Manajemen | Fakultas Ekonomi Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji 2004 14

TRADE UNIONISM IN 2003
RAE COOPER*

I

n 2003 Australian trade unions continued the campaign to improve employees’
ability to balance work and family responsibilities. This, along with push for the
introduction of ‘industrial manslaughter’ legislation, was the key industrial priority of
the year. During the year, unions witnessed a political changing of the guard. There were
no union tears when Workplace Relations Minister, Tony Abbott, departed the industrial
relations scene. On the other side of politics, Mark Latham was elevated to the leadership
of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party. While his candidature was not strongly
supported by union leaders, Latham has won himself a number of union admirers since
his election. Despite the enthusiasm for revitalising the union movement exhibited at the
Australian Council of Trade Unions’ Organising Conference, statistics from the Australian
Bureau of Statistics released in 2003 showed that both union density and aggregate
membership had slipped. The biggest ‘organising story’ of the year was the disintegration
of the joint union campaign to reorganise the Pilbara, which in 2003 fell victim to
competitive union pressure.

INTRODUCTION

This article reviews trade union matters in 2003. The discussion is divided into
five sections. The first section reviews trade union membership figures released
in 2003 and discusses developments in the push to build membership, including
the launch of a major Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) strategy
document Future Strategies. The second section of the article revisits the
campaign to reorganise the workplaces of Western Australia’s Pilbara and finds
that competitive unionism has provided a serious setback to that campaign.
Section three discusses trade union involvement in and responses to political
matters in 2003, including the departure of Tony Abbott from the Workplace
Relations portfolio, the ongoing intervention of the federal government in
industrial disputes and the release of the final report of the Cole Royal
Commission. This section also addresses the change in the leadership of the
federal Parliamentary Labor Party. Section four addresses two of the key
industrial campaigns prosecuted by unions during 2003: improving workers’
ability to balance work and family commitments; and the fight for the introduction
of ‘industrial manslaughter’ legislation. The final section of the article reflects
upon the lives of four union men who passed away in 2003.

* Discipline of Work and Organisational Studies, School of Business, Faculty of Economics and
Business, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. Email: r.cooper@econ.usyd.edu.au The

author was on maternity leave at the time of writing and could not have written this article without childcare assistance from Sarah Cooper. Thanks to those who helped with the collection of
information for this article including Paul Bastian, Cath Bowtell, Pat Conroy, Michael Crosby
and Chris Walton. Many thanks to Tim Ayres for reading previous drafts.

THE JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, VOL. 46, NO. 2, JUNE 2004, 213–225

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AND ORGANISING

In 2001 and 2002, Australian unions celebrated growth in their ranks. However,
figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in 2003 dashed union
hopes that the tide of membership loss was turning. In the year to August 2002,
Australian unions lost 69 000 members as national membership fell from 1 902 700
to 1 833 700. Unions organising some sectors of the economy, such as in health,
community services and construction, recorded increases in their membership
in 2002.1 However, in other areas, including the airline industry, the finance
industry and food and beverage manufacturing, the ABS suggests there were
massive membership losses.2 Losses were particularly hard felt in the private
sector where over 80 000 members were lost. New South Wales unions lost
over 60 000, representing the largest drop in members in any state in 2002.
Membership density continued its long-running downward slide. In the year to
August 2002 density dropped to 23.1% down from 24.5% the previous year.
Density fell in both the public and private sectors, with density falling from
47.9 to 46.5% and 19.2 to 17.7% respectively.3
Union leaders expressed concern at the trends reported by the ABS. For
ACTU Secretary, Greg Combet, falling union membership and density had grim
implications for Australian workers. He argued that further slides in membership could only exacerbate problems such as the ‘record number of workers who
don’t have paid holiday or sick leave’4 which would not only have implications
not only for those workers but their families and the broader community.5

A month after the release of these disappointing figures, the ACTU’s second
‘Australasian Union Organising Conference’ was held at the University of Sydney.
Here, enthusiasm for rebuilding Australian (and New Zealand) unions could not
have been greater. With 720 attendees the conference was oversubscribed and
at large sessions attendees sat on the floor and spilled out doors. In his keynote
speech at the conference Director of the ACTU’s Organising Centre, Michael
Crosby, delivered a critical account of the failure of Australian unions to wholeheartedly adopt measures to rebuild union power and reverse membership decline.
The themes of the speech echoed his address at the first organising conference
in 2000.6 He argued that still too few unions were devoting sufficient resources
to new member organising, not enough unions were involved in cross-union
‘solidarity organising’ and even less were taking a strategic approach to ‘organising
for industry power’. He urged conference attendees to return to their unions and
to advocate for change. He argued that the task was urgent and the stakes were
high:
Our future rests in our hands. If we don’t have the talent and the will to drag
industry power from grasping hands of the employer class in this country we will
have failed workers and their families for generations to come.7

Crosby ended on a positive note, suggesting that he had little doubt that such
a task would be achieved as the union officials assembled at the conference showed

an ‘openness to change, a willingness to learn and a ruthlessness to do whatever
is necessary’ to demand a ‘fair go’ for working people.8

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Australian Council of Trade Unions Secretary Greg Combet launched Future
Strategies: Unions working together for a fairer Australia at the conference; a report
which he argued aimed to promote debate, generate policy ideas and push change
within Australian trade unions to achieve this ‘fair go’.9 According to Combet,
the report sought to ‘reinforce the changes initiated with unions@work’, the 1999
union directions paper.10 Future Strategies signals the national peak council’s vision
for union activity in 2003 and its three key themes: issues for unions in the wider
society; the challenge for organising heartland workplaces; and the challenge of
new member organising are examined in brief below.

The anchor for Future Strategies is a statement of ‘union values’, which seeks
to articulate a raison detre for union activism. The document articulates a vision
for ‘unions and the wider society’ including a statement on ‘Australian union
values’. This statement sets out values in two areas: ‘fairness and equality in the
community’ and ‘security and fairness in the workplace’. ‘Fairness and equality
in the community’ includes the rights of citizens to a fair share of the nation’s
wealth, to properly funded public health and education, and among other things,
to decent housing. Union values in relation to ‘security and fairness in the workplace’ include a belief in the right to decent pay, safe workplaces, the right to
join and be represented by unions, the right to consultation and the ability to
access affordable high quality childcare.11 Future Strategies suggests that this
statement of union values should underpin the work of all union officials, all
union education programmes and union community and media campaigns.12
The vision for engagement with the wider community includes a statement of
political activity signalling the need for broader and deeper union engagement
in the political process, an argument for changing the industrial relations culture
of Australian workplaces, including the establishment of consultative mechanisms
in the absence of union representation, and suggestions to improve access to
unions.13
The ongoing challenge of ‘building union organisation and strength in the
workplace’ is addressed as a second theme of Future Strategies. ‘Active, effective

and informed’14 union delegates are seen as vital to building resilient unionism
in Australian workplaces. Accordingly, unions are encouraged to: increase their
workplace delegate density; encourage broad involvement of delegates in union
activities; improve delegate education; bargain with employers and lobby
governments for enhanced delegate rights; and train organisers to make building
workplace organisation a key priority in their work. In order to better organise
Australian workplaces, unions are encouraged to establish better communication
methods, including establishing networks to help distribute union information
and using the media to more effectively push the union agenda. Future Strategies
argues that changes are required in the ‘union office’ in order to organise in heartland membership areas. Union leaders are asked to establish clear objectives about
union directions, involve workplace representatives and members in debates about
the ‘direction and priority of the union’, and among other things, to examine
and debate how the roles of union staff can be changed to support union
priorities.15 None of these recommendations is new; indeed, they simply restate
the content of unions@work.

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Future Strategies argues that while many Australian unions made significant
post-unions@work gains in organising in areas where they had an established
membership base, less progress was made in relation to ‘organising workers in
parts of the economy where jobs are growing’.16 The document argues that this
means that unions are not fulfilling their membership potential and that the gap
between union and non-union workplaces in terms of pay and conditions has
widened. The strategy document sets a number of steps for unions to put in place
in order to ‘reach out and organise beyond the main areas of current union
activity’.17 Echoing a key theme of unions@work, unions are told that dedicating
resources to new member organising is fundamental to growth. Future Strategies
urges unions to consider options such as establishing organising funds financed
by a dedicated income stream, levying members for new member organising, or
raising membership fees. Unions are encouraged to strategically select organising
targets and carefully plan campaigns.18 Future Strategies argues that far too few

unions employ specialist organisers working in dedicated organising teams, which
makes it a ‘significant impediment to the long term growth’.19 Union leaders are
encouraged to put in place such teams, headed by ‘lead organisers’, to plan and
execute new member organising projects. Successful new member organising,
the document argues, also relies upon using innovative tactics such as cross-union
organising, regional organising and organising outside of traditional coverage
areas.20
The ACTU has now produced two major strategy documents within five
years which have urged unions to make changes to their structure and practices.
Of course, the daily burden of change necessarily remains within individual
unions themselves. The ACTU’s approach is one thing, but practices at
the level of the union branch are another. It remains to be seen whether
the national peak council’s vision will be embraced with enthusiasm by
individual unions.

(DIS)ORGANISING

THE

PILBARA?

Last year’s review of trade union matters reported on the ongoing union
and ACTU campaign to re-organise the workplaces of Western Australia’s
Pilbara Region. From 2000, the ACTU had funded an organiser to work toward
organising BHP’s sites in the region. Throughout 2002, another organiser
was employed, this time to work toward re-unionising Rio Tinto’s Hamersley
Iron worksite, which had been non-union since 1992. This came after the
rejection of a company proposed 170 LK agreement under the Workplace Relations
Act in three of four Hamersley worksites. In 2002, major union and peak
council resources were put into establishing the Pilbara Mineworkers Union
(PMU) including a major blitz-style organising drive in November which successfully signed most workers visited in their homes up to the fledgling union organisation. While the efforts to rebuild unionism in the Pilbara was something of a
showpiece for the ACTU and the innovative technique’s its organising centre
championed, in 2003 the campaign fell apart spectacularly.
In late June 2003 it was sensationally revealed that the Australian Workers
Union (AWU) national office was in the final throes of negotiating a (single-union)

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consent award in the Federal jurisdiction with Rio Tinto which would cover all
of the company’s Pilbara operations. The award provided for replicate conditions
for award workers and individual contract employees and gave the AWU sole
coverage to the exclusion of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union
(AMWU), the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), the
Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union (CEPU) and their local
grass-roots activities through the PMU. This was despite the clear wish, demonstrated in the vote against the 2002 170LK agreement, of Hamersley workers
to stay out of the federal jurisdiction, and the fact that a move to the federal
system would take away the right of these workers to be represented in the far
superior Western Australian jurisdiction.21
The AWU’s arrangement with Rio Tinto was ‘heartbreaking’ for the local
organisers and PMU activists, and left the joint union organising strategy in
tatters.22 By the end of July the ACTU’s organiser for Hamersley had returned
to Sydney and members of the PMU wondered what would happen.
The AMWU, CFMEU and CEPU accused the AWU of sabotaging the
project, and the issue looked set to disrupt the ACTU’s August Congress.23 The
debate about the Pilbara was by far the best attended session at the Congress
and throughout the triennial conference there was clearly a great deal of anger
directed at the AWU.24 PMU delegate at Hamersley Iron, Kevin Quill, one of
four Pilbara workers to attend conference, addressed Congress delegates. He condemned the AWU for their actions, saying that workers on the ground felt
betrayed and ‘backstabbed’ by the organisation. He said that the AWU’s actions
‘devastated’ the members of PMU and confirmed to cynical workers that the
unions would ‘do deals over the top of them’.25 When he finished, most of
Congress’ 900 delegates stood and applauded Quill, while a smaller section
chanted ‘Shame, AWU, shame’.26
Answering his critics, AWU National Secretary and architect of the deal
with Rio Tinto, Bill Shorten, argued that the deal he had brokered meant
that workers would no longer be forced to sign individual contracts and
could now be represented by a union which could ‘get in the gate’.27 Despite
rumours circulating prior to Congress that the CFMEU and AMWU would
move the expulsion of the AWU from the ACTU, nothing of the sort
occurred. Instead, Congress endorsed a resolution moved by Combet and
seconded by Shorten that put in place fresh policy governing future joint-union
campaigns. The new rules involve unions signing agreements pledging to
adhere to group organising strategies and to behave in an ethical fashion.
Policy says that these agreements should have the support of the workers
involved and be agreed to by the decision-making bodies in each union. Where
unions have breached such agreements, unions can appeal to the ACTU
Executive, which has the power to take disciplinary action against the
offending party.28
The new rules have been identified as one positive to come out of the damaging
intra-union dispute. For instance, Chris Walton, ACTU Assistant Secretary, and
a peak union official who has been closely associated with the Pilbara organising
project reflected in early 2004 that:

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It is true we have had a setback in one part of the Pilbara . . . However Congress also
outlined a process for unions to enter future cooperative arrangements.29

However, organisers more intimately involved in the project were not able
to disguise their devastation at the collapse of the joint-union campaign. The
comments of one organiser express feelings typical of others involved in the
project were:
We knew from the start that given the scale, history and identity of the employer
that re-organising Hamersley Iron was an incredibly ambitious and potentially risky
endeavour. What is so disappointing is that we were succeeding, and it was the actions
of a couple of individuals in leadership positions within one of the unions that
destroyed the campaign.30

Since the Congress, no joint union compacts have been entered into and it is
unclear whether the policy will be a successful vehicle for avoiding damaging interunion rivalry during organising campaigns. At the time of writing the consent
award between Tinto and the AWU had not been certified.

UNIONS

AND POLITICS

In late 2003, Australian unions farewelled their arch nemesis, Tony Abbott, from
his position of Workplace Relations Minister.31 Abbott, had spent two and a half
years in the position, much of which was spent vilifying unions and encouraging
employers to ‘take them on’ in workplaces across the country. In any given
dispute, Abbott could be counted on to be publicly and vociferously on the
employer side.32 The news of Abbott’s departure was greeted with undisguised
glee from some trade union leaders who supposed that no one could be worse
than Abbott. John Sutton, National Secretary of one of Abbott’s prime targets,
the CFMEU said:
It’s hard to imagine a more aggressive, belligerent, fanatical, anti-union Workplace
Relations Minister.33

Abbott was replaced late in the year by the relatively low profile Kevin Andrews,
who is better known for his anti-euthanasia and anti-abortion campaigning than
for involvement in industrial relations debates.34
Abbott was up to his elbows in one of the major industrial disputes of 2003,
in higher education. The dispute began in late September when—after a year of
negotiations between the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) and the
University of Sydney—and on the eve of signing the long-awaited agreement,
University management pulled out of negotiations. The University’s turnaround
was prompted by Education Minister, Brendan Nelson, and Tony Abbott’s
demands about the content of enterprise agreements and the conduct of industrial
relations on campus. Universities were told that they must offer Australian
Workplace Agreements (AWAs) and act to reduce union activities on campus such
as by closing down union offices on campus and reducing other union rights.35
Unless universities complied with these commonwealth directives, they would

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not have access to $404 million in additional and badly needed funding. This
was yet another example of Abbott’s hypocrisy in industrial relations: on the one
hand, proclaiming to be committed to allowing employers and employees to
‘sort out’ employment conditions and wages in the workplace, but on the other
imposing the content of those agreements upon the parties. For all of the talk
from the Workplace Relations Minister about removing ‘third party’ intervention
from the workplace, he showed himself to be a perfect player in the role.
Following the federal government’s announcement, the University of
Sydney’s Vice-Chancellor Gavin Brown informed the NTEU that despite the
University being opposed to funding being tied to prescriptions for industrial
relations practice, he would not sign the planned enterprise agreement—which
did not conform to the Nelson Abbott Model—due to uncertainty about
funding.36 Staff at the University responded immediately with stop-work and
strike action.
Academics and general staff from universities across the country soon followed
suit. In mid-October, a national strike, the first since 1996, hit the university
sector. Large rallies were held in each state as university staff, students and
supporters protested the Abbott/Nelson attacks. University employers presented
a confused position. A number of Vice-Chancellors opposed the strike action
and most emailed staff to encourage them not to join the action. The Australian
Vice-Chancellors Committee (AVCC) continued its public rejection of the tied
funding deal, and some individual Vice-Chancellors attended and in some cases
spoke at staff rallies.37
In early December, after securing the support of key independent Senators,
the NTEU claimed victory in its lobbying war to have the Higher Education
Support Bill 2003 amended to allow universities access to urgently needed funds
but remove offending sections.38 After over 100 concessions were secured from
the government, including the removal of the required industrial relations
measures, the Senate passed the Bill.39 The NTEU’s National President, Carolyn
Alport, congratulated the Senate for rejecting the tying of funding to industrial
relations changes in universities. She said that the decision was:
. . . a major loss for the industrial hard-liners in the Howard cabinet, but represents
a major win for universities and their staff who will now be able to negotiate
collective agreements without the threat of losing Government funding.40

Similar attempts by the federal government to force industrial relations change
in areas such as the construction industry were ongoing in 2003.
Terence Cole handed the recommendations of the Royal Commission into the
Building and Construction Industry to the federal government in March of 2003.
His recommendations included the abolition of pattern bargaining, restricting
the right of entry for officials to worksites, a winding back of the circumstances
in which unions could take industrial action and increased penalties for
union officials and workers who breached industrial regulations.41 Cole also
recommended the establishment of a permanent watchdog for the industry,
the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC). National

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Secretary of the CFMEU, John Sutton, suggested on the release of the
recommendations that:
The Royal Commission investigators set out to build a case against the unions,
particularly the CFMEU. Cole’s final report maintains that bias.42

In mid-September, Minister Abbott released his draft bill (the Building and
Construction Industry Improvement Bill 2003), which sought to implement 120 of
the Cole Royal Commission’s 212 recommendations and he expressed a hope
that the Bill would be passed by Parliament before the year’s end.43 The Bill passed
through the House of Representatives in early December. However, once again,
the Senate foiled the industrial relations ambitions of the government, voting to
establish its own enquiry into the building industry covering a number of
employer activities not addressed by the Royal Commission. This included a
number of issues which the CFMEU had campaigned to have heard by the
Royal Commission such as evasion of tax and workers compensation payments
and the underpayment of workers’ entitlements such as superannuation. The
Senate committee will also question whether the building and construction
industry is actually so unique as to require its own Commission.44 The
Committee is due to report in February 2004.
Meanwhile, on the other side of politics, there was a changing of the guard.
In early December 2003, after 18 months of serious leadership instability, Simon
Crean was replaced as the leader of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party. Mark
Latham’s elevation to the leadership of the party came after two ballots of
federal parliamentary members. The first was in June and Crean’s opponent was
Kim Beazley. Crean won by a margin of 24 votes (the vote was split 58–34) and
clearly hoped that this would put an end to speculation about a future challenge.
However, worsening results in the polls and continued white-anting meant that
a future challenge was inevitable. In early December Kim Beazley declared his
intention to run against Crean for leadership of the Party for a second time. After
considerable public and internal pressure Crean eventually announced that he
would stand down as leader and subsequently threw his support behind Mark
Latham, who declared his candidacy simultaneously.
In the factional maneuvering in the lead up to the second ballot, left and right
union leaders mostly fell in behind the Beazley campaign because of concern about
the rightward drift of Latham’s policy position and a hope that Beazley would
be more palatable to the electorate.45 Since the ballot, Latham has surprised most
observers in the industrial wing by revitalising the ALP’s political stocks and
putting Labor in a more electable position than at any time since 1996. With the
election looming in 2004, unions appear to be solidly behind Latham.

KEY

INDUSTRIAL ISSUES:
MANSLAUGHTER

WORK

AND FAMILY, AND INDUSTRIAL

The most high profile industrial issue in 2003 was, as in 2002, bargaining over
provisions to make it easier for workers to balance work and family. In late June
the ACTU launched its work and family test case in the Australian Industrial

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Relations Commission. The ACTU sought to extend the current twelve month
unpaid maternity leave entitlement to two years, give parents returning to work
after taking parental leave the right to work part time, allow employees to
‘purchase’ up to six weeks per year in extra leave through annualised salary adjustments, develop the ability to vary start and finish times to accommodate caring
responsibilities, and introduce ‘emergency leave’ for family responsibilities. The
ACTU’s test case claim did not include claims for paid parental leave; they
chose instead to await the outcome of the government’s deliberations over the
provision of a national pad maternity leave scheme.46 Five awards covering
workers in retail, clerical, graphic arts and pharmaceutical industries were the
vehicles for the test case claim.47 Most of 2003 was taken with employers
lodging counter-claims and the hearing of procedural arguments. The ACTU
anticipates that evidence in the case will be heard in July and August of 2004
with the possibility of a decision by the end of 2004.48 This year a number of
Australian unions proved that they could negotiate significant advances in their
members’ conditions in relation to work and family ‘in the field’ rather than await
government action. Here, maternity leave was a key priority and, as was the case
last year, the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) and the NTEU were
the vanguard unions in this area.
The standout agreement for improving maternity leave rights was negotiated
at the University of Sydney in 2003. It took over a year of bargaining and the
negotiations saw the intervention of none other than the Workplace Relations
Minister, Tony Abbott, but in December 2003 the NTEU and the University
management signed off on a deal which will provide women with a full year of
pay after the birth of a child. The Agreement, which surpasses the landmark agreement at negotiated at the Australian Catholic University in 2001, provides fourteen weeks of maternity leave on full pay and a further 38 weeks at 60% pay.49
Other wins in 2003 included the CPSU’s negotiation of 14 weeks of paid
maternity leave in a number of workplaces including the Australian Securities
and Investment Commission, the Department of Defence, and the Australian
Capital Territory and Northern Territory governments. Further, the CPSU
claimed a victory at Telstra where it managed to secure a Memorandum of
Understanding with Telstra management securing members maternity leave
entitlements in the event of the privatisation of the organisation.50
Another key issue for Australian unions in 2003 was the campaign for the introduction of that of ‘industrial manslaughter’ laws. Blue-collar unions, spearheaded
by the AMWU and CFMEU had lobbied state governments to strengthen
occupational health and safety legislation by providing for criminal penalties for
senior managers for safety breaches causing deaths in the workplace. After
18 months of campaigning for the introduction of such legislation the campaign
was given added poignancy when in October a young Sydney building worker,
Joel Exner, was killed on a Western Suburbs building site after just three days
on the job. Building unions argued that the manifestly unsafe conditions in which
the young man was killed demanded an urgent legislative response. A stoppage
of more than 10 000 Sydney construction workers on Monday 27 October
followed and a number of rallies were held across the state.51

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There was one victory in the union campaign for legislative changes in 2003.
In late November, Australian Capital Territory’s parliament passed the Crimes
(Industrial Manslaughter) Bill 2003 which amended the Territory’s Crimes Act to
create the offence of ‘industrial manslaughter’. Employers found guilty of the
offence could be fined up to $1.25 million for companies and up to $250 000 for
individuals. Individuals are also able to be imprisoned for up to 25 years.52
Negotiations with government continue in the states.

VALE BULL, HALFPENNY, REYNOLDS

AND

MILLER

The union movement lost two national union leaders and two less famous but
major contributors to trade unionism in 2003. Tasnor Bull passed away on May
29, aged 71. After working at sea and later as a wharf labourer, Tas became an
elected official of the Waterside Workers Federation from 1967. In 1982 he took
up the position of National Secretary of the union in 1982 and later went on to
become an Executive member of the International Transport Workers Federation.
He was an activist in opposing the Vietnam War, fighting apartheid in South
Africa, and was for many years an activist within the Communist Party of Australia.
Tas officially retired from the trade union movement in 1992, but later went on
to become the Chair of the ACTU’s Organising Works programme, where he
played a mentoring role to many of the young trainee organisers. Tas’ funeral
procession included a march by several hundred Maritime Union of Australia
(MUA) members, union comrades and friends along the ‘hungry mile’ of Sydney’s
wharves.
John Halfpenny died on 22 December 2003. ‘The Half’, as he was affectionately known in Victorian union circles, was an organiser and later Secretary of
the Victorian Branch of the AEU and later went on to become the Secretary of
the Victorian Trades Hall Council between 1987 and 1995 where he successfully
reinvigorated the peak council. In 1992 he led 100 000 people through the streets
of Melbourne protesting the Kennett government’s anti-union legislation.
The young National President of the CPSU, Mathew Reynolds, died on
21 May 2003. Reynolds was elected as Tasmania’s Branch Secretary in 1996 and
was elected National President in 1998. He died shortly after the union’s 2003
elections.53 Brian Miller one of the most passionate advocates for worker safety
in New South Wales workers died in June aged 65. CFMEU New South Wales
Secretary Andrew Ferguson said that Miller’s work as safety coordinator for the
union had ‘saved many lives’.54

CONCLUSION
Late in 2003, unions farewelled Tony Abbott from the Workplace Relations
portfolio. During his two and a half years in this Ministry, Abbott spent considerable energy encouraging employers to ‘take on’ the unions. This year was no
different and during 2003 Abbott’s actions in the higher education sector sparked
a national strike. This time the unions won. The final report of the Royal
Commission into the Building and Construction Industry was handed down in
2003; however, the federal government’s attempt to introduce legislation to reduce
union influence in the industry was thwarted, at least temporarily, by the Senate.

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After considerable leadership instability in the federal Parliamentary Labor Party,
Mark Latham took over the reigns in late 2003. After coming under sustained
criticism from union leaders prior to his elevation, the relationship of the new
leader with the union movement in 2004 will be very interesting to watch. In
2003, Australian unions made improving workers’ ability to satisfactorily balance
work and family commitments a key industrial priority. This year unions notched
up some significant victories in this area, particularly in relation to paid maternity
leave. In 2001 and 2002 unions celebrated growing membership, this year the
picture was not so rosy. In 2003 membership density continued to decline and
on top of this, losses were recorded in aggregate membership. Early in 2003
the ACTU hosted the second Australasian Union Organising Conference. At the
conference the organising successes of previous years were celebrated and a major
strategy document was launched as a guide for future union activity. One of the
showcase campaigns at the conference was the joint union campaign to reorganise
the Pilbara; however, only a few months later this campaign was in tatters—the
victim of competitive unionism.

NOTES
1. Health membership grew by 22 700, community services by 6500 and construction
by 5500. Briggs C (2003) ACIRRT Union Membership 2001–2002 Briefing. ACIRRT,
March 2003.
2. In air and space transport, membership fell by 10 500, food and beverage manufacturing
membership dropped by 11 900 and in finance by 14 800. Briggs C (2003) ACIRRT Union
Membership 2001–2002 Briefing. ACIRRT, March 2003.
3. ABS.
4. Murphy C (2003) Union membership slides again. Australian Financial Review, 1 April, 2.
5. Balogh S (2003) Another 69 000 members walk out on trade unions. The Australian, 1 April,
p. 9; Balogh S (2003) Everybody in urges union boss. The Australian, 5 May, 2.
6. See Trade Unionism in 2000.
7. Crosby M (2003) Speech to ACTU Organising Conference, 9 May, University of Sydney.
8. Ibid.
9. It was therefore odd that the title of Future Strategies was chosen for the document, inducing
deja vous of the union amalgamation programme promoted by the 1987 document of the same
name.
10. ACTU (1999) unions@work: The challenge for unions in creating a just and fair society, ACTU;
Combet G (2003) Speech on the Launch of Future Strategies, 8 May.
11. ACTU (2003) Future Strategies: Unions Working for a Fairer Australia, ACTU, 9.
12. ACTU (2003) Future Strategies: Unions Working for a Fairer Australia, ACTU, 19.
13. ACTU (2003) Future Strategies: Unions Working for a fairer Australia, ACTU, 10–19;
Robinson P, (2003) Recruit or perish, unions told. The Age, 8 May, 6.
14. ACTU (2003) Future Strategies: Unions Working for a Fairer Australia, ACTU, 22.
15. ACTU 2003, Future Strategies: Unions Working for a Fairer Australia, ACTU, 29–32.
16. ACTU 2003, Future Strategies: Unions Working for a Fairer Australia, ACTU, 35.
17. ACTU 2003, Future Strategies: Unions Working for a Fairer Australia, ACTU, 35.
18. ACTU 2003, Future Strategies: Unions Working for a Fairer Australia, ACTU, 38–9.
19. ACTU 2003, Future Strategies: Unions Working for a Fairer Australia, ACTU, 40.
20. ACTU 2003, Future Strategies: Unions Working for a Fairer Australia, ACTU, 43–5.
21. The joint-union strategy had been to work toward ‘enterprise orders’ in the WA jurisdiction.
This jurisdiction was seen as far preferable to the federal jurisdiction, no least because the WA
Act allows for arbitration of disputes over wages and conditions. Workplace Express, Rio Tinto
Negotiating Pilbara Award but only with the AWU, 26 June; Priest M, Skulley M (2003) ACTU

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calls a win, then slips. Australian Financial Review, 21 August, 7; Priest M (2003), Union war
threat after Rio deal. Australian Financial Review, 5.
22. Organiser associated with Pilbara Campaign, telephone interview, 21 January, 2004; Priest M
(2003) Union war threat after Rio deal. Australian Financial Review, 23 July, 5.
23. Norington B (2003) ACTU vision for a non-union future. Sydney Morning Herald, 18 August,
3; Workforce (2003) Pilbara stoush behind closed doors. Issue 1412, 22 August, 2003, 1–3.
24. For a thorough roundup of the ACTU 2003 Congress see Davis E (2003) The ACTU Congress
of 2003. Labour History, 229–43.
25. Davis E (2003) The ACTU Congress of 2003. Labour History, 236; Workplace Express (2003)
Unions to make written agreements on Organising but too late for the Pilbara, 20 August.
26. Balogh S (2003) Unite to fight Howard’s blitz, feuding Pilbara unions told. The Australian,
21 August, 4.
27. Priest M, Skulley M (2003) ACTU Calls a win, then slips. Australian Financial Review,
21 August, 7.
28. ACTU (2003) Minutes of Congress 2003, Melbourne Convention Centre, 18–21 August, 82–3;
Workplace Express (2003) Unions to make written agreements on organising but too late for the
Pilbara. 20 August; Priest M, Skulley M (2003) ACTU calls a win, then slips. Australian Financial
Review, 21 August, 7.
29. Walton C (2004) ACTU Assistant Secretary, personal interview, 20 January.
30. Organiser associated with Pilbara Campaign (2004) Telephone interview, 21 January.
31. Abbott moved into the health portfolio.
32. See Cooper (2002), Cooper (2001). Things were no different in 2003; See Abbott’s behaviour
in relation to the higher education sector, reviewed in detail below.
33. Crosweller A (2003) Unions welcome Abbott’s departure—Howard’s gambit. The Australian,
30 September, 6.
34. O’Loughlin T (2003) Moral crusader and the militant unions. Australian Financial Review,
3 October, 15.
35. Guerrera O (2003) Vice-chancellors reject ‘intrusive’ federal funding conditions. The Age,
24 September, 7; Dodd T (2003) Unis fume over ‘intrusion. Australian Financial Review, 8.
36. Contractor A, Doherty L (2003) Staff to strike over workplace changes. Sydney Morning Herald,
2.
37. Cooper D, Giglio M, Buckell J (2003) UNSW breaks ranks after VC’s move. The Australian,
23.
38. Martin C, Mellish M (2003) Independents postpone vote on university reform. Australian
Financial Review, 2 December, 7.
39. Contractor A (2003) Dear Independents, let’s make a deal. Sydney Morning Herald, 6 December,
4; Grattan M (2003) Abbot, Nelson vie to top class. Sunday Age, 23 November, 17.
40. Alport C (2003) Government Defeated on University Industrial Relations. NTEU National Office
press release, 5 December. The union remained unhappy with some elements of the package,
including the ability of universities to increase the number of full-fee places and to increase
student fees, despite the changes. The week following the passage of the Bill and after three
days of strike action (6-7 October and 3 December) the NTEU and the University of Sydney
signed an agreement. The agreement which provided significant pay increases and a tripling
of maternity leave entitlements, but not Australian Workplace Agreements, represented for
the NTEU proof that ‘university staff and management can sort out their own industrial
arrangements without Government interference’. The NTEU was awarded the ACTU’s ‘best
workplace campaign’ award for its campaign in 2003.
41. Marles R (2003) IR in the Construction Industry. Speech to Committee for the Economic
Development of Australia (CEDA) Conference, 20 May, Melbourne.
42. Sutton J (2003) Another assault in the war against the worker. Canberra Times, 27 March, 17.
43. Workforce (2003) Workforce analyses the Building and Construction Industry Improvement
Bill, Issue 1416, 2.
44. Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia (2003) Employment, Workplace Relations and
Education References Committee— Reference. Journals of the Senate, 16 October, 2588-9;
Lewis S (2003) Senate delays building reforms. The Australian, 17 October, 4; Workforce (2003)
Wide ranging inquiry for Cole bill. Issue 1420, 17 October, 1 and 6.
45. Lewis S (2003) Unionist attacks latham. The Australian, 11 August, 2; See also Davis M (2004)
Latham faces showdown on free trade. Australian Financial Review, 6 January, 1; Price M (2003)

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ALP left push to life tax. The Australian, 18 November, 1; Peake R (2003) Left vows to take
on Latham. Canberra Times, 19 November, 2; Crabb A (2003) Latham fuels poverty row with
unions. The Age, 23 September, 1; Editorial, (2003), Latham must defeat his own. The Australian,
6 January, 2004.
46. Bowtell C (2003) ACTU Senior Industrial Officer, personal interview, 28 January.
47. Workplace Express (2003) ACTU test case objectives. 23 March. Workplace Express (2003) ACTU
seeks new work and family rights, 24 June; Workplace Express (2002) Peak Council to pursue
family test case, 26 November.
48. Bowtell C (2003) ACTU Senior Industrial Officer, personal interview, 28 January.
49. The agreement allows for a flexible mix of payments including allowing women to instead choose
a return to work package including research grants instead of the 52 weeks of pay. McCulloch
G (2003) NTEU Agreement at Sydney Uni a Slap in the Face for Government Hardliners. NTEU
press release, 10 December.
50. Jones S (2004) Personal correspondence with CPSU, Assistant National Secretary, 16 January.
51. Workplace Express (2003) Stoppage in NSW construction sector, October 26.
52. Workplace Express (2003) Employers face 25 years jail for industrial manslaughter in ACT,
28 November.
53. Workforce (2003) Issue 1399, 23 May, 8.
54. Workforce (2003) Issue 1404, 27 June, 6.