What the Labor Council of NSW has done well

A Capital Idea?

The trade union’s hierarchy will travel to Melbourne to celebrate the ACTU’s 75th Anniversary next week; a journey that says much about where our peak body has come from and even more about where it should go now.

Those 75 years have spanned a World War, a Depression, a long, lean period in Opposition, two decades in ascendency where it seemed for a time the ACTU was part of the Executive and now another term in the political wilderness.

It survived the Depression, the Split and the Cold War, creating an egalitarian Australian society and produced our longest-serving Labor Prime Minister.

Along the way its achievements have been significant: a 40-hour week, basic wages, leave entitlements, equal pay, superannuation, redundancy rights and the recognition of indigenous Australians.

But there have also been defeats, none more so than the way the movement managed to lose half its base at the very point where its political influence was at its greatest.

There’s been another dynamic underpinning the ACTU’s lifespan that reflects the broader tensions in the Australian polity between the States and Canberra.

Like the Federal Parliament, it was actually state bodies that established the ACTU, principally the Labor Council of NSW recognising the need for a unified voice for the new nation.

It’s folklore that the Labor Council established the ACTU in Melbourne because if it succeeded it would be far enough away and if it failed it would be far enough away.

As Australia’s Federation has strengthened, so has the ACTU’s profile as the focal point of the entire union movement; until the Accord era where the man at the peak of the apex sat down with the Prime Minister to determine the wages and conditions of a nation.

But herein lies the ACTU’s challenge, in an era when industrial relations has been devolved to the workplace, how can a peak national body ever be responsive to the needs of individual workers?

At it’s best the ACTU is at the cutting edge of the national political debate, leading the charge on contemporary issues like paid maternity leave and reasonable working hours.

Where it struggles is in complimenting grass-roots industrial campaigns being run by affiliates, helping to lift a local dispute onto the national stage by the stature of its office.

Granted, the ACTU’s Organising Centre is a laudable attempt to train individual unions to run campaigns; but as the Labor Council of NSW is demonstrating, this is really the role of state bodies far closer in culture to the state branches that eventually have to do the hard yards.

It is in this light, that we call on the ACTU to mark its 75th Anniversary by relocating to Canberra, recognising that it is the lobbying of our national politicians that should be the its key function.

Along with the business, industry and employer lobbies, the union movement needs a permanent force in Canberra, not just to run the movement-wide agenda but provide a base for individual affiliates.

Meanwhile, state branches should receive a larger slice of the pie to continue the organising agenda at a grass roots level, recognising that it is here that the real battles for the future of the movement will be fought.

Done the right way, the move to Canberra could create a new type of hierarchy – less a pyramid and more a coat-hanger, less on the top and much more closer to the base.

Food for thought, anyway. So Happy Birthday, ACTU; but maybe it’s time to get a new pad.

From New Labor to True Labor

Holroyd Council’s commitment to labour rights, embodied in the Memorandum of understanding it signed with the NSW Labor Council this week, is a ground-breaking commitment by a leader in this important tier of government.

While many local councils call themselves ‘Labor’ and utilise the ALP machine to run campaigns, how many actually embrace Labor values in the discharge of their duties?

As many local government workers would know, modern local government is a world of contracting out, competitive tendering and job cuts. Core Labor values indeed.

It is these trends that the Memorandum and broader efforts to establish Labor values in local government seek to address. But beyond the specifics it is a call for a public commitment to the labour movement by those who purport to represent its values.

With a number of high profile local government leaders seeking election as Labor candidates at the upcoming state election, it will be interesting to note which other councils come on board.

Holroyd’s Mayor Mal Tulloch has set the benchmark for a ‘True Labor’ Council and Workers Online will watch with interest as other Councils decide whether or not to sign on to the memorandum in the weeks to come.

Meanwhile in Canberra, Treasurer Peter Costello proved how out of touch he is with the Labour movement this week when he claimed that the NSW Labor Council had pressured Premier Carr into opposing the appointment of a Tory free marketeer to head up the ACCC.

If the flurry of activity the Costello spray sparked in Macquarie Street in an attempt to rebut such an outrageous allegation was at any time matched with a similar determination by those same apparatchiks to promote workers’ issues, then Costello might really have had something to run on.

The reality is that the political wing is jumping at shadows, spooked by a fear of a public backlash that is not even there.

As ACTU and Labor Council polling shows, the punters are looking for someone to stand up for them, at every tier of government, not ferret away in the shadows ashamed to step up to the plate as their advocate.

Rather than rushing off and joining the Greens, True Believers at all levels of the movement should be putting their energies into changing this dynamic – from new Labor to True Labor. Holroyd City Council’s commitment to ethical labour standards is just the first step.