
Issue No 79		24 November 2000

LaborNET	Ask Neale	Tool of the Week

Unions

The Problem with Organising

It may be the new mantra, but Brisbane Institute director Peter Botsman argues that organising may be the wrong to go for a movement attempting to attract a new breed of workers.

****************

The ACTU's "organising model" has been learned from American unions whoare fighting for the last 20% of the workforce. The "organizing model" is not primarily about gaining representation in new industries.

I suppose one can imagine, if one really works at it, a strike by all the waiters, dishwashers and table attendants on Brunswick Street, Fitzroy or King Street, Newtown, or the Valley in Brisbane a sort of Jobs within Justice campaign but it would be pretty far fetched. Because unlike the famous building janitors campaigns that are the hallmark of the organising model in the USA waiters and dishwashers would not be protesting against a big and evil body corporate, or a real estate corporation, they would often be protesting against themselves as owners, operators and bosses of their own businesses.

Every survey of the past decade reveals that an increasing percentage of people aged below thirty want to own their own business. To be really on top of their game of representing people in the workforce, the ACTU would be running courses for Generation X'ers in how to run your own business by treating your workers fairly. But this is too big a leap of function for the ACTU to suddenly move forwards from its traditional function as a union of trades to being a union of small business.

But my point is that unless it does, the ACTU will probably never again be the political representative of the whole of the Australian workforce. It will simply be fighting an ever harder rear guard action against greater and greater numbers of opponents, some of whom would otherwise be supporters. I think the ACTU strategy is well intentioned, defensive, old fashioned and ultimately about maintaining the status quo.

Of course in great deference to my friends at the ACTU, no matter what the numbers of union membership, while the central wage fixing process stays in place the ACTU will always be important as the guardian of fair pay and the guardian of the weak in the workplace, but one can imagine a situation where, even without rabid Peter Reith figures, this function may also, over time, fade away.

*******************

The problem for ACOSS is somewhat different from the ACTU, but it has the same consequence of potential marginalisation By simply advocating for increases in social welfare funding, by advocating greater responsibility by governments for what is in effect a living wage for over 1 million people, I think ACOSS begins like the ACTU, to put itself against the interests of many of it's own constituency. How can that possibly be?

Well, here I find myself like Noel Pearson, surprisingly agreeing with the Right. I think that when the social wage becomes not just a supplement to private income, but the sole means of income, it creates a multiplicity of perverse effects. Let me say that agreeing with the Right's identification of a major problem, does not mean that you have to agree with their solutions. However I think it is correct to say that the way the social wage is currently designed, if increased funding flows through centralized bureaucracies that control schools, hospitals, and the way in which you receive income support, it will change very little about the inequality that exists in our society. It will even, in some case, as Noel has argued in relation to the indigenous society, increase inequality, dependency and powerlessness.

Let me pause here to try to get at the heart of what is problematic and this leads back to my analogy of the ACTU's inability to deal with Generation X small business. What is being stolen from people, even when we increase the size and power of the social wage, is people's capacity to think and act and work and solve their own problems for themselves. At the moment, by being primarily an advocate to an increased social wage, ACOSS puts itself on the side of health care professionals who insist on having absolute control of the health problems they cannot solve; and the silos of social wage bureaucracies in police, social security departments, education departments, housing departments who want to see social inadequacy solely in terms of what they have the capacity or responsibility to deliver. But none of this is about attacking inequality.

Extracted from: People Not Structures/New Investments of the Social Wage, a paper to "Just Policy, Sound Research, Joint Action A Winning Formula" the 2000 ACOSS National Conference, Rydges, Canberra, 16 November

   To read the full paper click here

  View entire issue - print all of the articles!

  Issue 79 contents

Interview: Back on Track
After blowing the whistle on rail privatization, NSW Transport Minister Carl Scully is rebuilding bridges with the trade union movement.

Unions: The Problem with Organising
It may be the new mantra, but Brisbane Institute director Peter Botsman argues that organising may be the wrong to go for a movement attempting to attract a new breed of workers.

International: Burma: Workers Act on ILO Ruling
Energy workers' trade unions across the Asia-Pacific have urged Western oil and gas companies to "cease investment in Burma while the use of forced labour continues".

Economics: Rethinking Incomes Policy
While many have thrown incomes policy out with the Acoord bathwater, Graham White argues it still has a role to play.

History: What Goes Around Comes Around
Labor Council's Mark Lennon argues that while trade unions - and labour history - might be unfashionable, there's life left in both of them.

Education: Peas in a Pod
Both sides of politics must take blame for funding levels in our public schools, argues NSW Teachers Federation president Sue Simpson.

Satire: Hurley Rebukes Actors' Guild: I'm No Actor!
Liz Hurley has responded angrily to claims by actors that she crossed a picket line by filming an Estee Lauder ad.

Review: It's Only a Job
In a stunning new book, author Phil Thornton and photographer Paul Jones have combined to portray working life in all its diversity through the eyes of ordinary people like process worker Sharonak Shannon

» Olympics Pay Bonus Warning

» Korean Unions Lift The Roof

» Raw Asbestos to be Blocked at Ports

» We Don't Want Your Blood Money!

» Casual Maternity Leave Put to the Test

» Reith's Industrial Spy Loses Secret Tape Case

» Alarm Bells Start Ringing on WorkCover

» Workers Ask NAB To Have A Heart

» Wattyl Happen on Monday?

» Wage Stats Back ACTU Living Wage Claim

» Deadline Approaches for Organiser of the Year

» Training Crisis - Carr Called to Action

» Cleaners Down Garbage Bags

» Shaw's Man Aims for Canberra

» Life After Seattle: A Citizen's Guide to the WTO

» Sinn Fein Deputy in Sydney