "rebranded" labour movement in keeping with the times would trigger an incredibly rapid rebound in union and ALP membership - particularly among the young who suffer most.

We need to offer practical solutions and be more representative. Please note that does not mean "dumbing down" the message, it simply means learning the language of the customer.

So in the interest of kick-starting the debate, here are some possible ways to rebrand the movement's image:

� Proactive recruitment of young people in growth industries with "free" trial memberships;

� Promote labour movement equivalents of Natasha Stott-Despoja and ensure they are the televisual face of labour;

� Start offering alternatives to the policies being opposed. It's too easy to just say no, a form of intellectual laziness that has badly infected the left. Why would the general public get upset about privatisation when the only State organ that should definitely be publicly owned, the Commonwealth Bank, was sold years ago by one Paul Keating esq?;

� Set up the best loyalty marketing program in the country - an ACTU equivalent of the Qantas Telstra Visa card - which leads to the perfect slogan for materialistic times "it pays to belong";

� Launch major social justice campaigns on, for example, sweat shop workers and their children;

� Curb nepotism - the only way to demonstrate we are progressive organisations open to young people, is to accept people on merit, not connections;

� Stop trying to be all things to all people. Stop wasting resources on farmers and the north shore - these people will never support the labour movement and our policies should reflect that. Why, for example, wasn't an ambitious 'westie' backbencher despatched to Avalon during the Baywatch fiasco to remind the silvertails that "their beach" is public property. "Showing" the North Shore would have been a big winner with at least 90% of the people of Sydney;

� Use public campaigns on sexual harassment and workplace safety in the small business sector to build credibility with undecided middle Australia;

� Media train spokespeople and start to proactively engage business and economic mythology on a daily basis;

� Use the Internet to increasingly by-pass the "off line" electronic media. Spend a year building a huge e-mail data base by offering prizes of free cars, holidays, etc;

� Do not patronise young people by 'dumbing down' the message. While we need more relevant marketing vehicles, young people are already filled with a refreshing desire to build a better society and are looking for opportunities, not pats on the collective head;

� Use satire as a campaigning weapon ... and recruiting tool;

� Make better use of television. Prepare digital 'file' footage of issues and spokespeople and apply "image control" over the labour movement. As part of this process, ban public appearances by officials with "pommie" accents

In short, comrades, we improve our industrial services, we become the one major structure in modern Australia that is not overrun by baby boomer swine, we offer fresh ideas and real solutions to the curse of globalisation, and we offer individual economic benefits that would make an NRMA member jealous.

One point should be clearly understood. The past, comrades, is the past. The future is in young people, a labour movement freed of the shackles of dogma, a labour movement focused on outcomes, not dogmatic processes.

Continue preaching to an ageing converted, the membership shrinkage will accelerate and two generations will be fully devoured by voracious capitalist dogs.

Believe me when I say, we have a lot of catching up to do ...

Ray Hunt is a Sydney-based broadcaster and writer. He refuses to disclose his Generational orientation

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Issue 5 contents

Interview: Towards An Information International
FIET general secretary Phillip Jennings talks about the development of the Union Network International and its potential to organise globally.

Unions: The Integral Price of Loyalty
Workers at Integral Energy are asking for their share of the fruits of power reform.

History: A Very Public History
Historian Ray Markey and Public Service Association General Secretary Janet Good take a look at the union�s first 100 years.

Review: Bullworth - Beatty�s Political Rap
Warren Beatty makes some gutsy calls in his new film about a politician who, when all else fails, tries the truth.

Campaign Diary: The Ultimate Punt
As the leaders slug it through the final weeks of the campaign, the armchair critics get their chance to work their pet election theories.

» Streamlined ILO To Focus On �Decent� Work

» Kelty Sees Global Minimum Wage On Horizon

» International Superunion Given Go-Ahead

» FIET Takes Hammer To Debt Wall

» Is The World Bank Anti-Union?

» Lectures Cancelled Over University Pay Claim

» 100 Reasons Why Public Sector Unionism Will Survive

» Maccas Death Call

» Cleaners Time Out Hours Cut