Reorganising Work and Leisure

Peter Brokensha’s article on tackling unemployment today [No. 36] was very useful, continuing Options’ priority attention to this scourge. Peter did mention reduction of overtime and sharing work, but surely these big issues need extensive detailed treatment in their own right.

With youth unemployment now reaching 30% why didn’t Peter’s analyses extend to the main cause of this today, namely the electronic revolution now rolling over us all [appendage attached], and what is needed to overcome a fundamental reorganisation of the whole world of work and leisure.

But with the Federal Government’s skewed priorities never likely to rise to this, when are the states going to start acting since the Labor Party is in government in all states and territories, and it is the states that have constitutional rights to legislate on hours of work? This has been done previously.

Tragically it seems that what’s hindering this is their fascination, along with the Liberals, with the useless precepts of economic rationalism—that the only way to counter unemployment is through "more, and more, economic growth", apparently "for ever".

None other than the great Albert Einstein pointed the way out of this dilemma way back in the 30s, declaring:

"Only a fraction of the available human labour in the world is now needed for the production of the total amount of consumption goods needed for life—therefore the number of hours worked per week ought to be so reduced by law, that unemployment is systematically abolished."

And the great British philosopher Bertrand Russell echoed Einstein’s logic in saying:

"Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all, but we have chosen instead overwork for some, and starvation for others. We are now as energetic as we were before there were machines, and on this we are being foolish, but should we go on being foolish for ever?"

Ken O'Hara
Unemployment Networking, Gerringong, N.S.W.

The Unions and the Labor Party

Greg Combet (Options, Spring 2003) quotes the following from the ACTU's Future Strategies report, "...unions should carefully assess the objective of their political activity, including their involvement with the ALP."

He raises this "because unions do not achieve their goals through industrial action alone", and reminds us that was why "unions created the Labor Party over hundred years ago". This immediately confines the assessment of union political activity within the boundaries of the old union/Labor relationship. It is a relationship that is well past its use-by date.

However he concedes that there is widespread dissatisfaction towards all political parties, particularly the Labor Party, "where there is a justifiable feeling that more could be done to assist working people and union organisation". An analysis of Labor’s role towards the unions is long overdue. It’s time to examine whether the relationship assists the unions to develop their independent action, or if it is an obstacle.

Unions are an encumbrance to a Labor Party bent on winning seats in parliament. This is because of Labor’s emphasis on parliament as the vehicle of reform and not on extra-parliamentary action, which is the motor of all real reform. Strike action is at the heart of this Realpolitik. It is opposed by the Liberals who use the legislature and the forces of the state to contain it. Labor’s parliamentary approach to political struggle helps them.

This has limited struggle and is responsible for the serious deterioration in working conditions in recent years. It is also reflected in the deterioration in social services caused by the market policies pursued by both Labor and Liberal. The constituency most affected, society’s deprived, is dependent upon union muscle to redress the problem. The Labor/union alliance shackles it.

However recent strikes by builders to address job conditions, and actions by doctors, teachers and university staff, show that the strike weapon is alive and is beginning to mount an overdue challenge.This important development should be welcomed by the ACTU. It should be studied and placed at the centre of a fight-back campaign to redress, not just the effects of market policies, but at a defective strategy that helped drive them.

History shows that the Labor Party in government behaves like the Liberals. It has also used the legislature and the state to suppress strike action. We can expect this repressive action to increase. This is because Labor has ditched the ideology of its founding fathers and replaced it with economic rationalism. This means that any special relationship that existed with the unions is well and truly finished.

To continue the myth of a relationship places Labor in an extremely advantageous position to isolate a union that resorts to the strike weapon. The pilots’ strike was an example. Bob Hawke was able to isolate the pilots and destroy them. The pilots never had a chance against a Labor government led by a prime minister credentialled by the Labor/union relationship.

A New Strategy

Instead of examining how to confront a changing society with a policy that still retained some worker values, one that would have retained union allegiance, Labor instead embraced the ideology of corporate capitalism. This act should have caused the unions to rethink their political strategy.

Which returns us to Greg Combet’s injunction: "Unions should carefully assess their political objective relationship, including that of the ALP." Such assessment must be based on today’s political landscape, not yesterday’s. The key feature of today’s landscape is the movement away from two-party dominance to a pluralist one. Unions should exploit this situation.

Which returns us to Greg Combet’s injunction: "Unions should carefully assess their political objective relationship, including that of the ALP." Such assessment must be based on today’s political landscape, not yesterday’s. The key feature of today’s landscape is the movement away from two-party dominance to a pluralist one. Unions should exploit this situation.

In fact this has already begun. It was the preferences of a union candidate that helped the Greens to take the safe Federal Labor seat of Cunningham. And history was made when a Green representative addressed the state conference of the AMWU in Brisbane. These are examples of a new strategy in action. It remains to be recognised, studied and developed by the ACTU and adopted by peak union councils.

The new strategy must recognise union political independence as being paramount. It is not bound to any political party, including Labor. This means political alliances will be flexible, based on the extent that a political party’s policies reflect the union movement’s aims. And, importantly, their support for the unions when they have to resort to the strike weapon.

Reg Wilding
Wollongong, N.S.W.
Email: reg321@telpacific.com.au