Manajemen | Fakultas Ekonomi Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji 2003 1 (15)
TRADE UNIONISM IN 2002
RAE COOPER*
I
n 2002, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) celebrated its 75th
anniversary. During this year, the peak council made it clear that its two key
priorities were; first, to rebuild the union movement by strengthening workplace
organisation and growing membership and, second, to put in place strategies to enable
workers to better cope with the dual pressures of work and family. Workplace Relations
Minister, Tony Abbott, spent much of 2002 trying to convince employers to go to ‘war’
with the union movement and throughout the year, the Royal Commission into the
construction industry continued hearing evidence amid union accusations that it was
simply pushing the government’s anti-union agenda. There were some interesting
internal machinations within Australian unions in 2002, none more so than in the
Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) Victorian branch. This article
reviews Australian trade union matters in 2002.
INTRODUCTION
This discussion of trade union matters in 2002 is divided into four sections. The
first section examines membership figures released in 2002 as well as union
campaigns to build membership and strength in the workplace, with a particular
focus upon the joint union campaign to (re)organise the mines of the Pilbara in
Western Australia. This is followed by a discussion of the organising agenda of
the national peak council during 2002 and the election of a key advocate for organising to the position of Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) Assistant
Secretary. The second section of the article examines ACTU industrial campaigns
during the year of the national peak council’s 75th anniversary, with a particular
focus on attempts to put in place measures to make workplaces more responsive
to the family pressures and concerns of Australian workers. This section also
reflects upon some of the key changes in the ACTU’s environment and constituency since its formation in 1927. The Howard government continued with its
anti-union agenda in 2002. Section three of this article addresses the relationship between unions and the Federal Government, the Cole Royal Commission
and the Productivity Commission report on the vehicle industry. This section
also reports on the results of the Australian Labor Party’s organisational
review as far as it related to union influence in the party’s policy-making forums.
The final section of the article overviews some of the important internal
political developments within the trade union movement, including the
* Discipline of Work and Organisational Studies, Faculty of Economics and Business, University
of Sydney. Email: [email protected] Thanks to Tim Ayres, Marian Baird and Bradon
Ellem for reading earlier drafts of the paper, and to the trade unionists and colleagues who assisted
with the research, including Larissa Andelman, Troy Burton, Martin Cartwright, Pat Conroy,
Michael Crosby, Chris Holley, David Peetz and Chris Walton. Any errors are, of course, my own.
THE JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, VOL. 45, NO. 2, JUNE 2003, 205–223
206
THE JOURNAL
OF
I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S
June 2003
ongoing battle for control of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union’s
Victorian branch.
UNION
MEMBERSHIP AND ORGANISING IN
2002
In March, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reported that Australian
unions could claim a combined membership of 1 902 700. This was up a fraction
(900 members) on the previous year.1 While this increase was somewhat more
modest than the increase of 23 500 extra members reported in 2001, it nevertheless marked the second consecutive year of growth in the number of union
members. The last two consecutive years of growth in aggregate membership
to be recorded were in 1989 and 1990.2 There was both good and bad news in
relation to membership density in the figures released in 2002. On the one
hand, during 2001, density in both the public and private sectors increased, by
0.5 per cent and 0.1 per cent respectively. This was the first time that density
rose simultaneously in both sectors since the survey data was first collected two
decades ago. On the other, and despite the small increases in the public and
private sectors, overall density declined again by 0.2 per cent points during the
year to stand at 24.5 per cent.3 This reflected the continued, well-documented,
shift in employment away from the public and toward the private sector.4
Nonetheless, the figures allowed for cautious optimism in labour movement
ranks that unions might have finally begun to turn the tide on two decades of
membership decline.5
However, some of the key advocates for organising reform within the ACTU
cautioned against union complacency. According to Chris Walton, incoming
ACTU Assistant Secretary and Co-Director of the ACTU’s Organising Centre,
there is still room for improvement. Despite unions having made significant
progress during the past decade, including developing high quality education
programs and shifting union priorities and officer workloads from servicing to
organising, Walton argues that Australian unions:
now need to get really serious about growth. This will require the allocation of
serious resources, well thought through industry or sector game plans and the use
of various strategic campaigning techniques.6
Throughout 2002, a number of national Australian unions and union branches
heeded this advice and attempted to better equip themselves for growth. Many
national unions, such as the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU),
allocated resources to dedicated organising units reporting some successes in
their campaigns. In New South Wales, AMWU organisers claimed victory in
their battle to organise poker machine giant and avowed anti-union employer,
Aristocrat.7 The Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU)
Mining Division put significant resources into an innovative campaign to
reorganise a number of small, non-union mines in the Hunter Valley of
New South Wales. In two of the target mine sites, membership density rose
markedly from five per cent to 70 per cent in one and from 10 per cent to
60 per cent in another. The Queensland Nurses Union (QNU) was awarded
the ACTU’s prize for the best union campaign in 2002 for their enterprise
TRADE UNIONISM
IN
2002
207
bargaining campaign using the slogan of ‘Nurses, Worth Looking After’. The
public campaign involved the collection of thousands of signatures on petitions
and the organisation of many lively rallies supporting improved pay and the
introduction of safe workload policies. The campaign netted the union over
3000 new members. The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) claimed
a victory this year in its ongoing campaign to organise call centre workers. In
November, Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) handed down
an award to cover workers in call centres in the telecommunication services
sector. This came after two years of steady organising progress by the union. The
award, which the union estimated would cover in excess of 10 000 workers in
the sector, included a detailed classification structure linked to accredited
and transportable training, minimum termination and redundancy rights and,
importantly, union rights such as the provision for five days paid training leave
for workplace delegates.8
Since 2000, the ACTU and mining group of unions, the CFEMU, AMWU,
Australian Workers Union (AWU), Communications Electrical and Plumbing
Union (CEPU) and Transport Workers Union (TWU) have dedicated considerable resources to (re)organise the mining communities of the Pilbara in Western
Australia which had been progressively de-unionised during the past fifteen years.9
The joint union campaign to reorganise the Pilbara was extended during 2002
and focused upon rebuilding the activist base in the mines and undoing the
damaging union disunity of the past. What follows is a brief overview of the
campaign in 2002.
In part, the renewed union effort sprang from an unexpected victory. Early in
2002, in response to signals from the Western Australian Labor government that
it would finally make changes to the state’s Workplace Agreements Act to repeal
the individual agreements stream, Rio Tinto decided to transfer regulation of
the employment of its Pilbara workers to the federal jurisdiction. Early in the
year, the company decided to offer a 170LK (non-union) agreement under the
Workplace Relations Act.10 If the deal was supported by a majority of the workforce, it would have effectively shut the Pilbara unions out of Rio Tinto. Unions
had only two weeks to put together a response before the deal went to a ballot
of workers in an environment where the unions had a self-confessed low support
base. The unions’ approach was very different to their traditional practice. The
‘underground’ campaign relied upon one-to-one meetings with workers, often
drawing upon activists from other Pilbara, particularly BHP, mine sites. In a
serious setback to Rio Tinto’s preferred industrial relations model, workers at
three out of four of the company’s mines resoundingly rejected the company’s
non-union agreement proposal.11 In a great display of understatement, a Rio Tinto
manager described the union victory as ‘far from a comprehensive result’12 for
Rio Tinto.
After this heartening win, ACTU Secretary Greg Combet announced a joint
project to unionise Rio Tinto sites and fund a full-time organiser to work in
cooperation with the existing organiser working on BHP sites and the ACTU’s
lead organiser on the Pilbara project. The innovative campaign focused on
engaging with workers outside the workplace, building representative organising
208
THE JOURNAL
OF
I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S
June 2003
committees and establishing a collective organisation of workers in the community
instead of more conventional workplace-based organising strategies. In
November, the Pilbara organisers prepared and executed an organising ‘blitz’ with
a group of 22 volunteer delegates and union organisers from a variety of unions
across the country. During this blitz, organisers trialled an organising technique
rarely used by Australian unionists in campaigns, that of coordinated mass home
visiting workers to discuss workplace issues, to progress the campaign and
identify activists for future campaign work.
In response to worker concern about the vicious demarcation battles of
the past and the need, identified by Ellem, for future union representation to
be constructed by ‘the workers themselves, not imposed from “outside”’,13 the
unions established the Pilbara Mineworkers Union (PMU), an unregistered
organisation. During house visits, workers were asked to pledge their support to
this organisation. Despite the employer running a scare campaign in the local
community spreading propaganda about ‘big boofy thugs coming into town to
make everybody join the union’14 the volunteer organisers visited hundreds of
homes and received a warm reception. Workers freely discussed the difficulties
they faced in the workplace and, in particular, the level of management scrutiny
of workers both at work and in the community, the arbitrary and ever changing
demands of management upon workers and, in particular, the constant changing
of shifts. Over 50 per cent of workers visited as a part of the campaign signed
up on the spot to the new PMU and many more enrolled as members in the
ensuing weeks. Feedback from organisers to the ACTU suggested that the
tactics used in the ‘blitz’ were effective:
you get much better communication in someone’s house than you do in any
other environment. They were more relaxed, they were in their own environment,
90 per cent of people are really happy to talk to you, it removes the fear factor.15
Unions have committed to support the project until at least December 2003.
During that time, architects of the campaign aim to build on the achievements
made during 2002, including building the membership of the new local union
and strengthening the activist base among Pilbara miners with the ultimate goal
of ‘getting to the point where together they can change the way the company
behaves’.16
The ACTU has funded a number of organising initiatives since the establishment of the Organising Works program some nine years ago in 1994. However,
since the accession of Greg Combet to the position of ACTU Secretary, organising has taken a much more central place in the ACTU’s deliberations, resource
allocation and strategic vision.17 This year, Combet reiterated his commitment
to organising, suggesting that the task facing unions was to ‘rebuild the union
movement from the ground up’.18 In 2002, the ‘mainstreaming’ of organising
was given a further nudge with the election of Chris Walton to the position of
ACTU Assistant Secretary.
The incumbent Assistant Secretary, Bill Mansfield, announced early in 2002
that he was retiring in order to take up a position as a Commissioner with the
AIRC.19 Greg Combet strongly supported Walton (a passionate advocate for
TRADE UNIONISM
IN
2002
209
changes in unions’ organising strategies who has run the ACTU’s Organising
Works program since 1994, and since 2000, has been the Co-Director of the peak
council’s Organising Centre) as his replacement. In the complex factional makeup
of the ACTU, Mansfield’s Assistant Secretary position was claimed by the Centre
Unity (right-wing) faction. Walton, who is not generally regarded as a factional
operative, was opposed by a group of right-wing power brokers who sought to
maintain their own grip on the position. However, in the face of strong support
from Combet and backed by proponents of organising reform from across the
movement, Walton was elected unopposed at the November 2002 ACTU
Executive. His elevation was widely viewed as a reaffirmation of Combet’s authority in the ACTU and a sign that organising would move even closer to the
heart of the peak council’s agenda. In the position of Assistant Secretary, Walton
takes responsibility for organising, union renewal and campaigning. For Walton,
his success affirms his view that ‘unions are serious about renewal and organising’ and he predicts that organising will become even more ‘front and centre’
at the ACTU as ‘organising now has a seat at the Executive table and will
influence the direction of all ACTU activities’.20
ACTU
TURNS
75
AND
ACTU
CAMPAIGNS IN
2002
In 2002, the ACTU celebrated the 75th anniversary of its formation at the
Melbourne Trades Hall in May 1927. At the birthday dinner, former ACTU
President and Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, argued that the peak council
‘more than any other non-governmental institution, has put its imprint upon the
character and the quality of life of this nation’.21 Be that as it may, the changes
in the character of the peak council itself in the years since its formation speak
volumes of the evolution of trade unionism in Australia. In some senses, the union
movement of the late 1920s was in much better shape than it is today. For instance,
in the year of the peak council’s formation, union membership density was more
than double that reported in 2002, standing at 58 per cent.22 In other respects,
the union movement in 1927 was a less impressive and unified force. This section of the article briefly reflects on the changes in the national peak council’s
composition and nature before moving to a discussion of ACTU campaigns
in the year of its 75th birthday.
While the formation of a national peak council in 1927 was an attempt to
achieve: ‘a more complete form of organisation of the trade union movement in
Australia’23 the organisation could not, for many years, claim to speak for all
Australian workers or even trade unionists. The ACTU of 1927 did not count
the majority of trade unions as affiliates—indeed, even one of the largest and
most powerful unions, the AWU, remained unaffiliated for forty years. These
days, close to 100 per cent of unions are affiliated to the ACTU.24 Even if it had
represented a greater proportion of trade unionists, in its early days, the ACTU
was rarely able to advance political and industrial agendas that all affiliates
supported. In 2002, the peak council speaks with more authority for Australian
unions on (most) industrial and political issues, and while factional differences
exist, there is nothing of the division which featured so strongly in the ACTU’s
early years.25
210
THE JOURNAL
OF
I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S
June 2003
In 1927 there were no white-collar unions affiliated to the peak council. In
2002, the largest affiliate to the ACTU, exceeding the next largest by nearly 50 000
members was the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA). If
one looks at the largest five affiliates to the ACTU, over 60 per cent of
their combined membership of nearly 525 000 is made of white-collar workers.26
There have also been significant changes in the gender composition of the peak
council. All of the foundation office bearers of the ACTU were men. Indeed,
this remained the case until 1983 when Jennie George became the first woman
elected to the organisation’s Executive. There has, thankfully, been some change
in the intervening years. Now the ACTU has its second woman President, and
thanks to rule changes at the Congress 2000 half of the peak council’s Executive
in 2002 were women, making it the most gender representative forum in the
Australian trade union structure.27
Jim Hagan reports that in the year of the ACTU’s formation, the key industrial issue pursued by the council was an attempt to eradicate piece work because
it was seen by many affiliates as a system that over-worked and short-changed
workers and encouraged avarice and capitalistic tendencies to boot.28 Seventyfive years later, the ACTU continues to campaign to lift the wages of the
working poor and eliminate unsafe and anti-social working hours. Campaigning
in 2002 for the right of working women to take paid maternity leave reflected
the much changed priorities of the peak council in the years since its formation.
Developments in the ACTU’s Living Wage and ‘excessive hours’ cases and
the campaigns to secure decent maternity rights for women workers and help
employees balance work and family responsibilities are discussed below.
This year, the ACTU claimed a victory when the Australian Industrial Relations
Commission in the May Living Wage decision granted an $18, or 4.4 per cent,
increase in award rates, taking the minimum wage to $431.40 per week.29
However, the ACTU’s campaign to pare back working hours received more media
attention during 2002. As reported in ‘Trade Unionism in 2001’, the ACTU
lodged a submission with the AIRC in June of that year seeking to restrict the
working hours of Australian employees in response to the well-documented trend
to increased and excessive working hours. The ACTU application relied upon
some thorough research by leading Australian researchers on hours, most notably
Iain Campbell, Barbara Pocock and the Australian Centre for Industrial
Relattions Research and Training (ACIRRT).30 The ACTU argued that Australia
had the second longest working hours in the Organisation of Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD), second only to South Korea, and
that Australia had the highest rate of unpaid overtime in the OECD. The peak
council sought to require employers to give workers extra paid leave if
they were obliged to regularly work excessive hours and insert a clause in
federal awards banning employers from requiring employees to work unreasonable overtime. Both the Federal Government and the employer groups such as
the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) vigorously opposed
the claim.
In July 2002, the Full Bench, headed by Commission President Guidice, handed
down its decision. There was both victory and disappointment in the decision
TRADE UNIONISM
IN
2002
211
for the unions. On the one hand, the Commission accepted the arguments of
the ACTU that hours of work in Australian had increased markedly and that
Australian workers were among the most overworked employees in the OECD.
The decision gave workers the right to refuse to work unreasonable hours
demanded of them by their employers if the overtime presented a risk to their
health and safety or if it compromised their family responsibilities. The ACTU
hailed this as a momentous victory. However, the Full Bench rejected the ACTU’s
submission that workers should be given extra paid leave if they were forced to
work excessive overtime. The Commission took the view that, contrary to the
ACTU’s objectives, providing extra paid leave in return for excessive overtime
would actually serve to encourage and entrench the working of excessive hours.31
Late in the year, when employer groups and unions assembled in Melbourne to
discuss the AIRC’s decision, the ACTU flagged that a European-style cap on
hours might be the subject of future union action on hours.32
The year 2002 was yet another one of vigorous public debate about the provision of paid maternity leave. Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Pru Goward,
spent much of the year working up proposals for the operation and funding of
such a system for presentation to the Federal Government. Unions were active
and vocal participants in this debate with ACTU President, Sharan Burrow,
playing a leading public role.
In April, Goward released an options paper supporting the provision of
14 weeks paid leave in line with the International Labor Organisation (ILO)
Convention number 183. It identified a range of options for funding such a
program, including an employer funded scheme, a government funded scheme,
a levy upon employers and a scheme jointly funded by employees and their
employers.33 In the months following the release of this paper, employer associations, unions and community groups debated the models proposed in Goward’s
paper.
In early July, the ACTU released its blue print for paid maternity leave and
the arrangements needed to fund it. The ACTU plan for 14 weeks paid leave,
capped at average earnings of $900, would be funded jointly by a levy upon
employers and the federal government. The levy would raise $250 million but
would cost employers less than one dollar a week per employee. Sharan Burrow
estimated that this model would give the great majority (87 per cent) of
working mothers full pay for the entire 14 weeks and allow close to 100 per cent
of these women to earn two-thirds of their regular income while on leave.34
Burrow argued that the ACTU’s scheme would be $100 million cheaper than
the current ‘baby bonus’, which she estimated entitled low-paid women to less
than $10 a week.35 Burrow argued that the scheme was modest by international
standards, considering that Australia and the US were the only OECD countries
that did not provide universal paid maternity leave.36
Throughout the year, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry
(ACCI) maintained its opposition to any employer funding of maternity leave
arguing that employers were ‘not responsible for population policy or decisions
staff make to have families’.37 Other employer groups did not prove so oppositional with the Australian Industry Group supporting 12 weeks government
212
THE JOURNAL
OF
I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S
June 2003
funded leave, as did the Council of Small Business Associations of Australia, the
Hotels Association and the Australian Retailers Association.38
In early December, Goward presented her final report, recommending a
government funded system entitling women to be paid up to the federal
minimum wage for 14 weeks. The scheme was costed at $213 million, which
Goward argued was relatively cheap when compared to the cost of the range of
other benefits that the government already paid to new mothers.39 Although it
was not exactly as the ACTU had recommended, Sharan Burrow welcomed the
report arguing it would be of particular benefit to low wage earning women and
provided a good starting point for a national maternity leave system. ACTU
Secretary Greg Combet immediately flagged that unions would seek ‘top-ups’
to such a scheme in future bargaining campaigns.40
The work/family balance will come under the spotlight again in 2003 when
the AIRC begins hearing the ACTU’s Work and Family Test Case. The ACTU’s
claim, announced in November 2002, was to double the period of unpaid maternity leave from 12 to 24 months, to give full-time employees returning from
parental leave a right to part-time work and employees the right to more flexible
hours in line with their family responsibilities. If granted, the ACTU claim would
give workers access to emergency family leave and allow employees to ‘buy’ up
to six weeks extra annual leave through annualisation of salaries.41 Burrow argued
that the ACTU had decided to pursue the case because union research showed
that ‘this is the single most important issue for working people’42 and hoped
that the outcome of the Test Case would be an ‘end the career disadvantage
experienced by many women and will make it easier for people to be both
good employees and good parents’.43
The ACTU urged affiliates to include paid maternity leave in bargaining claims
and during 2002 prepared resources to support such action by individual unions.44
There is some evidence that a number of unions have become more serious about
paid maternity leave as an industrial priority. In the manufacturing industry, where
less than 15 per cent of workers have access to any form of paid maternity
leave, the AMWU has made the ILO’s recommended standard of 14 weeks paid
maternity leave and two weeks paternity leave ‘key priorities for workers across
the manufacturing industry’ in the national bargaining campaign, Campaign 2003,
Table 1
Largest five Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) affiliates in 2002
Affiliates
Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association
Communications Electrical and Plumbing Union
Community and Public Sector Union
Australian Manufacturing Workers Union
Australian Education Union
Total
Source: As reported by unions to the ACTU.
Members
209
160
160
157
155
841
708
135
000
000
000
843
TRADE UNIONISM
IN
2002
213
in the coming year.45 Building upon success at the Australian Catholic University
in 2001, the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) in 2002 pursued an
ambitious national maternity leave standard as a part of its claim upon higher
education employers. The union’s claim included fully paid maternity leave for
14 weeks, supplemented by 38 weeks leave at 60 per cent of regular pay.
Negotiations at the University of Sydney and the University of NSW, under
way at the time of writing, were the first test of the union’s claim.46
The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) was undoubtedly the
vanguard union in the push to improve parental leave rights during 2002,
racking up a number of bargaining victories in Federal Government agencies
during the year. At the Refugee Review Tribunal, the CPSU negotiated an
extra two weeks maternity leave, to a total of 14 weeks, for employees and the
automatic right of access to part-time work in the two years after birth.47 They
also negotiated four weeks paid paternity leave for employees in the Department
of Family and Community Services.48 The CPSU had another victory in late
2002 when the Department of Education, Science and Training signed off on an
agreement, covering 300 employees, which made significant improvements to
workers’ maternity rights and the agency’s family friendly practices. In return
for working an extra nine minutes per day, employees received a 12 per cent pay
rise over three years and access to a broad range of family-friendly policies,
including greater flexibility in paid maternity leave, such as allowing mothers to
take their 12-week entitlement at half pay over 24 weeks and one week’s paid
paternity leave. Employees would be able to ‘buy’ up to two months annual
leave on top of their existing four weeks. Employees with children would be
given up to $100 a week to help pay for school holiday programs. National
Secretary Adrian O’Connell argued that the agreement was novel because ‘it isn’t
just focused on the childbirth aspect of your working life, it encompasses the
various stages’.49
UNIONS
AND POLITICS IN
2002
In 2002, the Federal Coalition did not soften its hard-line approach to the union
movement. In particular, Workplace Relations Minister, Tony Abbott, maintained
his long-held hostility toward unions and on many occasions used the metaphor
of battle and war to describe industrial relations. Unions of course were the
‘enemy’.50 Responding to Abbott’s language during the year, Greg Combet
argued that his ‘out-dated, class war hysteria’ was a threat to investment and
jobs.51 It was not all rhetoric and Abbott spent much of the year encouraging
employers to ‘take on’ the unions in a variety of settings but most noticeably in
the construction and manufacturing industries, where the targets were the
Construction Forrestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) and the AMWU.
He urged the business community to produce more ‘Chris Corrigans’.52 The
Royal Commission into the building industry, established in 2001 by the Howard
government, continued hearing evidence throughout 2002 amid accusations of
anti-union bias from one of the key construction unions. The report of
the Productivity Commission into the automotive sector presented another
forum for Minister Abbott to encourage industrial confrontation. However
214
THE JOURNAL
OF
I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S
June 2003
unions were not only on the nose with the conservatives but also came under
fire from the Labor side of politics as the finger pointing from the 2001 election
loss dragged into an organisational review for Labor. This section briefly
reviews these issues before moving to a brief discussion of a number of internal
union affairs.
Throughout the year the Royal Commission into the construction industry
continued, headed by Commissioner Terence Cole. This year, the Commission
sat in every capital city, heard thousands of hours of evidence from several
hundred witnesses. Throughout the year, the Commission heard some ugly
stories of violence and intimidation, often from disaffected CFMEU ex-office
bearers and delegates, as well as of payments by building employers to the union
allegedly in return for guarantees of industrial peace.53 Throughout the year, Cole
made it clear that he was not impressed by such stories and made a number of
pronouncements as to what the remedy for such activities might be. He warned
building employers that they may have to choose between ‘commercial consequences and severe penalties’ when considering making payments to the
CFMEU after hearing from a number of big players in the industry that they
had frequently paid for union memberships, paid strike pay and training levies,
in an attempt to garner industrial peace.54
Strangely, Cole seemed particularly outraged that construction unions would
take industrial action as part of bargaining campaigns although their members
are afforded this right even under the Workplace Relations Act.55 John Sutton,
National Secretary of the Construction and General Division of the CFMEU,
citing the power imbalances between enormous building companies and their
employees, argued that it was naive to suggest that real bargaining in the industry
would be possible without taking industrial action. Sutton told the Commission
that it was ‘pathetic’ to try to make strikes seem sinister:
shock horror! It has been happening for 200 years, Mr Commissioner. What we
bargain with is the threat of withdrawing our labour.56
From the very start of the year, Cole had to answer accusations from unionists
that he was biased and simply providing another means for the Howard government to attack Australian trade unions. For instance, in February, Cole found it
necessary to protest his independence, stating that he would:
not be influenced by statements or writings of political parties or politicians of any
persuasion, by employers, or employer organisations by unions or unions’ officials
or by the media.57
By mid-year it became clear that the union movement’s predictions about the
direction of the Commission were well-founded as Cole seemed happy to flag
the tone of the recommendations of his incomplete inquiry:
the evidence before me and material otherwise received in conferences and
submissions makes it clear that it will be inevitable that the Commission will be
recommending significant reforms of the building and construction industry and its
practices.58
TRADE UNIONISM
IN
2002
215
Claims of bias came to a head later in the year when the CFMEU New South
Wales Construction and General Branch attempted to stop the Royal Commission
in its tracks, making two applications alleging apprehended bias in the Federal
Court.59 The union presented evidence that 97 per cent of hearing time had been
taken up by anti-union topics, whereas only three per cent had been dedicated
to subjects reflecting poorly on employers in the industry such as tax evasion,
undermining safety standards and the employment of illegal immigrants.60 John
Sutton, the National Secretary of the Construction and General Division of the
CFMEU argued that:
‘Any ordinary person . . . would have little doubt that the hearings have been biased
against the building unions and their representatives . . . It is clear to us and to our
members that he has made findings against the union in that report and has not heard
evidence from the union or considered all our submissions’.61
The Federal Court rejected the CFMEU application.
The CFMEU expects the worst from the Commission report, due to be handed
down in late February 2003. At a National Press Club speech in October, John
Sutton predicted that the Commission’s findings would be a sensationalist attack
upon the CFMEU and that Workplace Relations Minister, Tony Abbott, would
seize upon the opportunity to take action against the union including deregistration. However, Sutton did not accept that this would signal the death knell of
building industry unionism or militancy:
After all, the key building unions making up today’s CFMEU . . . have all been
subject to periods of deregistration and it hardly killed off the spirit of strong
unionism that thrives among our rank and file.62
The year ended on a high note for the CFMEU when a secret ballot of Grocon
construction employees in Melbourne in mid-December resulted in 74 per cent
of the company’s 600 strong workforce voting ‘no’ to the company’s proposed
s170LK non-union agreement.63
There were other forces at work against the militant blue-collar unions and
for the AMWU, the Productivity Commission report into the vehicle industry
and agenda of Tony Abbott represented just as much of a threat to union organisation and workers’ rights as did the Cole Commission.64
Citing recent industrial conflict in the automotive sector, Abbott was clearly
itching for confrontation with the main industry union, the AMWU.65 The
Minister spent a considerable amount of energy this year trying to stiffen the
spine of employers in the sector to take on what media commentators have called
his own ‘aggro’ approach toward the union.66 Abbott seized upon the opportunity
to use the Productivity Commission inquiry to apply none-too-subtle pressure
to automotive sector employers in an attempt to have them adopt more confrontational anti-union strategies. In July, Abbott’s department’s submission to the
Productivity Commission review contended that tariff protection in the industry
made employers shy of pursuing workplace efficiency and lower costs through
industrial confrontation. The submission flagged that the future schedule of
216
THE JOURNAL
OF
I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S
June 2003
tariff protection should be conditional upon industrial relations reforms in
the industry.67 This provocative suggestion was met with horror from all sides,
including the employer organisations. Even the Australian Industry Group’s
Chief Executive Officer, Bob Herbert, called upon the Minister to tone down
the rhetoric.68
While the Commission rejected Abbott’s suggestion of a direct coupling
of industry assistance and industrial relations changes, it did recommend that
sweeping changes be made to the conduct of industrial relations in the industry
and that gradual reductions in the support offered to the industry by the government would aid in such changes.69 The report made major criticisms of the structure of unionism in the industry, suggesting that either workplace-based
unionism or industry unionism would be better models for union structure and
coverage to align the interests of business and workers in the industry.70 The
report also made a number of suggestions for changes to the Workplace Relations
Act including: giving the AIRC greater capacity to terminate bargaining periods
as a result of the impact of industrial action; requiring the Commission to hear
s127 applications more speedily and instigate proceedings to suspend registration
if the orders are ignored by unions; outlawing protected action in relation to
pattern bargaining and requiring the secret balloting of members before
taking protected action. These changes, the Commission argued, would help
the industry move away from its ‘win/lose’ mentality and closer to a more
desirable ‘win/win’ environment in vehicle industry workplaces. 71
The Commission’s report was roundly criticised. ACIRRT wrote a scathing
critique of the report, arguing that it relied on closed analytical categories and
failed to recognise the significant changes in labour practices and industrial
relations resulting from 15 years of reform in the industry and that if its
recommendations were implemented the result would be an exacerbation of
‘the problem of a high stress/low cost work culture’.72 Not surprisingly, the key
union in the sector was incensed and AMWU National Secretary, Doug Cameron,
labelled the inquiry as ‘invincibly biased’73 and argued that it aimed to do little
more than deliver the Federal Government’s industrial relations agenda.74 While
Minister Abbott will use the report’s findings to strengthen his political case for
further industrial relations deregulation, the balance of power in the Senate still
remains a formidable obstacle to further anti-union legislation. Regardless,
Cameron has put Minister Abbott on notice, arguing that the consequence of
following the recommendations of the report would be more trouble than they
were worth, in his words it would ‘make the maritime dispute look like a blip
on the radar screen’.75
Late in the year it appeared that Abbott’s employer arm-twisting throughout
2002 had paid off when vehicle industry employer groups, the Federated Chamber
of Automotive Industries and the Federation of Automotive Products
Manufacturers, announced the establishment of a $1 million fighting fund to
take tort action against unions that breached Commission orders or industrial
laws. It was no coincidence that the establishment of this fund came at the same
time that Federal Cabinet was discussing a $2 billion package of assistance to
employers in the sector.76
TRADE UNIONISM
IN
2002
217
Following from the election defeat of 2001, the Labor Party’s National
Executive commissioned two former Labor leaders, Neville Wran and Bob
Hawke, to investigate party reform. Much of the debate in 2002 centred on
regulations such as the 60 : 40 rule operating in some ALP state branches,
guaranteeing a union majority in Party policy-making forums, which, in the
view of many Labor frontbenchers, should be abolished.77 Federal Parliamentary
leader Simon Crean vociferously supported watering down representation
of the unions to 50 : 50, putting them on an equal footing with representatives
elected directly from the membership of the Party. The review, released in
August of 2002, made 38 recommendations to go to the Party’s special rules
conference in October including a recommendation to adopt the 50 : 50
model.78
In the course of the review, unions engaged in an interesting internal debate
about the nature and importance of union influence in the party. The industrial
right ran a strong public campaign against the changes. Secretary of the New
South Wales Labor Council, John Robertson, one of the most vocal opponents
of the changes, argued that reducing union influence missed the point of the
woes of the party. It would be better, he argued, to look to the party’s ‘insipid
policies’, ‘clumsy politics’ and ‘drab candidates’ for the sources of the problem.79
One of the key national unions in the push against Crean’s proposals was the
SDA. The National Secretary of this union, Joe De Bruyn, argued that the leftwing unions, such as the AMWU, that had supported the change had ‘sold out
the trade union position’.80 Left-wing union leaders such as the AMWU’s Doug
Cameron argued that the 60 : 40 rule had never been the main game for unions
and did not guarantee real influence for union members over the decisions of
the party.81 ACTU Secretary Greg Combet put a similar position and argued
that, taken on the whole, the report was ‘respectful of the role played by unions’.82
It was this support from the left that guaranteed the package was endorsed and,
arguably, saved Crean’s leadership hide.
INTERNAL
UNION MATTERS IN
2002
2002 was yet another turbulent year for the AMWU. In 2001, after factional
divisions in its Victorian branch escalated, the AMWU’s National Council established an inquiry into the operation of the Branch, chaired by Tom McDonald
and Joe Riordan.83 At that time, a number of leadership figures from the Victorian
‘Workers First’ faction, including the State Secretary Craig Johnson, were
facing criminal charges relating to assaults on office workers and property
damage after a ‘run through’ when things turned nasty in a dispute with a
Victorian tile manufacturer in mid 2001.84 By the end of 2002, both the Victorian
Secretary Craig Johnson and the Branch’s Assistant Secretary Darren Nelson had
departed the union, and the ‘Workers First’ faction within the union was in
tatters. AMWU National Secretary Doug Cameron, a key player in the dispute,
described 2002 as a year of battle for the union ‘between those who are prepared
to entertain, rationalise or capitulate to tactics that include violence, intimidation
and property damage and those, like myself who reject such tactics and see them
as abhorrent’.85
218
THE JOURNAL
OF
I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S
June 2003
In late May, the group involved in the Skilled Engineering/Johnstone Tiles
fracas a year earlier were served with a summons in relation to criminal charges
of affray, riotous assembly, threats to kill and unlawful imprisonment. Committal
hearings were heard in June, and at that time, Doug Cameron asked Johnson to
step aside, with pay, pending the hearing of the charges.86 When Johnson refused
to step down, on 9 July, the AMWU’s National Council suspended him and
installed Victorian-based National Assistant Secretary and Cameron right hand
man Dave Oliver, as the Branch’s administrator.87 In early August, Justice
Weinberg rejected Johnson’s Federal Court challenge against his suspension.88
Soon after, ‘Workers First’ faction members established a blockade of the
AMWU’s Elizabeth Street office in central Melbourne. Neither clerical staff,
nor officials not aligned with ‘Workers First’ and other tenants of the building,
including RMIT staff and students, were able to enter the premises for some three
weeks.89 Despite Federal Court orders that they do not obstruct entry to the
Elizabeth Street office, the blockade continued into late August, by which time
the National Council had had enough and authorised Cameron to bring
contempt charges against a number of Victorian officials for ignoring the Federal
Court injunction.
In early September, bowing to pressure, Johnson resigned his position and
attempted to have Steve Dargavel, former ALP federal member of parliament
and latterly AMWU research officer, installed as the replacement Secretary of
the Branch.90 The barricades on the building were removed with estimates of
the cost of the three-week picket reaching over $1 million.91 In October, ‘Workers
First’ signed a four-year deal with the national leadership installing Dargavel as
Assistant Secretary, Oliver as Secretary and preventing Johnson from running
for any position in the union for the period of the deal.92 Peace reigned until the
end of 2002.
Leadership change in other sections of the union movement was not as
brutal as at the AMWU. The women of the Australian Education Union (AEU),
this year claimed another prize leadership position. Following in the steps
of Sharan Burrow and Jennie George, in April 2002 AEU Deputy Federal
President, Janet Giles, became the first woman Secretary of the South Australian
United Trades and Labor. Giles noted that her elevation helped ‘overcome the
public perception that the union movement is the bastion of blokes’.93
One of the country’s most senior union women, Wendy Caird, who was for
nine years the National Secretary of CPSU and Vice-President of the ACTU,
retired in 2002 to take up an international labour movement position. Caird, who
was at one time tipped as a successor to Jennie George as ACTU President, was
the Secretary of the CPSU in what was arguably the most difficult chapter in
federal public sector unionism’s history. Massive cutbacks, contracting out,
privatisation and attacks on the union after the election of the Howard government led to a haemorrhaging of the union’s members. However, Caird oversaw
a massive change process in the union, including significant restructuring, the
establishment of a national member call centre, and a re-orientation of the union’s
activities to focus upon organising. During the period 2000–2002 the CPSU
was one of the few examples of a national union attempting to implement the
TRADE UNIONISM
IN
2002
219
recommendations of the unions@work report. Caird was replaced by former
CPSU Telecommunication Section Secretary, Adrian O’Connell.
CONCLUSION
During 2002, the union movement had to suffer yet another year of antagonism
from the Federal Government. Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott was
keen to fan industrial unrest, making it clear that he and the government were
ready to assist should employers wish to adopt a more aggressive approach toward
the union movement. The Building Industry Royal Commission continued
hearing evidence throughout 2002 and it seems certain that the report of the
Commission, to be handed down in early 2003, will be extremely critical of
the building unions. If Abbott’s response to the Productivity Commission report
on the vehicle industry is anything to go by, the Workplace Relations Minister
will seize the opportunity to further demonise trade unions generally, and the
CFMEU in particular, and will attempt to put in place further changes to industrial legislation to undermine unions’ organising and bargaining capacity. The
Labor Party’s national organisational review was completed in 2002 and the party
voted to support a watering down of union representation in party policymaking forums from 60 : 40 to 50 : 50. Unions remain divided along factional
lines as to whether this constitutes a disaster or whether it is of no consequence
at all for their ability to influence the party’s direction. In the year that the
ACTU turned 75, organising and striking a fair balance between work and
family responsibilities were the key concerns of the national peak council. The
peak council and its affiliates could claim some real progress in both areas
during 2002. In 2002, it was reported that aggregate trade union membership
had grown, albeit marginally, for a second consecutive year, raising hopes that
this could mark a turning point from the point from the massive membership
decline of the past two decades. Whether this proves to be the case or not is a
matter for next year’s review of trade union matters.
NOTES
1. These figures, collected in August 2001, were the latest available at the time of writing
(December 2002–January 2003).
2. It should be kept in mind, however, as Peetz et al. argue, that the increases were not statistically
significant. See Peetz D, Webb C, Jones M (2002 forthcoming) Activism amongst workplace
union delegates. International Journal of Employment Studies, October.
3. However, the 0.2 per cent point drop in density was significantly less than the 1 per cent point
loss recorded in 2001 or the 2.4 per cent loss in 2000. ABS (2001) Employee Earnings Benefits
and Trade Union Membership, Cat. no. 63101.0. Canberra: ABS.
4. Peetz D, Webb C, Jones M (2002 forthcoming) Activism amongst workplace union delegates.
International Journal of Employment Studies, October.
5. Combet G (2002) Speech to the National Press Club 12 June 2002, Canberra. Echoing findings
in 2001, data released in 2002 revealed that it still pays to be a union member. The ABS
reports that union members were on average $99 per week better off than their non-union
co-workers. The effect of union membership was more pronounced in those groups of
workers who arguably need union protection the most. Union members employed on a
part-time basis earned $129 more per week than their non-union equivalents, union women
earned $123 more than those who were no
RAE COOPER*
I
n 2002, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) celebrated its 75th
anniversary. During this year, the peak council made it clear that its two key
priorities were; first, to rebuild the union movement by strengthening workplace
organisation and growing membership and, second, to put in place strategies to enable
workers to better cope with the dual pressures of work and family. Workplace Relations
Minister, Tony Abbott, spent much of 2002 trying to convince employers to go to ‘war’
with the union movement and throughout the year, the Royal Commission into the
construction industry continued hearing evidence amid union accusations that it was
simply pushing the government’s anti-union agenda. There were some interesting
internal machinations within Australian unions in 2002, none more so than in the
Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) Victorian branch. This article
reviews Australian trade union matters in 2002.
INTRODUCTION
This discussion of trade union matters in 2002 is divided into four sections. The
first section examines membership figures released in 2002 as well as union
campaigns to build membership and strength in the workplace, with a particular
focus upon the joint union campaign to (re)organise the mines of the Pilbara in
Western Australia. This is followed by a discussion of the organising agenda of
the national peak council during 2002 and the election of a key advocate for organising to the position of Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) Assistant
Secretary. The second section of the article examines ACTU industrial campaigns
during the year of the national peak council’s 75th anniversary, with a particular
focus on attempts to put in place measures to make workplaces more responsive
to the family pressures and concerns of Australian workers. This section also
reflects upon some of the key changes in the ACTU’s environment and constituency since its formation in 1927. The Howard government continued with its
anti-union agenda in 2002. Section three of this article addresses the relationship between unions and the Federal Government, the Cole Royal Commission
and the Productivity Commission report on the vehicle industry. This section
also reports on the results of the Australian Labor Party’s organisational
review as far as it related to union influence in the party’s policy-making forums.
The final section of the article overviews some of the important internal
political developments within the trade union movement, including the
* Discipline of Work and Organisational Studies, Faculty of Economics and Business, University
of Sydney. Email: [email protected] Thanks to Tim Ayres, Marian Baird and Bradon
Ellem for reading earlier drafts of the paper, and to the trade unionists and colleagues who assisted
with the research, including Larissa Andelman, Troy Burton, Martin Cartwright, Pat Conroy,
Michael Crosby, Chris Holley, David Peetz and Chris Walton. Any errors are, of course, my own.
THE JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, VOL. 45, NO. 2, JUNE 2003, 205–223
206
THE JOURNAL
OF
I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S
June 2003
ongoing battle for control of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union’s
Victorian branch.
UNION
MEMBERSHIP AND ORGANISING IN
2002
In March, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reported that Australian
unions could claim a combined membership of 1 902 700. This was up a fraction
(900 members) on the previous year.1 While this increase was somewhat more
modest than the increase of 23 500 extra members reported in 2001, it nevertheless marked the second consecutive year of growth in the number of union
members. The last two consecutive years of growth in aggregate membership
to be recorded were in 1989 and 1990.2 There was both good and bad news in
relation to membership density in the figures released in 2002. On the one
hand, during 2001, density in both the public and private sectors increased, by
0.5 per cent and 0.1 per cent respectively. This was the first time that density
rose simultaneously in both sectors since the survey data was first collected two
decades ago. On the other, and despite the small increases in the public and
private sectors, overall density declined again by 0.2 per cent points during the
year to stand at 24.5 per cent.3 This reflected the continued, well-documented,
shift in employment away from the public and toward the private sector.4
Nonetheless, the figures allowed for cautious optimism in labour movement
ranks that unions might have finally begun to turn the tide on two decades of
membership decline.5
However, some of the key advocates for organising reform within the ACTU
cautioned against union complacency. According to Chris Walton, incoming
ACTU Assistant Secretary and Co-Director of the ACTU’s Organising Centre,
there is still room for improvement. Despite unions having made significant
progress during the past decade, including developing high quality education
programs and shifting union priorities and officer workloads from servicing to
organising, Walton argues that Australian unions:
now need to get really serious about growth. This will require the allocation of
serious resources, well thought through industry or sector game plans and the use
of various strategic campaigning techniques.6
Throughout 2002, a number of national Australian unions and union branches
heeded this advice and attempted to better equip themselves for growth. Many
national unions, such as the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU),
allocated resources to dedicated organising units reporting some successes in
their campaigns. In New South Wales, AMWU organisers claimed victory in
their battle to organise poker machine giant and avowed anti-union employer,
Aristocrat.7 The Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU)
Mining Division put significant resources into an innovative campaign to
reorganise a number of small, non-union mines in the Hunter Valley of
New South Wales. In two of the target mine sites, membership density rose
markedly from five per cent to 70 per cent in one and from 10 per cent to
60 per cent in another. The Queensland Nurses Union (QNU) was awarded
the ACTU’s prize for the best union campaign in 2002 for their enterprise
TRADE UNIONISM
IN
2002
207
bargaining campaign using the slogan of ‘Nurses, Worth Looking After’. The
public campaign involved the collection of thousands of signatures on petitions
and the organisation of many lively rallies supporting improved pay and the
introduction of safe workload policies. The campaign netted the union over
3000 new members. The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) claimed
a victory this year in its ongoing campaign to organise call centre workers. In
November, Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) handed down
an award to cover workers in call centres in the telecommunication services
sector. This came after two years of steady organising progress by the union. The
award, which the union estimated would cover in excess of 10 000 workers in
the sector, included a detailed classification structure linked to accredited
and transportable training, minimum termination and redundancy rights and,
importantly, union rights such as the provision for five days paid training leave
for workplace delegates.8
Since 2000, the ACTU and mining group of unions, the CFEMU, AMWU,
Australian Workers Union (AWU), Communications Electrical and Plumbing
Union (CEPU) and Transport Workers Union (TWU) have dedicated considerable resources to (re)organise the mining communities of the Pilbara in Western
Australia which had been progressively de-unionised during the past fifteen years.9
The joint union campaign to reorganise the Pilbara was extended during 2002
and focused upon rebuilding the activist base in the mines and undoing the
damaging union disunity of the past. What follows is a brief overview of the
campaign in 2002.
In part, the renewed union effort sprang from an unexpected victory. Early in
2002, in response to signals from the Western Australian Labor government that
it would finally make changes to the state’s Workplace Agreements Act to repeal
the individual agreements stream, Rio Tinto decided to transfer regulation of
the employment of its Pilbara workers to the federal jurisdiction. Early in the
year, the company decided to offer a 170LK (non-union) agreement under the
Workplace Relations Act.10 If the deal was supported by a majority of the workforce, it would have effectively shut the Pilbara unions out of Rio Tinto. Unions
had only two weeks to put together a response before the deal went to a ballot
of workers in an environment where the unions had a self-confessed low support
base. The unions’ approach was very different to their traditional practice. The
‘underground’ campaign relied upon one-to-one meetings with workers, often
drawing upon activists from other Pilbara, particularly BHP, mine sites. In a
serious setback to Rio Tinto’s preferred industrial relations model, workers at
three out of four of the company’s mines resoundingly rejected the company’s
non-union agreement proposal.11 In a great display of understatement, a Rio Tinto
manager described the union victory as ‘far from a comprehensive result’12 for
Rio Tinto.
After this heartening win, ACTU Secretary Greg Combet announced a joint
project to unionise Rio Tinto sites and fund a full-time organiser to work in
cooperation with the existing organiser working on BHP sites and the ACTU’s
lead organiser on the Pilbara project. The innovative campaign focused on
engaging with workers outside the workplace, building representative organising
208
THE JOURNAL
OF
I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S
June 2003
committees and establishing a collective organisation of workers in the community
instead of more conventional workplace-based organising strategies. In
November, the Pilbara organisers prepared and executed an organising ‘blitz’ with
a group of 22 volunteer delegates and union organisers from a variety of unions
across the country. During this blitz, organisers trialled an organising technique
rarely used by Australian unionists in campaigns, that of coordinated mass home
visiting workers to discuss workplace issues, to progress the campaign and
identify activists for future campaign work.
In response to worker concern about the vicious demarcation battles of
the past and the need, identified by Ellem, for future union representation to
be constructed by ‘the workers themselves, not imposed from “outside”’,13 the
unions established the Pilbara Mineworkers Union (PMU), an unregistered
organisation. During house visits, workers were asked to pledge their support to
this organisation. Despite the employer running a scare campaign in the local
community spreading propaganda about ‘big boofy thugs coming into town to
make everybody join the union’14 the volunteer organisers visited hundreds of
homes and received a warm reception. Workers freely discussed the difficulties
they faced in the workplace and, in particular, the level of management scrutiny
of workers both at work and in the community, the arbitrary and ever changing
demands of management upon workers and, in particular, the constant changing
of shifts. Over 50 per cent of workers visited as a part of the campaign signed
up on the spot to the new PMU and many more enrolled as members in the
ensuing weeks. Feedback from organisers to the ACTU suggested that the
tactics used in the ‘blitz’ were effective:
you get much better communication in someone’s house than you do in any
other environment. They were more relaxed, they were in their own environment,
90 per cent of people are really happy to talk to you, it removes the fear factor.15
Unions have committed to support the project until at least December 2003.
During that time, architects of the campaign aim to build on the achievements
made during 2002, including building the membership of the new local union
and strengthening the activist base among Pilbara miners with the ultimate goal
of ‘getting to the point where together they can change the way the company
behaves’.16
The ACTU has funded a number of organising initiatives since the establishment of the Organising Works program some nine years ago in 1994. However,
since the accession of Greg Combet to the position of ACTU Secretary, organising has taken a much more central place in the ACTU’s deliberations, resource
allocation and strategic vision.17 This year, Combet reiterated his commitment
to organising, suggesting that the task facing unions was to ‘rebuild the union
movement from the ground up’.18 In 2002, the ‘mainstreaming’ of organising
was given a further nudge with the election of Chris Walton to the position of
ACTU Assistant Secretary.
The incumbent Assistant Secretary, Bill Mansfield, announced early in 2002
that he was retiring in order to take up a position as a Commissioner with the
AIRC.19 Greg Combet strongly supported Walton (a passionate advocate for
TRADE UNIONISM
IN
2002
209
changes in unions’ organising strategies who has run the ACTU’s Organising
Works program since 1994, and since 2000, has been the Co-Director of the peak
council’s Organising Centre) as his replacement. In the complex factional makeup
of the ACTU, Mansfield’s Assistant Secretary position was claimed by the Centre
Unity (right-wing) faction. Walton, who is not generally regarded as a factional
operative, was opposed by a group of right-wing power brokers who sought to
maintain their own grip on the position. However, in the face of strong support
from Combet and backed by proponents of organising reform from across the
movement, Walton was elected unopposed at the November 2002 ACTU
Executive. His elevation was widely viewed as a reaffirmation of Combet’s authority in the ACTU and a sign that organising would move even closer to the
heart of the peak council’s agenda. In the position of Assistant Secretary, Walton
takes responsibility for organising, union renewal and campaigning. For Walton,
his success affirms his view that ‘unions are serious about renewal and organising’ and he predicts that organising will become even more ‘front and centre’
at the ACTU as ‘organising now has a seat at the Executive table and will
influence the direction of all ACTU activities’.20
ACTU
TURNS
75
AND
ACTU
CAMPAIGNS IN
2002
In 2002, the ACTU celebrated the 75th anniversary of its formation at the
Melbourne Trades Hall in May 1927. At the birthday dinner, former ACTU
President and Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, argued that the peak council
‘more than any other non-governmental institution, has put its imprint upon the
character and the quality of life of this nation’.21 Be that as it may, the changes
in the character of the peak council itself in the years since its formation speak
volumes of the evolution of trade unionism in Australia. In some senses, the union
movement of the late 1920s was in much better shape than it is today. For instance,
in the year of the peak council’s formation, union membership density was more
than double that reported in 2002, standing at 58 per cent.22 In other respects,
the union movement in 1927 was a less impressive and unified force. This section of the article briefly reflects on the changes in the national peak council’s
composition and nature before moving to a discussion of ACTU campaigns
in the year of its 75th birthday.
While the formation of a national peak council in 1927 was an attempt to
achieve: ‘a more complete form of organisation of the trade union movement in
Australia’23 the organisation could not, for many years, claim to speak for all
Australian workers or even trade unionists. The ACTU of 1927 did not count
the majority of trade unions as affiliates—indeed, even one of the largest and
most powerful unions, the AWU, remained unaffiliated for forty years. These
days, close to 100 per cent of unions are affiliated to the ACTU.24 Even if it had
represented a greater proportion of trade unionists, in its early days, the ACTU
was rarely able to advance political and industrial agendas that all affiliates
supported. In 2002, the peak council speaks with more authority for Australian
unions on (most) industrial and political issues, and while factional differences
exist, there is nothing of the division which featured so strongly in the ACTU’s
early years.25
210
THE JOURNAL
OF
I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S
June 2003
In 1927 there were no white-collar unions affiliated to the peak council. In
2002, the largest affiliate to the ACTU, exceeding the next largest by nearly 50 000
members was the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA). If
one looks at the largest five affiliates to the ACTU, over 60 per cent of
their combined membership of nearly 525 000 is made of white-collar workers.26
There have also been significant changes in the gender composition of the peak
council. All of the foundation office bearers of the ACTU were men. Indeed,
this remained the case until 1983 when Jennie George became the first woman
elected to the organisation’s Executive. There has, thankfully, been some change
in the intervening years. Now the ACTU has its second woman President, and
thanks to rule changes at the Congress 2000 half of the peak council’s Executive
in 2002 were women, making it the most gender representative forum in the
Australian trade union structure.27
Jim Hagan reports that in the year of the ACTU’s formation, the key industrial issue pursued by the council was an attempt to eradicate piece work because
it was seen by many affiliates as a system that over-worked and short-changed
workers and encouraged avarice and capitalistic tendencies to boot.28 Seventyfive years later, the ACTU continues to campaign to lift the wages of the
working poor and eliminate unsafe and anti-social working hours. Campaigning
in 2002 for the right of working women to take paid maternity leave reflected
the much changed priorities of the peak council in the years since its formation.
Developments in the ACTU’s Living Wage and ‘excessive hours’ cases and
the campaigns to secure decent maternity rights for women workers and help
employees balance work and family responsibilities are discussed below.
This year, the ACTU claimed a victory when the Australian Industrial Relations
Commission in the May Living Wage decision granted an $18, or 4.4 per cent,
increase in award rates, taking the minimum wage to $431.40 per week.29
However, the ACTU’s campaign to pare back working hours received more media
attention during 2002. As reported in ‘Trade Unionism in 2001’, the ACTU
lodged a submission with the AIRC in June of that year seeking to restrict the
working hours of Australian employees in response to the well-documented trend
to increased and excessive working hours. The ACTU application relied upon
some thorough research by leading Australian researchers on hours, most notably
Iain Campbell, Barbara Pocock and the Australian Centre for Industrial
Relattions Research and Training (ACIRRT).30 The ACTU argued that Australia
had the second longest working hours in the Organisation of Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD), second only to South Korea, and
that Australia had the highest rate of unpaid overtime in the OECD. The peak
council sought to require employers to give workers extra paid leave if
they were obliged to regularly work excessive hours and insert a clause in
federal awards banning employers from requiring employees to work unreasonable overtime. Both the Federal Government and the employer groups such as
the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) vigorously opposed
the claim.
In July 2002, the Full Bench, headed by Commission President Guidice, handed
down its decision. There was both victory and disappointment in the decision
TRADE UNIONISM
IN
2002
211
for the unions. On the one hand, the Commission accepted the arguments of
the ACTU that hours of work in Australian had increased markedly and that
Australian workers were among the most overworked employees in the OECD.
The decision gave workers the right to refuse to work unreasonable hours
demanded of them by their employers if the overtime presented a risk to their
health and safety or if it compromised their family responsibilities. The ACTU
hailed this as a momentous victory. However, the Full Bench rejected the ACTU’s
submission that workers should be given extra paid leave if they were forced to
work excessive overtime. The Commission took the view that, contrary to the
ACTU’s objectives, providing extra paid leave in return for excessive overtime
would actually serve to encourage and entrench the working of excessive hours.31
Late in the year, when employer groups and unions assembled in Melbourne to
discuss the AIRC’s decision, the ACTU flagged that a European-style cap on
hours might be the subject of future union action on hours.32
The year 2002 was yet another one of vigorous public debate about the provision of paid maternity leave. Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Pru Goward,
spent much of the year working up proposals for the operation and funding of
such a system for presentation to the Federal Government. Unions were active
and vocal participants in this debate with ACTU President, Sharan Burrow,
playing a leading public role.
In April, Goward released an options paper supporting the provision of
14 weeks paid leave in line with the International Labor Organisation (ILO)
Convention number 183. It identified a range of options for funding such a
program, including an employer funded scheme, a government funded scheme,
a levy upon employers and a scheme jointly funded by employees and their
employers.33 In the months following the release of this paper, employer associations, unions and community groups debated the models proposed in Goward’s
paper.
In early July, the ACTU released its blue print for paid maternity leave and
the arrangements needed to fund it. The ACTU plan for 14 weeks paid leave,
capped at average earnings of $900, would be funded jointly by a levy upon
employers and the federal government. The levy would raise $250 million but
would cost employers less than one dollar a week per employee. Sharan Burrow
estimated that this model would give the great majority (87 per cent) of
working mothers full pay for the entire 14 weeks and allow close to 100 per cent
of these women to earn two-thirds of their regular income while on leave.34
Burrow argued that the ACTU’s scheme would be $100 million cheaper than
the current ‘baby bonus’, which she estimated entitled low-paid women to less
than $10 a week.35 Burrow argued that the scheme was modest by international
standards, considering that Australia and the US were the only OECD countries
that did not provide universal paid maternity leave.36
Throughout the year, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry
(ACCI) maintained its opposition to any employer funding of maternity leave
arguing that employers were ‘not responsible for population policy or decisions
staff make to have families’.37 Other employer groups did not prove so oppositional with the Australian Industry Group supporting 12 weeks government
212
THE JOURNAL
OF
I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S
June 2003
funded leave, as did the Council of Small Business Associations of Australia, the
Hotels Association and the Australian Retailers Association.38
In early December, Goward presented her final report, recommending a
government funded system entitling women to be paid up to the federal
minimum wage for 14 weeks. The scheme was costed at $213 million, which
Goward argued was relatively cheap when compared to the cost of the range of
other benefits that the government already paid to new mothers.39 Although it
was not exactly as the ACTU had recommended, Sharan Burrow welcomed the
report arguing it would be of particular benefit to low wage earning women and
provided a good starting point for a national maternity leave system. ACTU
Secretary Greg Combet immediately flagged that unions would seek ‘top-ups’
to such a scheme in future bargaining campaigns.40
The work/family balance will come under the spotlight again in 2003 when
the AIRC begins hearing the ACTU’s Work and Family Test Case. The ACTU’s
claim, announced in November 2002, was to double the period of unpaid maternity leave from 12 to 24 months, to give full-time employees returning from
parental leave a right to part-time work and employees the right to more flexible
hours in line with their family responsibilities. If granted, the ACTU claim would
give workers access to emergency family leave and allow employees to ‘buy’ up
to six weeks extra annual leave through annualisation of salaries.41 Burrow argued
that the ACTU had decided to pursue the case because union research showed
that ‘this is the single most important issue for working people’42 and hoped
that the outcome of the Test Case would be an ‘end the career disadvantage
experienced by many women and will make it easier for people to be both
good employees and good parents’.43
The ACTU urged affiliates to include paid maternity leave in bargaining claims
and during 2002 prepared resources to support such action by individual unions.44
There is some evidence that a number of unions have become more serious about
paid maternity leave as an industrial priority. In the manufacturing industry, where
less than 15 per cent of workers have access to any form of paid maternity
leave, the AMWU has made the ILO’s recommended standard of 14 weeks paid
maternity leave and two weeks paternity leave ‘key priorities for workers across
the manufacturing industry’ in the national bargaining campaign, Campaign 2003,
Table 1
Largest five Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) affiliates in 2002
Affiliates
Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association
Communications Electrical and Plumbing Union
Community and Public Sector Union
Australian Manufacturing Workers Union
Australian Education Union
Total
Source: As reported by unions to the ACTU.
Members
209
160
160
157
155
841
708
135
000
000
000
843
TRADE UNIONISM
IN
2002
213
in the coming year.45 Building upon success at the Australian Catholic University
in 2001, the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) in 2002 pursued an
ambitious national maternity leave standard as a part of its claim upon higher
education employers. The union’s claim included fully paid maternity leave for
14 weeks, supplemented by 38 weeks leave at 60 per cent of regular pay.
Negotiations at the University of Sydney and the University of NSW, under
way at the time of writing, were the first test of the union’s claim.46
The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) was undoubtedly the
vanguard union in the push to improve parental leave rights during 2002,
racking up a number of bargaining victories in Federal Government agencies
during the year. At the Refugee Review Tribunal, the CPSU negotiated an
extra two weeks maternity leave, to a total of 14 weeks, for employees and the
automatic right of access to part-time work in the two years after birth.47 They
also negotiated four weeks paid paternity leave for employees in the Department
of Family and Community Services.48 The CPSU had another victory in late
2002 when the Department of Education, Science and Training signed off on an
agreement, covering 300 employees, which made significant improvements to
workers’ maternity rights and the agency’s family friendly practices. In return
for working an extra nine minutes per day, employees received a 12 per cent pay
rise over three years and access to a broad range of family-friendly policies,
including greater flexibility in paid maternity leave, such as allowing mothers to
take their 12-week entitlement at half pay over 24 weeks and one week’s paid
paternity leave. Employees would be able to ‘buy’ up to two months annual
leave on top of their existing four weeks. Employees with children would be
given up to $100 a week to help pay for school holiday programs. National
Secretary Adrian O’Connell argued that the agreement was novel because ‘it isn’t
just focused on the childbirth aspect of your working life, it encompasses the
various stages’.49
UNIONS
AND POLITICS IN
2002
In 2002, the Federal Coalition did not soften its hard-line approach to the union
movement. In particular, Workplace Relations Minister, Tony Abbott, maintained
his long-held hostility toward unions and on many occasions used the metaphor
of battle and war to describe industrial relations. Unions of course were the
‘enemy’.50 Responding to Abbott’s language during the year, Greg Combet
argued that his ‘out-dated, class war hysteria’ was a threat to investment and
jobs.51 It was not all rhetoric and Abbott spent much of the year encouraging
employers to ‘take on’ the unions in a variety of settings but most noticeably in
the construction and manufacturing industries, where the targets were the
Construction Forrestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) and the AMWU.
He urged the business community to produce more ‘Chris Corrigans’.52 The
Royal Commission into the building industry, established in 2001 by the Howard
government, continued hearing evidence throughout 2002 amid accusations of
anti-union bias from one of the key construction unions. The report of
the Productivity Commission into the automotive sector presented another
forum for Minister Abbott to encourage industrial confrontation. However
214
THE JOURNAL
OF
I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S
June 2003
unions were not only on the nose with the conservatives but also came under
fire from the Labor side of politics as the finger pointing from the 2001 election
loss dragged into an organisational review for Labor. This section briefly
reviews these issues before moving to a brief discussion of a number of internal
union affairs.
Throughout the year the Royal Commission into the construction industry
continued, headed by Commissioner Terence Cole. This year, the Commission
sat in every capital city, heard thousands of hours of evidence from several
hundred witnesses. Throughout the year, the Commission heard some ugly
stories of violence and intimidation, often from disaffected CFMEU ex-office
bearers and delegates, as well as of payments by building employers to the union
allegedly in return for guarantees of industrial peace.53 Throughout the year, Cole
made it clear that he was not impressed by such stories and made a number of
pronouncements as to what the remedy for such activities might be. He warned
building employers that they may have to choose between ‘commercial consequences and severe penalties’ when considering making payments to the
CFMEU after hearing from a number of big players in the industry that they
had frequently paid for union memberships, paid strike pay and training levies,
in an attempt to garner industrial peace.54
Strangely, Cole seemed particularly outraged that construction unions would
take industrial action as part of bargaining campaigns although their members
are afforded this right even under the Workplace Relations Act.55 John Sutton,
National Secretary of the Construction and General Division of the CFMEU,
citing the power imbalances between enormous building companies and their
employees, argued that it was naive to suggest that real bargaining in the industry
would be possible without taking industrial action. Sutton told the Commission
that it was ‘pathetic’ to try to make strikes seem sinister:
shock horror! It has been happening for 200 years, Mr Commissioner. What we
bargain with is the threat of withdrawing our labour.56
From the very start of the year, Cole had to answer accusations from unionists
that he was biased and simply providing another means for the Howard government to attack Australian trade unions. For instance, in February, Cole found it
necessary to protest his independence, stating that he would:
not be influenced by statements or writings of political parties or politicians of any
persuasion, by employers, or employer organisations by unions or unions’ officials
or by the media.57
By mid-year it became clear that the union movement’s predictions about the
direction of the Commission were well-founded as Cole seemed happy to flag
the tone of the recommendations of his incomplete inquiry:
the evidence before me and material otherwise received in conferences and
submissions makes it clear that it will be inevitable that the Commission will be
recommending significant reforms of the building and construction industry and its
practices.58
TRADE UNIONISM
IN
2002
215
Claims of bias came to a head later in the year when the CFMEU New South
Wales Construction and General Branch attempted to stop the Royal Commission
in its tracks, making two applications alleging apprehended bias in the Federal
Court.59 The union presented evidence that 97 per cent of hearing time had been
taken up by anti-union topics, whereas only three per cent had been dedicated
to subjects reflecting poorly on employers in the industry such as tax evasion,
undermining safety standards and the employment of illegal immigrants.60 John
Sutton, the National Secretary of the Construction and General Division of the
CFMEU argued that:
‘Any ordinary person . . . would have little doubt that the hearings have been biased
against the building unions and their representatives . . . It is clear to us and to our
members that he has made findings against the union in that report and has not heard
evidence from the union or considered all our submissions’.61
The Federal Court rejected the CFMEU application.
The CFMEU expects the worst from the Commission report, due to be handed
down in late February 2003. At a National Press Club speech in October, John
Sutton predicted that the Commission’s findings would be a sensationalist attack
upon the CFMEU and that Workplace Relations Minister, Tony Abbott, would
seize upon the opportunity to take action against the union including deregistration. However, Sutton did not accept that this would signal the death knell of
building industry unionism or militancy:
After all, the key building unions making up today’s CFMEU . . . have all been
subject to periods of deregistration and it hardly killed off the spirit of strong
unionism that thrives among our rank and file.62
The year ended on a high note for the CFMEU when a secret ballot of Grocon
construction employees in Melbourne in mid-December resulted in 74 per cent
of the company’s 600 strong workforce voting ‘no’ to the company’s proposed
s170LK non-union agreement.63
There were other forces at work against the militant blue-collar unions and
for the AMWU, the Productivity Commission report into the vehicle industry
and agenda of Tony Abbott represented just as much of a threat to union organisation and workers’ rights as did the Cole Commission.64
Citing recent industrial conflict in the automotive sector, Abbott was clearly
itching for confrontation with the main industry union, the AMWU.65 The
Minister spent a considerable amount of energy this year trying to stiffen the
spine of employers in the sector to take on what media commentators have called
his own ‘aggro’ approach toward the union.66 Abbott seized upon the opportunity
to use the Productivity Commission inquiry to apply none-too-subtle pressure
to automotive sector employers in an attempt to have them adopt more confrontational anti-union strategies. In July, Abbott’s department’s submission to the
Productivity Commission review contended that tariff protection in the industry
made employers shy of pursuing workplace efficiency and lower costs through
industrial confrontation. The submission flagged that the future schedule of
216
THE JOURNAL
OF
I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S
June 2003
tariff protection should be conditional upon industrial relations reforms in
the industry.67 This provocative suggestion was met with horror from all sides,
including the employer organisations. Even the Australian Industry Group’s
Chief Executive Officer, Bob Herbert, called upon the Minister to tone down
the rhetoric.68
While the Commission rejected Abbott’s suggestion of a direct coupling
of industry assistance and industrial relations changes, it did recommend that
sweeping changes be made to the conduct of industrial relations in the industry
and that gradual reductions in the support offered to the industry by the government would aid in such changes.69 The report made major criticisms of the structure of unionism in the industry, suggesting that either workplace-based
unionism or industry unionism would be better models for union structure and
coverage to align the interests of business and workers in the industry.70 The
report also made a number of suggestions for changes to the Workplace Relations
Act including: giving the AIRC greater capacity to terminate bargaining periods
as a result of the impact of industrial action; requiring the Commission to hear
s127 applications more speedily and instigate proceedings to suspend registration
if the orders are ignored by unions; outlawing protected action in relation to
pattern bargaining and requiring the secret balloting of members before
taking protected action. These changes, the Commission argued, would help
the industry move away from its ‘win/lose’ mentality and closer to a more
desirable ‘win/win’ environment in vehicle industry workplaces. 71
The Commission’s report was roundly criticised. ACIRRT wrote a scathing
critique of the report, arguing that it relied on closed analytical categories and
failed to recognise the significant changes in labour practices and industrial
relations resulting from 15 years of reform in the industry and that if its
recommendations were implemented the result would be an exacerbation of
‘the problem of a high stress/low cost work culture’.72 Not surprisingly, the key
union in the sector was incensed and AMWU National Secretary, Doug Cameron,
labelled the inquiry as ‘invincibly biased’73 and argued that it aimed to do little
more than deliver the Federal Government’s industrial relations agenda.74 While
Minister Abbott will use the report’s findings to strengthen his political case for
further industrial relations deregulation, the balance of power in the Senate still
remains a formidable obstacle to further anti-union legislation. Regardless,
Cameron has put Minister Abbott on notice, arguing that the consequence of
following the recommendations of the report would be more trouble than they
were worth, in his words it would ‘make the maritime dispute look like a blip
on the radar screen’.75
Late in the year it appeared that Abbott’s employer arm-twisting throughout
2002 had paid off when vehicle industry employer groups, the Federated Chamber
of Automotive Industries and the Federation of Automotive Products
Manufacturers, announced the establishment of a $1 million fighting fund to
take tort action against unions that breached Commission orders or industrial
laws. It was no coincidence that the establishment of this fund came at the same
time that Federal Cabinet was discussing a $2 billion package of assistance to
employers in the sector.76
TRADE UNIONISM
IN
2002
217
Following from the election defeat of 2001, the Labor Party’s National
Executive commissioned two former Labor leaders, Neville Wran and Bob
Hawke, to investigate party reform. Much of the debate in 2002 centred on
regulations such as the 60 : 40 rule operating in some ALP state branches,
guaranteeing a union majority in Party policy-making forums, which, in the
view of many Labor frontbenchers, should be abolished.77 Federal Parliamentary
leader Simon Crean vociferously supported watering down representation
of the unions to 50 : 50, putting them on an equal footing with representatives
elected directly from the membership of the Party. The review, released in
August of 2002, made 38 recommendations to go to the Party’s special rules
conference in October including a recommendation to adopt the 50 : 50
model.78
In the course of the review, unions engaged in an interesting internal debate
about the nature and importance of union influence in the party. The industrial
right ran a strong public campaign against the changes. Secretary of the New
South Wales Labor Council, John Robertson, one of the most vocal opponents
of the changes, argued that reducing union influence missed the point of the
woes of the party. It would be better, he argued, to look to the party’s ‘insipid
policies’, ‘clumsy politics’ and ‘drab candidates’ for the sources of the problem.79
One of the key national unions in the push against Crean’s proposals was the
SDA. The National Secretary of this union, Joe De Bruyn, argued that the leftwing unions, such as the AMWU, that had supported the change had ‘sold out
the trade union position’.80 Left-wing union leaders such as the AMWU’s Doug
Cameron argued that the 60 : 40 rule had never been the main game for unions
and did not guarantee real influence for union members over the decisions of
the party.81 ACTU Secretary Greg Combet put a similar position and argued
that, taken on the whole, the report was ‘respectful of the role played by unions’.82
It was this support from the left that guaranteed the package was endorsed and,
arguably, saved Crean’s leadership hide.
INTERNAL
UNION MATTERS IN
2002
2002 was yet another turbulent year for the AMWU. In 2001, after factional
divisions in its Victorian branch escalated, the AMWU’s National Council established an inquiry into the operation of the Branch, chaired by Tom McDonald
and Joe Riordan.83 At that time, a number of leadership figures from the Victorian
‘Workers First’ faction, including the State Secretary Craig Johnson, were
facing criminal charges relating to assaults on office workers and property
damage after a ‘run through’ when things turned nasty in a dispute with a
Victorian tile manufacturer in mid 2001.84 By the end of 2002, both the Victorian
Secretary Craig Johnson and the Branch’s Assistant Secretary Darren Nelson had
departed the union, and the ‘Workers First’ faction within the union was in
tatters. AMWU National Secretary Doug Cameron, a key player in the dispute,
described 2002 as a year of battle for the union ‘between those who are prepared
to entertain, rationalise or capitulate to tactics that include violence, intimidation
and property damage and those, like myself who reject such tactics and see them
as abhorrent’.85
218
THE JOURNAL
OF
I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S
June 2003
In late May, the group involved in the Skilled Engineering/Johnstone Tiles
fracas a year earlier were served with a summons in relation to criminal charges
of affray, riotous assembly, threats to kill and unlawful imprisonment. Committal
hearings were heard in June, and at that time, Doug Cameron asked Johnson to
step aside, with pay, pending the hearing of the charges.86 When Johnson refused
to step down, on 9 July, the AMWU’s National Council suspended him and
installed Victorian-based National Assistant Secretary and Cameron right hand
man Dave Oliver, as the Branch’s administrator.87 In early August, Justice
Weinberg rejected Johnson’s Federal Court challenge against his suspension.88
Soon after, ‘Workers First’ faction members established a blockade of the
AMWU’s Elizabeth Street office in central Melbourne. Neither clerical staff,
nor officials not aligned with ‘Workers First’ and other tenants of the building,
including RMIT staff and students, were able to enter the premises for some three
weeks.89 Despite Federal Court orders that they do not obstruct entry to the
Elizabeth Street office, the blockade continued into late August, by which time
the National Council had had enough and authorised Cameron to bring
contempt charges against a number of Victorian officials for ignoring the Federal
Court injunction.
In early September, bowing to pressure, Johnson resigned his position and
attempted to have Steve Dargavel, former ALP federal member of parliament
and latterly AMWU research officer, installed as the replacement Secretary of
the Branch.90 The barricades on the building were removed with estimates of
the cost of the three-week picket reaching over $1 million.91 In October, ‘Workers
First’ signed a four-year deal with the national leadership installing Dargavel as
Assistant Secretary, Oliver as Secretary and preventing Johnson from running
for any position in the union for the period of the deal.92 Peace reigned until the
end of 2002.
Leadership change in other sections of the union movement was not as
brutal as at the AMWU. The women of the Australian Education Union (AEU),
this year claimed another prize leadership position. Following in the steps
of Sharan Burrow and Jennie George, in April 2002 AEU Deputy Federal
President, Janet Giles, became the first woman Secretary of the South Australian
United Trades and Labor. Giles noted that her elevation helped ‘overcome the
public perception that the union movement is the bastion of blokes’.93
One of the country’s most senior union women, Wendy Caird, who was for
nine years the National Secretary of CPSU and Vice-President of the ACTU,
retired in 2002 to take up an international labour movement position. Caird, who
was at one time tipped as a successor to Jennie George as ACTU President, was
the Secretary of the CPSU in what was arguably the most difficult chapter in
federal public sector unionism’s history. Massive cutbacks, contracting out,
privatisation and attacks on the union after the election of the Howard government led to a haemorrhaging of the union’s members. However, Caird oversaw
a massive change process in the union, including significant restructuring, the
establishment of a national member call centre, and a re-orientation of the union’s
activities to focus upon organising. During the period 2000–2002 the CPSU
was one of the few examples of a national union attempting to implement the
TRADE UNIONISM
IN
2002
219
recommendations of the unions@work report. Caird was replaced by former
CPSU Telecommunication Section Secretary, Adrian O’Connell.
CONCLUSION
During 2002, the union movement had to suffer yet another year of antagonism
from the Federal Government. Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott was
keen to fan industrial unrest, making it clear that he and the government were
ready to assist should employers wish to adopt a more aggressive approach toward
the union movement. The Building Industry Royal Commission continued
hearing evidence throughout 2002 and it seems certain that the report of the
Commission, to be handed down in early 2003, will be extremely critical of
the building unions. If Abbott’s response to the Productivity Commission report
on the vehicle industry is anything to go by, the Workplace Relations Minister
will seize the opportunity to further demonise trade unions generally, and the
CFMEU in particular, and will attempt to put in place further changes to industrial legislation to undermine unions’ organising and bargaining capacity. The
Labor Party’s national organisational review was completed in 2002 and the party
voted to support a watering down of union representation in party policymaking forums from 60 : 40 to 50 : 50. Unions remain divided along factional
lines as to whether this constitutes a disaster or whether it is of no consequence
at all for their ability to influence the party’s direction. In the year that the
ACTU turned 75, organising and striking a fair balance between work and
family responsibilities were the key concerns of the national peak council. The
peak council and its affiliates could claim some real progress in both areas
during 2002. In 2002, it was reported that aggregate trade union membership
had grown, albeit marginally, for a second consecutive year, raising hopes that
this could mark a turning point from the point from the massive membership
decline of the past two decades. Whether this proves to be the case or not is a
matter for next year’s review of trade union matters.
NOTES
1. These figures, collected in August 2001, were the latest available at the time of writing
(December 2002–January 2003).
2. It should be kept in mind, however, as Peetz et al. argue, that the increases were not statistically
significant. See Peetz D, Webb C, Jones M (2002 forthcoming) Activism amongst workplace
union delegates. International Journal of Employment Studies, October.
3. However, the 0.2 per cent point drop in density was significantly less than the 1 per cent point
loss recorded in 2001 or the 2.4 per cent loss in 2000. ABS (2001) Employee Earnings Benefits
and Trade Union Membership, Cat. no. 63101.0. Canberra: ABS.
4. Peetz D, Webb C, Jones M (2002 forthcoming) Activism amongst workplace union delegates.
International Journal of Employment Studies, October.
5. Combet G (2002) Speech to the National Press Club 12 June 2002, Canberra. Echoing findings
in 2001, data released in 2002 revealed that it still pays to be a union member. The ABS
reports that union members were on average $99 per week better off than their non-union
co-workers. The effect of union membership was more pronounced in those groups of
workers who arguably need union protection the most. Union members employed on a
part-time basis earned $129 more per week than their non-union equivalents, union women
earned $123 more than those who were no