
Issue No 54		19 May 2000

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Review

New Workers, New Challenges

By Neale Towart

A new wave of thought is arguing that working life is changing - but this doesn't necessarily deal unions out the action.

The new workforce wants and is taking a new kind of flexibility in work and life. Unions need to use this to become a renewed unionism, a social movement engaged at every level of work and life.

The enthusiasm for the organising and broad thinking shown by the green bans, and the recent editorial of Workers Online about how the new type of workforce is OK with the new type of worker, points towards a new type of unionism prepared to take on a broader role and vision.

A recent article on a need for new socialist imagination to counter the limits imposed on us all by the Third Way (ie one narrow way excluding real change) by Panitch and Gindin in Monthly Review (see http://www.monthlyreview.org/300gind.htm) reminds us that unions remain the major organised group who can provide hope for change. The important thing is to take on broader responsibilities, not narrow ourselves to wages and conditions or job security. The new workers you speak of are clearly not centred on their work, but on life generally, and unions need to take that and in and act on the "big picture", just as the BLF did way back when.

They would say that this new type of worker is clearly interested in extending and expanding their capacities as humans, so expectations emerge as to what unions might do. This is a different kind of unionism. It means a defensiveness, but not a static defensiveness, hanging on grimly to what we've got. A unionism committed to developing a culture of resistance. It means being oppositional, organisationally independent, ideologically confident of the legitimacy of demands and insistent on internal democracy and accountability. At the organisational level, it means such things as getting time off for productivity gains; time for education at and away from the workplace; linking health and safety issues to demands about how work is organised and the priorities of technology; internal union education programs to boost capacities and confidence of members.

Much of this might sound old hat, as the BLF was doing this. Mike Cooley and the British Aerospace workers challenged management on technology and priorities. Cooley continued this at Greater London Council while Ken Livingstone was there (Livingstone is back, how about these ideas?), internal democracy is what the NSW Teachers Fed. is being criticised about by the Industrial Commission.

Why have unions been pushed away from concerns on such issues, when in the 1970s they were major concerns. The assault on unions began in the mid 1970s and continues today. Unions have been driven to take responsibility for efficiency in the economy. The official expression of this was Australia Reconstructed. Union members on boards running profit oriented enterprises and superannuation funds are required to look after the finances, not the needs of workers. Problem-solving involves unions looking at ways to improve productivity and so on. This increases the capacities of workers to act like capitalists, not to imagine a different way of doing things. Being on boards limits mobilisation, as many would argue the Accord acted to limit mobilisation as unions served the government in constraining demands. Now those demands are being limited further.

The actions of unions in taking on these positions were a legitimate response to fears about job losses and declines in wages. Insecurity was a big factor. Panitch and Gindin argue that being aware of this problem also makes it possible to approach it a new way.

It has been said that the new knowledge workers are not just sellers of labour power, but providers of and producers in their own right. Panitch and Gindin would argue that it isn't just knowledge workers who are like this in the new economy, but many others as well. Thus the workers are in a position to look at and define the nature and purpose of the jobs. Peter Lewis' sample in Tales From the Shopfloor are like this. Many have made their jobs what they are, be it Sally the union person, Michelle the bush regenerator, Sarah the traveller or Robbie the media presenter. They have made their jobs, the jobs haven't defined them. Thus they can make work responsible ecologically and socially. Society doesn't have to bend to fit the profit orientation of their work. The sample is small but broader themes emerge.

The potential is for unions is to organise workers across different industries. Unions need to be open to the ideas and concerns of the young and the old, workers and workers partners and children, using their ideas to help define what work is, and organising to provide a secure base for workers to be flexible on their own terms, not the bosses. Superannuation funds have become more flexible for people moving around a lot, why not long service leave funds, organised by unions, pools of sick leave whatever. Workers are more than their work and unions need to tap into that.

This also highlights thew need to co-operate and act with community organisations of other kinds, for example with ACOSS concerning the attacks on the social welfare system, with environment groups on environmentally responsible work places, with pensioner associations on failcities for the aged, with public education lobbies to ensure a decent and innovative education system survives and prospers. Unions have members with interests and concerns in all these areas. To attract and keep members unions need to show they are more than industrial organisations, but are social movements representing and articulating the broader concerns of a disparate membership

Gindin and Panitch call this capacity building. The sort of capacity building needed is not the economic capacity of firms or the productive capacity of workers, but the capacity talked about by Saint Simon in the 1820s. "Can the worker develop his intellectual faculties and moral desires? Can he even desire to do so?" They refer to a Barbara Kingsolver novel Animal Dreams. A women asks her lover "Didn't you ever dream you could fly?" He answers: "Not when I am sorting pecans all day." She persists and asks again "Really though, didn't you ever fly in your dreams?" and he replies "Only when I am close to flying in real life...Your dreams, what you hope for and all that, its not separate from your life. It grows right out of it."

For unions to have a future, they have to help people have the capacity to dream, and that starts for unions by recognising and being central to the new workplace, in its many and varied forms.

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Issue 54 contents

Interview: South of the Border
Victorian Trades Hall chief Leigh Hubbard on life under Bracks, militant unionism and why more people march in Melbourne.

Politics: Jeff Shaw's Second Wave
The full text of the NSW Industrial Relations Minister's speech to Labor Council announcing the Carr Government's IR reform agenda.

Unions: Reith's Laws: Just Say NO
The ACTU has called on Labor and the Democrats to reject Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith's anti-industry bargaining Workplace Relations 2000 Bill out right.

History: A Breed Of Their Own
Labour historian Greg Patmore explains what makes his fraternity tick - and why they're still going strong and making history.

International: Sony's Asian Showdown
The Japanese electronic giant Sony is threatening to shutdown production facilities in Indonesia - where a prolonged strike has cost it US$200milliom - and move to next door Malaysia where electronic workers are banned from forming a union.

Human Rights: Good Guys, Bad Guys
Everywhere we look -in our newspapers, on the television, in reports by business leaders, academics and politicians - advocacy of human rights seems to be on a collision course with governmental and business interests.

Review: New Workers, New Challenges
A new wave of thought is arguing that working life is changing - but this doesn't necessarily deal unions out the action.

Satire: Rain Man Withdraws Endorsement of Qantas
After the third major safety incident in the space of a year, Qantas has lost the confidence of the most famous public supporter of its once unblemished safety record, the autistic star of Rain Man, Raymond.

» Carr Moves on Casuals

» Democrats Wavering on Reith Bill

» Exit Visas for Child Care Workers

» GST Pay Claims to Target Allowances

» Tide Turns On Competitive Tendering

» Joy Takes Message To The World

» Mines Out as Rio Tinto Torps Talks

» Political Economy for Activists, 2000

» Unions March for Reconciliation

» STOP PRESS: AK-47s used in coup against union-aligned Fiji Labour Government