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Workers' Liberty
the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class Workers Liberty Australia |
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The Manufacturing Workers Union Campaign 2000/2001
has succeeded in uniting its members in a campaign for wages and conditions,
despite being subject to dozens of separate Enterprise Bargaining Agreements.
This was achieved by careful co-ordination of EBAs so that they would expire
either in June 2000 or June 2001. 'The basic claims of Campaign 2000/2001
are for a 6% wage rise, better job security, predictable and reasonable
hours, protected and portable entitlements and regulation of casuals and
contractors.' according to the AMWU. The AMWU also claims credit for defeating
Reith’s most recent 'Third Wave' anti-union legislation, with strong lobbying
of the Democrats. This was different from previously encouraged forms of
Democrat lobbying, because it was backed up by a clear and serious intention
to act, by AMWU members. The Australian Industry Group was disaffected
that its member employers broke ranks in failing to resist the AMWU Campaign,
but has now agreed to discuss with the union on a national basis. The AMWU
has repeated the Victorian CFMEU tactic of breaking
down the ability of the bosses industry group to lead the employers in
resisting union action for the 36 hour week.
This positive result contrasts
with the High Court's upholding of Reith's award stripping provisions of
the Workplace Relations Act on 15 June. The CFMEU had challenged their
legality. Reith and his supporters cannot be expected to retire from battle
now. Reith is still plugging away with more waves of his previously ditched
legislation. We need to be ready to keep up the fight, and at least we
now have some recent victories for inspiration.
Fair trade Vs free trade is shaping up to be a hot topic of debate in the labour movement, with the recent ACTU Congress having adopted the fair trade position advocated by Doug Cameron of the AMWU. The NSW ALP Conference a couple of weeks earlier had rejected it, at the insistence of the MPs and the right.
Other policies adopted by ACTU Congress
indicate that there is a new mood for taking the initiative in campaigning
for improvements, rather than being consumed by defensive reactions to
attacks.
These policies include demands for legal
protection for collective bargaining, a broadened campaign for a 36 hour
week, and a substantial rise in award rates of pay. Greg Combet also told
Congress that unions have to maintain ‘a strong independent voice for working
people’ even if this meant 'serious differences with Labor'.
"Free trade with countries with oppressive
labour regimes and with no social or environmental regulations is deeply
problematic and should attract a social tariff upon goods landing in Australia"
according to Doug Cameron of the AMWU. On ABC Radio National on 28 June,
Cameron said that it wasn_t fair that Australian workers had to compete
for jobs on the terms and conditions offered in very low waged countries.It
seems he would prefer less disparity in the terms of competition amongst
workers. The social tariff idea sounds as though it could be a form of
solidarity with workers employed in extremely poor conditions, but it can
easily be turned into antagonism. Do we know what sort of solidarity organised
workers in the ‘unfair’ trade countries want? e.g. Indonesia, Fiji, India,
Pakistan? Have ‘fair traders’ developed policies jointly with unions/workers
in those countries to work out the best way to improve their conditions,
and take united action together? How clean is Australia's environmental
record? We have very high per capita greenhouse gas emissions. Could retaliatory
‘fair trade’ restrictions be advocated against Australia?
The ‘fair trade’ campaign is an attempt
at a union response to corporate globalisation’s disregard for human needs
and rights, which has been stimulated by the energy of the Seattle demonstrations.
A special guest at the ACTU Congress was Richard Trumpka, a leader of the
AFL-CIO, who spoke about globalisation and fair trade. Trumpka is not a
socialist - on ABC’s Lateline on Wednesday 28 June, he said that he wants
corporations to prosper and endure, and to behave responsibly towards workers
and on social and environmental issues.
For the response of an American
socialist unionist to the AFL-CIO’s views, which recognises its contradictory
elements, you can read more in this newsletter in
the article After Seattle, the ongoing battle.
Australian Workplace Agreements would be abolished, and Sections 45D & E of the Trade Practices Act would be repealed by a Labor Government, promised Kim Beazley in June.
Both these promises are actually part of
the ALP's industrial relations policy from the 1998 election. The draft
of the policy for the next election has just been released, but WL has
not yet obtained a copy. So to get an idea of what Labor might do, here
is a look at the 1998 policy A better plan for industrial relations
at http://www.alp.org.au/campaign/policy/betterplans/industrial.html.
This Better plan proposes a thorough
review of all aspects of IR by an ALP government, but in advance says Labor
would "implement a ‘Ten step rescue plan’ to fix the ten very worst aspects
of the Workplace Relations Act."
The ten points in brief are:
1. Restore the power of the Australian
Industrial Relations Commission to:
Other measures of ALP policy:
For employment security:
Legislate for employers to take out insurance
to be able to pay the entitlements of sacked workers, and for related companies
to be held liable for the employment of workers of insolvent companies.
This policy has been fleshed out in February 2000.
Inquiry into hours and quality of working
life:
This proposed inquiry has some laudable
aims, including to ‘ensure a more equal distribution of work hours’ and
some contradictory aims ‘promote a positive workplace and working time
reform alongside enhanced productivity, efficiency and creativity; reduce
workplace stress’. Are these compatible when productivity is determined
as increased output in relation to the cost of labour?
Occupational Health and Safety
Increase the Commonwealth's role, by funding
research, standard setting, education and information, and enforcement.
Increase funding to the AIRC.
Reverse (partially) cuts to Commonwealth
industrial law enforcment and information services.
Issues that you won’t find in this policy
are youth wages, child support policies e.g. by an extension of entitlements
to either paid or unpaid parental leave. Unemployment is not in this policy
either.
Principles
Arch Beavis, Labor's IR spokesperson, interviewed
in Workers Online in September 1999, said "Some of the fundamental principles
we have held to in industrial relations remain important, the challenge
for all of us in the labour movement is to ensure that those policies are
translated into workable models that do actually deal with the challenges
in the 21st century." If Beavis meant to say that there’s a whole lot better
world to win out there, if we were to go for it, and not be shackled by
our past reliance on accommodating to the archaic and rusting capitalist
system...I could agree with him. But this reference to principle remaining
important, but we’ve got to change seems to mean that we've got to accommodate
to changes in capitalism, globalisation, etc. The fundamental principles
are not reiterated. What are they?
Principles that Workers Liberty would want
to see recognised are:
Workers right to organise. We have no interest
in balancing between the demands of workers and bosses - we’re against
penalties applying to unions if the AIRC has not resolved a dispute. We
advocate the unconditional repeal of 45D and 45E of the Trade Practices
Act, unlimited rights of access to union officials to enter worksites,
and the right to hold union meetings in worktime.
Workers self-reliance. The role of the
AIRC is a double-edged sword. On the one hand it has granted unions broad
ranging improvements in wages and conditions, applying also to workers
who are in comparatively weak industrial positions. This 'granting' of
improvements to workers is in response to union campaigns often involving
industrial action, so the gains still had to be won, but then formalised
by the Commission. The importance of relying on industrial campaigning
versus clever legal argument is debated during union campaigns.
On the other hand, the AIRC and its predecessor
the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission have reined in smaller more
militant groups of unionists, and held back the unions when they could
have been in a position to win more, and more importantly to inspire other
unions to fight for more. The deregistration of the BLF and the Airline
Pilots during the Accord are examples of the broader union movement policing
individual unions, in order to preserve the authority of the industrial
relations system (and the Hawke Labor Government). The role of the ‘independent
umpire’ is accepted as providing protection from some of the worst excesses
of the bosses. And to some extent this is so, and the experience of Reith’s
dismantling of the Commission can be seen to confirm this. But when the
union movement is strong and self-reliant, this ‘protection’ is a hindrance.
Solidarity - support for the rights of
all. Some aspects of Labor's proposed restoration of powers to the AIRC
encourage this - industry wide bargaining, broad based and broadly applicable
awards.
Rights of unions to determine their own
affairs. No imposition of secret ballots. Union democracy that is created
by the members, accountability of officials etc, to workers needs can only
be effective if it is accountability within the union, and not accountability
under the laws of capitalism. The ALP has not undertaken to repeal sections
of the WRA which interfere in internal union affairs.
Which Labor policies are worthwhile
for unionists to campaign for implementation of?
Labor’s approach to class conflict is to
manage it. This is shown in the promise to repeal some of Reith’s laws,
and point 9 of the ten step rescue plan, which emphasises ‘resolution...rather
than punishment’. Labor’s record under the Hawke-Keating Government, and
earlier governments, shows that Labor is also ready to use punitive measures
against unions. Hawke’s government broke the unions of airline pilots and
builders, because they didn’t fully conform to the Accord. ‘Resolution’
of industrial disputes is judged on what the resolution actually is, it
is not an end in itself.
Workers Liberty is for the repeal of all
laws which penalise workers for asserting their interests against the bosses,
and urges all unionists to agitate for extended ALP commitments to repeal
laws which restrict union rights and autonomy. This is a positive in the
promises of the ALP. We support the extension of awards to cover as wide
a range of workers as possible, and as wide a range of conditions as possible.
Increased funding for OH&S, and an inquiry into working hours are worthwhile.
But a high standard of OH&S and shorter hours will need vigorous campaigns
to be secured.
And we also caution that Labor in government
bows to pressure from the employers, and that we can’t rely on Labor to
be on our side, they will be reluctant to repeal all restrictions on unions.
We will still have only union solidarity to rely on.
Queensland state school teachers struck for 24 hours on 14 June, after a long and miserable process of Enterprise Bargaining (EB) between the Queensland Teachers Union (QTU) and the Department of Education. The former EB agreement expired on 1 March, the QTU lodged their claim with the Department in advance as early as July 1999, but the Labor state government has still done no more than announce a take-it-or-leave-it offer last November: 3% per year for three years on pay, and nothing on the QTU's demands about conditions of teaching and learning.
There are more than 32,000 state school teachers in Queensland, and the vast majority struck. 68 strike meetings were held statewide on the day, with the major strike meeting in Festival Hall, Brisbane, attended by over 3000 teachers.
Beattie offer rejected
The Beattie ALP state government has not
moved from its original pay offer to teachers of 3% per annum. It did try
to buy off the pending industrial action by offering, oh-so-generously,
to pay the first 3% immediately pending arbitration if the strike were
called off. This interim offer, designed to appeal to teachers retiring
this year or otherwise anxious to get more money in their pay packets immediately,
at whatever cost, was put to a ballot of the QTU membership and rejected
by 94%. The state government is still stonewalling on the QTU's other claims
of the QTU, which are concerned to address the conditions that state school
teachers - and their students - work under. These are:
Rolling strikes
What constitutes a "significant improvement"?
And a shift to rolling strikes signifies a reduction, rather than an increase,
in the tempo and force of the industrial action. A statewide 48 hour strike
would have been a much better next step.
Finally, there is a dangerous and politically
stultifying form of reasoning newly emerging from union executives and
the state government. The Queensland Minister for Health, Wendy Edmond,
in response to a conservative MP delighting in a bit of schadenfreude
about the state of industrial unrest in Queensland, the snap-strike of
Australian Workers' Union (AWU) non-medical staff at Princess Alexandra
Hospital, and the possibility of industrial action by the state's nurses
in the Queensland Nurses' Union (QNU), has claimed that it is natural for
"tempers to flare" at a certain stage of negotiations. Whilst an implication
of this statement is an admission that EB puts workers in direct industrial
conflict with their bosses on a constant basis, it is also a patronizing
fob-off of the genuine industrial action that has taken place in Queensland,
and presented as an eternal verity of nature. Teachers have become angry
enough to take action - not in some sudden fit of pique, but in a long
process of union meetings and ballots stretching over more than six months
- not only because our wages are too low and our conditions wretched, but
because of the arrogance and treachery of the Beattie government which
so falsely labels itself "Labor".