The way forward for unions

The fact that they turned society to the Left through their actions gives the lie to the claim that strikes alienate potential voters. By dividing society on class lines they bring into focus (even if it is a soft focus) the politics of class, something which has traditionally favoured Labor.

The Accord, with its class collaboration and trickle down theory - what’s good for the boss is good for workers - laid the ground for Howard. Under the Accord union officials became more powerful while their membership lost any vestiges of control of their unions. This centralisation of power, with the paid officials acting as the policemen of the workforce, saw unions begin to lose more members.

The failure to fight John Howard in any significant way - even the waterfront dispute was a victory for the bosses - saw the downward spiral in membership continue.

The end result of all this brown nosing to bosses has been that the wages share of national income is now at its lowest for 40 years. And this at a time when the economy has been booming for the last 17 years. If the economy goes into recession because of fallout from the US financial crisis, employers will use Rudd’s WorkChoices - like Howard’s, always aimed at the bad times, not the good - to destroy jobs and massively cut wages. Add in the massive loss of members and the story over the last 20 years is one of defeat, what Bramble calls the ebb tide.

But there is hope. The history of the Australian trade union movement is not one of unrelenting bleakness. It has had golden periods of sustained struggle and victories, and even in the darkest periods there are pockets of resistance that break out to challenge the conservative industrial relations orthodoxy (do nothing) of our paid union officials. Bramble shows that when unions take concerted industrial action with strong rank and file involvement, membership increases and real wages increase. Workers join unions so they themselves can control to some extent their workplace and get better pay and jobs. They don’t join unions for cheap cinema tickets.

Rank and file control and militancy hold the key to the successful regeneration of the union movement in Australia.

As Bramble argues: “At the heart of rebuilding membership lies the capacity to organise and struggle. Creating organisations that can rebuild such traditions of militancy is the crucial element in the struggle today to revive Australian unionism.”