It's back to 1950s in Adelaide as ALP Groupers flex muscle

Lay Catholic leader Bob Santamaria and the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, Daniel Mannix, fought against the "Godless Reds" by forming the right wing Catholic Social Studies Movement, better known as the "Movement". The Movement infiltrated the Shop Assistants Union (now the SDA) and made it their own.

In the great Labor split of 1955, the "Shoppies", as they are called, were expelled from the union movement for supporting the Catholic controlled Democratic Labor Party (DLP). The DLP helped keep Federal Labor out of power for 17 years by directing its preferences to Menzies' Liberals.

In the 1980s, Bob Hawke re-admitted the SDA in to the ACTU. With the support of SDA titan Joe De Bruyn and local power broker Senator Don Farrell, the union soon became the dominant faction in the South Australian ALP. Their socially conservative politics has not changed much since the 1950s.

The sheer number of current or former members of the SDA, who either work for the ALP in South Australia, and who have filtered through the party to senior public service roles, isnepotism on a grand scale.

In a parliamentary speech in 2008, Rob Lucas MLC said, "Their (SDA's) influence on the party (ALP) and the government is cancerous in terms of its arrogance, and they are treating it as a job network for friends, girlfriends, boyfriends, husbands, wives, brothers and sisters in terms of jobs within ministerial offices, on boards, on committees, etc."

The SDA controls about 45 per cent of state ALP conference delegates with almost 30,000 members. This dwarfs all other affiliated union memberships in the state. With the weakening of the dominant left wing Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union, the SDA's power is growing.

But change may be at hand. A recent Fairfax Media investigation called "Shopped Out" revealed workers at large fast food and retail outlets across Australia, were being underpaid more than $300 million a year in deals struck by the SDA.

Dozens of agreementswill now be investigated by a parliamentary inquiry, including those with Australia's three biggest employers: Woolworths, McDonald's and Coles. The Shoppies are in deep trouble.What union advocates lower wages for its members?

They have gotten in to bed with the employers, which is an image not condoned by the Church of Rome.

Rank and file SDA members who are predominately young female South Australians, have no say in a union that is against abortion, same sex marriage and euthanasia.

If SDA members refused to renew their SDA union dues, then this Goliath would fall. That would be a mighty leap forward for progressive politics in South Australia.