WorkChoices: Workers must fight Rudd's push to the Right

Submitted by Aussietrot on 21 April, 2007 - 1:40

Without reference to the upcoming Labor Party Conference Opposition Leader, Kevin Rudd, publicly announced the industrial relations policy he will bring to the federal elections at the National Press Club on 17 April. This new policy if implemented will continue the direction of John Howards’ year old WorkChoices legislation.

The new Labor policy will continue to:
• massively restrict the right to strike,
• retain restrictions on ‘unfair dismissal’,
• maintain prohibitions on industry wide pattern bargaining

A key passage in Rudd’s speech included the following. It could have been said by any Tory politician.
“Under our laws, employees will not be able to strike during the term of a collective agreement. They will not be able to strike unless there has been genuine good faith bargaining. They will not be able to strike in support of an industry wide agreement. And they will not be able to strike unless it has been approved by a mandatory secret ballot.”

It is hard to believe that the Labor Leader made this speech without consulting key union leaders such as ACTU President, Sharan Burrow, and the political aspirant ACTU Secretary, Greg Combet. In ignoring the ACTU policy and failing to commit to demolishing all of WorkChoices Rudd has trampled on the aspirations of unionists and Labor supporters who believed the ALP would roll back the Howard government’s anti-worker legislation. Burrow and Combet said nothing publicly afterwards to convince union members that they were not aware of this manoeuvre. The same day the ACTU web site contained a report of the speech under the heading “ALP pledges to give all Australian workers protection from unfair dismissal”. The ACTU has issued this press release which uncritically reports Rudd’s announcement.

If Rudd has ignored ACTU policy adopted in October 2006 to roll back WorkChoices it could be argued so has the ACTU! It was no accident that Rudd made his announcement just 10 days before the ALP Conference in Sydney, 27-29 April in order to pre-emp it. The ACTU has uttered barely a whimper of protest. Perhaps some hard words were said in private but what of that? More likely it was just a shrug of the shoulders and ‘whatever it takes to get rid of Howard’.

The question remains how will the labour movement maintain its anti-WorkChoices momentum inside the ALP as well as in the run up to the elections? The only path to roll back Rudd's lack of WorkChoices is to organise and activate the union membership to have an impact at ALP Conference and in their own organisations.

What Rudd hopes to gain from this manoeuvre is no secret. Trying to curry favour with employer organisations and the media bosses is a long tradition with Labor leaders. But organisations such as the Business Council of Australia, helped the Howard government write the WorkChoices legislation. It then comes as no surprise that the bosses and their media mouthpieces say Rudd has not gone far enough. They want the ALP to accept WorkChoices unchanged and eagerly await the return of a Howard government so that WorkChoices Mark 2 is rolled out with even more draconian restrictions on worker organisation.

Howard lite?

Giving away as much ground as Rudd has done can only result in increased demoralization among unionists and other Labor supporters. What is retained of decent pro-worker policy amounts to not a lot. Australian Workplace Agreements will be abolished although it is not clear what will happen to those currently in operation. Penalty rates, overtime and pay for public holidays will be restored. Unfair dismissal rules will be tightened up somewhat.

Maybe unionists should not be surprised by Rudd’s retreat from Labor’s previous “tear up WorkChoices” policy. When last in government the ALP failed to remove sections of the Trade Practices Act which outlaw solidarity industrial action.

Left response

The Socialist Alliance (AKA the Castroist Democratic Socialist Perspective) issued a statement correctly criticizing the Rudd announcement. Their response to Rudd included a call “that all union officials attending the ALP conference should reject Rudd and Gillard’s industrial relations agenda outright as a continuation of the Howard government’s attacks on our rights at work.”
But their call for ALP Conference delegates to oppose Rudd rings a hollow given the DSP’s traditional sectarian attitude to the ‘official’ labour movement which includes the ALP. In fact the DSP favours union disaffiliation from the ALP.

Union response

Some Victorian unionists have begun making a stand against the unilateral Rudd announcement.
“Victorian Trades Hall Council secretary Brian Boyd said parts of the party's industrial wing would still push for "sacrosanct" union principles to be retained in the policy even if there was a strategic decision for it to avoid a fight at the conference.
"I'm arguing that there's still an unfettered right to strike, no limitations on it; we might want to stop work to give consideration to the Iraq war, for instance," he said.” AAP

Metal Workers leader Doug Cameron publicly criticized Rudd’s attack on workers rights to organize and strike but by 20 April he was reported in the media as making a retraction.
"Nobody should lose sight of the fact we have to get rid of Howard's IR laws which have removed the rights of millions of Australians," Mr Cameron said. (quoted in the Melbourne Age newspaper, 21 April)

Victorian based Dean Mighell, Electrical Trades Union Victorian Secretary, was better:
"We will be putting it on the other unions: do not accept anti-union behaviour. The right to strike, secret ballots and abolition of the right to campaign for industry agreements are fundamental," Electrical Trades Union Victorian secretary Dean Mighell told Fairfax.
"We don't want Labor adopting silly IR policies just to be seen to distance themselves from the union movement.
"I think it is anti-union. To abolish industry-wide agreements is crazy." AAP

Union leaders such as Mighell who know which side they are on need our support. Unionists and their supporters should turn up at ALP Conference with placards ready and carry resolutions at union meetings supporting the ACTU industrial relations policy against Rudd’s WorkChoices lite.

Comments

Submitted by Aussietrot on Wed, 25/04/2007 - 04:46

Although the Sydney anti-WorkChoices rally and rock concert on Sunday 22 April attracted a respectable 40,000 including lots of young people the Brisbane and Melbourne events were decidedly lacklustre (1,000 and 4,000 respectively).

Whether this result can be directly linked to a reaction to Rudd's hijacking of ALP policy is unproven. And opinion polls out after the 17 April announcement maintained an ALP lead over the coalition. But if Rudd continues to water down the previous anti-WorkChoices positon it could be only a matter of time before demoralisation sets in among voters who have swung back to Labor.

Most of those union leaderships initially opposed Rudd on this issue appear to now take a position of "lets keep our powder dry" till after the ALP Conference and maybe even till after the election. There appears to be little chance of open union based opposition to Rudd at ALP Conference on 27-29 April. But if Rudd entrenches his now increasingly mealy mouthed opposition to WorkChoices it may become very difficult to shift that public stance later on.

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