
Issue No 72		06 October 2000

LaborNET	Ask Neale	Tool of the Week

Interview

Taking It To The Union Busters

ACTU Assistant Secretary Richard Marles talks to Workers Online about turning back the anti-union sentiment growing in the business community, responsible unionism and the sense of fun to be found at the ACTU.

First we had Rio Tinto, now the Commonwealth Bank - deunionisation is increasingly the objective of big business. What response can we expect from the ACTU?

We are seeing a really significant push from big business to try and de-unionise. It's an attitude that exists in America, which hasn't existed here, except on the margins. But what we have seen, particularly with the Commonwealth Bank, and also with Telstra, is that attitude coming into the mainstream.

What can we expect the ACTU to do about it?

Well, there are four things.

Firstly we obviously have to fight every case as they come up. And we have been doing that and with some success. We have had some notable victories in the courts in relation to it.

As an aside it is worth putting this in perspective. BHP, Telstra and the Commonwealth Bank are probably the three large companies which at the moment are having this push made within them. Five percent of the Australian union movement is within those companies, so it is a very significant number of people we are talking about.

The second message that comes out of it is that unions really have to be sensible. By which I don't mean that they need to suck up to the boss but it is that the time of indulgence has gone, and we need to be sensible and responsible to our membership.

Disciplined?

Disciplined, and we can't abuse our power. That is, not in the eyes of the employer, but in the eyes of our membership. Because when our members see us abuse our power - and I have seen this happen with disputes - we can lose them. And so, not only are we encouraging the employers to take us on in this way, we actually weaken ourselves at being able to defend an employer push on us.

The third thing is that the government which is in power is quite critical to this. Not in terms of the legislative framework, although that is obviously very important. But in terms of the culture of business which emanates within the jurisdiction of that government.

If you look at New Zealand at the moment, the Service and Food Workers Union has had 3000 nett new members this year to date and that is on top of a base of about 22,000. So that union stands to increase by something like 20 to 25% within this year. If you ask what the difference is it comes from having a Labor Government. In Victoria there is not a single piece of law which has changed since Steve Bracks came into power, but things have changed. It was put to me this way - that when business comes to a labor government, and briefs them on their major project or seeks assistance to set up something within the State, they don't win any brownie points by running the anti-union rhetoric. Indeed to the contrary, they do win brownie points by running the rhetoric of cooperation with unions and workers.

So there is a big cultural change that can come with a change in government. It really means the next Federal Election is as critical as any has been to the labour movement.

And the final thing, and this is more important than anything else, is the organising agenda. What we have found in all of the unions that have been at the forefront of this, is that those that are able to survive best are those which have, as the Americans would say, a strong, internally organised base. That is, where people see the union embodied in themselves - where they see the union as themselves and as being the concept of people being bound together within a particular workplace as opposed to being something which is external, a third party with an office in the State Capital and a national office in Melbourne or Sydney. It is those unions who really have a strong and active presence on the ground, which are able to resist this, and that stands to reason. How can a company individualise the relationship between employers and their workforce, in a workplace where people see being in a union as being fundamentally about being part of an indivisible collective.

Some people put forward the argument that under the last Labor Government union membership became de-politicised and that top-down sort of politics led to a weakening of the union movement. So how do you strike a balance between having that organising culture and making the most of a friendly government?

I am not necessarily a critic of the Accord. It worked in its time but its time is obviously not now.

If you go to New Zealand, the unions which are best making the most of a new business culture under a Labor Government are those that adopted the organising agenda. Those that are aggressively going out and saying: now is the time that unions are likely to grow, because now times are good for us, and so we need to use all the techniques that we have developed in the past few years to defend our base, to actually go out and expand it.

Wedge politics on race has been a feature of the Howard Government. Do you think there is also a form of wedge politics between unions and business that's been pushed by Canberra?

Absolutely. Peter Reith in particular, and I suppose John Howard as well, are absolute zealots in trying to import a culture from America where really you have a kind of perpetual industrial war. The kind of things that we are seeing within Telstra, Commonwealth Bank, BHP, which are now verging on the mainstream, but have been marginal - that kind of attitude is prevalent across America. I very much feel that the government - through the MUA dispute, with Peter Reith out there championing BHP and with their trying to introduce individual contracts - are absolutely trying to bring into place a form of wedge politics. It is a very aggressive agenda. It is the most aggressive agenda that we have seen by any conservative government in this country.

What sort of relationship would you like to see between the union movement and the business community? And are there factions within business who don't embrace the union busting agenda that we can work with constructively?

That is a good question. The Olympics have been a really important and much needed event for a range of Australians. I imagine indigenous Australians feel that way too. But I also think that it has been a really important event for the Australian labour movement. For this reason: the Olympics were a union event. I think they were characterised by cooperation. You had people who were paid well, where unions were recognised, and where the outcome was absolutely fantastic. And what it demonstrated to Australia, and I think the world, is that world's best employment practice involves having a strongly unionised workforce where the employer cooperates with the union and with its workforce. That is world's best practice.

Research performed by some of the militant employers actually indicated that world's best practice in terms of employment relations was to have a strong unionised workforce with good relations between the employers and the unions. I almost fainted when I saw that. To put it in context, the research also came to the conclusion that world's worst practice was a unionised workforce where there was a perpetual state of war between the union and the employers. I guess that is no surprise. And then what it found was that in about the 75 to 80 percentile of world's best practice, came a model of having a workforce with no union presence and where the relationship between the employer and the workforce is very much done on a one-to-one basis with each individual worker.

What their own research says to these companies is that the individual contract, non-union agenda is the mediocre option. So in turn there is great scope, as we have seen in the Olympics, to try and develop relationships with employers who are prepared to cooperate with us - and I don't mean subservient relationships but ones that are dignified and see good results for employees - and which do bring about world's best practice in terms of industrial relations. We do have to find allies in business who are prepared to be brave enough to go down that path.

It is not going to be easy is it to have that sort of industrial harmony when you have an organising culture in the unions and you've got a lot of grass roots input on how a union functions and they have been subjected to this sort of employer treatment which generates anger and resentment?

I completely agree. I think to try and turn it around in places like BHP and Telstra and ComBank now, would be very difficult for those organisations for exactly the reasons you have said.

They are doing long term damage by going down the path?

Yes.

We have got to try and develop a form of unionism which is well internally organised, as the Americans would say, within companies which are friendly and which haven't exhibited any unfriendly behaviour towards us, which, while giving good conditions to our members, do in fact improve companies' performances. I just think we have got to become much more partisan in the marketplace. We have got to be barracking for union companies and not barracking for non-union companies. And that is a bit of a shift for us. We have got to say to those companies who we have traditionally had a relationship with: this isn't backing off the desires and aspirations of our members to have good conditions within your company, but we really value the relationship we have got with you and we want to see you succeed . . . in fact, it is critical to our interests that you are profitable.

What do you see as the key industrial goals of the ACTU at the moment?

The first, second and third priority is union membership. We are facing a long period of decline in union density - and we have got to do something to turn that around. In a sense all else is pretty secondary to that.

And I guess that is why we analyse these disputes in that way, because they - the disputes that we have been talking about - herald the possibility of being a new factor in reducing union density that we haven't seen in Australia. And that is an employer initiated thing. Whereas union density has really reduced up until now because of structural changes in the economy and to a certain extent, changes in the industrial framework.

So that is the main thing, and a lot of commentators out there would regard that as an impossible task, but we don't. Union decline has been part of an international phenomena. But, internationally we are starting to see it turn around. In the last twelve months there has been an absolute increase in membership within the United States. Not an increase in union density, but an increase in membership. Within Britain, for the first time in about 25 years we have actually seen an increase in union density, which is a remarkable achievement. And I think we are going to start seeing, albeit off a very low base, an increase in union density in New Zealand.

We are hopeful that we can participate in that global change as well and start turning it around.

We need to prepare ourselves for a potential Labor government federally, and that means putting some imaginative and obviously serious thought into what an industrial relations framework might look like under a new Labor government. It would be the first time that there has been a review - or at least a Labor review - of enterprise bargaining since it was introduced in 1993 - if Labor wins. So that presents a really important opportunity to the union movement to try and influence the law in a positive direction.

The ACTU is also very keen to try and become more active within the Industrial Relations Commission in terms of trying to create new employment standards. That is a very traditional role that the ACTU has played and it is important to get on the front foot with some of those things and try and get back to some of our traditional roles of improving employment standards.

What sort of relationship would you envisage between the union movement and a prospective Labor government?

Obviously a close relationship, a cooperative relationship but an independent relationship. No one is talking about another Accord and obviously that kind of relationship is not going to be appropriate for a new Labor government. It is very important that the membership of trade unions don't see the labour movement, embodied in the ACTU, as synonymous with a Labor government. That was perhaps a criticism of how things worked in the 80s and early 90s, so it is very important that, whilst having a close and cooperative relationship with Labor, we don't forget our role as being an advocate of our members to government.

You haven't been at the ACTU long - about six months - give us your impressions of the organisation under the new leadership.

Well, it's fun. It's a lot of fun. The ACTU has gone through a period of change in the last few years. That is self-evident, and I guess one goes into a job like this with some trepidation as to what it is going to be like when you get in there. But I have to say that having been there I have just been delighted at how nice a place it is to work. How much fun it is. And there is just a lot of energy about the place.

ACTU Congress was really important for us because it was a new leadership and everyone was really thrilled at how that went.

So there is a lot of energy, a lot of vibrancy and it is a good place to work.

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Issue 72 contents

Interview: Taking It To The Union Busters
ACTU Assistant Secretary Richard Marles talks to Workers Online about turning back the anti-union sentiment growing in the business community, responsible unionism and the sense of fun to be found at the ACTU.

International: The White Knights
The International Labour Organisation has become the great hope for those fighting to give globalisation a human face. Australian Bob Kyloh is one of those working with trade unions within the ILO to make it happen.

Politics: Industrial Democracy for Australia
Glenn Patmore argues we need new forms of employee representation in the workplace to broaden employee participation.

Unions: Behind The Scenes
In a small office at Homebush Bay, as the world focused on all that was positive about our games, Unions 2000 and SOCOG officials worked tirelessly to ensure that no worker was ripped off. Chris Christoudoulou reports.

Satire: Parade of Icons �Could Have Included Even More Ex-Aussies� Say Critics
The selection of Greg Norman, Paul Hogan and Elle Macpherson to represent Australia in the �Parade of Icons� during the Closing Ceremony of the Sydney Games last night has prompted a storm of complaints from other famous former Australians.

Review: Elliott Smiths Figure 8
Smith is basically the secret love child of the fab four and it�s so blatantly obvious. That�s not a bad thing because one thing Lennon and McCartney were reknown for was there ability to pen catchy tunes.

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