Unions: don't listen to the Greens' Siren Song

Like the Sirens, the Greens’ song is sweet, but they will not help us get home. We need to show the discipline to tie ourselves to the mast and sail past their promises and back on a course that delivers real benefits for union members.

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As for the recent machinations over the structure of the ALP, they are in danger of missing the fundamental point: Labor’s current malaise is caused not by an excess of core values but through a deficit.

Listen to the Conference rhetoric and you'd think that by cutting the formal union influence in the Party, Labor would somehow become a champion of the people. Talk to the workers of Australia and you get a very different story.

The Transport Workers Union has just completed focus groups - members of the contracting Labor heartland - asking them about their attitude to the ALP.

The findings reflect similar surveys for the ACTU and other unions: working people have lost faith with both sides of politics and are crying out for a champion.

Here's what the TWU members had to say:

• "Personally, I think Labor and Liberal are so close now it's not going to make any difference"
• on Labor politicians: "they've got a good looking CV, they've got a university education and they just want to get elected to that cushy job in Parliament. They don't care too much about the worker."
• and "I reckon there's a lot of union members who say you're not doing anything for me, I'm giving my vote to an independent."

In this context the challenge for Labor is not to water down its commitment to core values, but strengthen them.

With corporate excesses reaching breaking point, a war for Oil in the Middle East and increased pressure in the workplace Labor should be killing it.

That it's struggling is directly linked to the reluctance of the parliamentary wing to move from safety first, white-bread, middle of the road, me-too policies.

That is why the formulation of refugee policy is such a fundamental issue. It is about the way Labor does politics.