In fact, for Australian trade unions it became illegal under the former Howard government’s WorkChoices legislation, which prohibited union bargaining and industrial action on social and environmental issues.
Depressingly, the Rudd Government intends to maintain this prohibition.
In another concession to business, Ms Gillard said Labor would maintain a restriction introduced under Work Choices on the content of union bargaining claims. Bargaining claims would be wider than under the Howard government, including union issues such as training leave, but the issues must relate specifically to the employment relationship. Strikes over social causes such as the environment or management rights would be banned.
Had this regime been in place in the 1970s, Australia’s most famous example of union-environmentalist coalition politics – the Green Bans pioneered by the New South Wales branch of the former Builders Labourers Federation, which saved much of Sydney’s natural and built heritage from destruction by unsustainable urban development – would have been illegal.
At the moment, so too is a less well publicised, but very important, aspect of trade union activity on environmental issues – the negotiating of environmental clauses in enterprise bargaining agreements.
The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union was a pacesetter on this issue in the 1990s, employing Sue Pennicuik (now a Greens MLC in the Victorian Parliament) as its Environment Officer to coordinate this activity. I devoted a chapter of my Ph.D. thesis to the AMWU’s work on the environment.
Last week I wrote to AMWU National Secretary Dave Oliver about this matter. His reply included the following:
The AMWU is extremely concerned about this development. We are currently lobbying and in discussions with the government in which we are utilising examples of environmental clauses to justify our position.
The AMWU is determined to ensure that the Labor government delivers on their promises they took to the electorate which was employees should be free to bargain whatever they see fit, which in our view would include environmental provisions.
More power to the AMWU!
It is distinctly dispiriting to see a Federal Labor government maintaining the Howard government’s prohibition on social unionism, including social unionism aimed at achieving sustainability, whilst continuing to reward the anti-environmental and anti-Labor actions of the Forestry Division of the CFMEU at the 2004 Federal election by maintaining the Howard government’s policy on logging of Tasmania’s native forests.
Damn it! When will the ALP stop being ashamed of being Trade Unionsits!?
Not that we needed any further evidence the ALP is just another right-wing conservative party these days, but honestly, who here is surprised?
Any government interference in bargaining terms of reference that are agreeable to both employers and unions is unethical, totalitarian, and makes extraordinarily bad law. I don’t see how anyone could support it, who is not a fan of dictatorship. Libertarians and small-l liberals should be just as appalled as socialist workers are. We voted out Howard to end all that crap and return to decency. Rudd had better remember that.
Andyc,
I don’t usual respond to other Lp-ers in this way, but you’re spouting utter crap.
As for the rest – did anybody really think, despite Gillard, that Rudd’s ALP were a bunch of radical socialists – or even Greenies? Come on!
Well Libertarians could conceivably argue it was justify on property rights grounds – strikes normally occur on the property of the employer, or at least deliberately block access to it. But I agree, the government really has no reason to ban strikes of any nature that do not impeded access to the property of an employer. Accepted, there may occasionally be strikes so severe that they’re likely to threaten the entire nation’s economy where government intervention is required.
BTW, “strikes normally occur on the property of the employer” is probably not accurate this day and age – I guess I’m thinking of picket lines and the like…
Paul, I don’t think that anyone needed to assume that Rudd and Gillard were raging socialists for them to be expected to keep their promises. It was explicit Labor policy that there should be no restriction on bargaining (with the one exception of union bargaining fees).
Well, the ACTU and the trade union movement spent a lot of money getting the Rudd Government elected.
And, they made the purchase, got the package home, and found out it wasn’t what they paid for.
Who do the unions turn to now?
Yes, the “roll back” of Workchoices has been more like a shuffling sidestep. Disappointing, who do they think they are protecting?
So you think that there should be no protected conditions (eg annual leave, sick leave etc) that employers/employees and unions can negotiate away if they all agree?
I think people who are disappointed that Rudd didn’t go further in winding back some of Howard’s IR reform and are thinking of punishing them by voting….? Not much choice.
It should be remember that Workchoices was only in Phase #1 as Minchin so thoughtfully revealed on tape. Apologising to business groups that it didn’t go far enough – the reason is to not upset the populace too much. He did state as did others in implied terms that there was a ‘lot’ more to come.
You would have to think that the ultimate aim of Howard’s IR would have been to make each worker a separate contractor biding for a job and like a contractor being only paid for their hours. Thus sick leave, holidays and so forth are the concern only of the contractor. And as a single contractor in a sea of thousands, utterly powerless.
We may well be disappointed in Rudd but ought not forget what he just saved us all from.
“So you think that there should be no protected conditions (eg annual leave, sick leave etc) that employers/employees and unions can negotiate away if they all agree?”
I’m in two minds about this. I think there is definitely a category of employee that would benefit from the ability to trade a certain amount of leave for higher pay, and if an entire union agrees to it, then why not? Having said that, I agree that there are externalities: if employers continually pressured more and more employees to give up leave for higher pay, the likely social outcomes would be highly costly.
Interestingly, the contract I currently have with my US-based employer is probably illegal in Australia – and it certainly hasn’t been through any process to confirm its legality.
Geez. Interesting responses…
In random order…
Chris (a different one) @10: “So you think that there should be no protected conditions (eg annual leave, sick leave etc) that employers/employees and unions can negotiate away if they all agree?”
I was thinking about excluded conditions. Personally, I agree that some conditions should be protected, as you say. Hardcore libertarians wouldn’t agree with that, but my main point was that the Workchoices exclusions should have received multipartisan excoriation, and should continue to do so.
Paul Burns @4: That was extreme, Paul. Anyway – what Mark said @7. While I don’t expect Nationalisation Of Everything (except the banks, next week) or free red Young Pioneer scarves for the kids, I do expect the ALP to acknowledge that Howard’s worst excesses are socially unacceptable and are to be corrected. Even if they can’t get relevant changes through the Senate immediately, they could at least espouse the right principles.
Thomas Paine @11: “I think people who are disappointed that Rudd didn’t go further in winding back some of Howard’s IR reform and are thinking of punishing them by voting….?”
Depriving the ALP of first preferences hurts their funding, and helps to get the message across. And might generate Green MP’s. Empowering the ALP Left at the expense of the Howardite-Lite Right is, unfortunately, up to the party membership.
I’m all for the rights of workers but is this what this is really about? If we’re talking about a potentially harmful/ harzadous environment to the workplace, then of course workers should be allowed to strike and bargain for that. I suspect that is not what’s being referred to here. If it’s about workers wanting to get their employers to become more energy efficient and greener, I don’t really see how that is any of the workers’ business. As such, I don’t have a major issue with strike action and bargaining on such issues being disallowed.
You’d have to say this sort of message from the ALP could be turned into increased Greens support, if they play it correctly. True, people that already care significantly about social or environmental outcomes have probably already switched their vote, but the Greens could work with unions to help convince members that the ALP is no longer the “party for workers”.
Yeah with Labor’s attitudes towards people on welfare and keeping a fair chunk of WorkChoices I had already decided I wouldn’t be voting for them again next election.
Michael O’Connor and the CFMEU are a pack of evil bastards with a deal of influence, it is true, but it shouldn’t be overstated – he’s pretty on the nose with Victorian cabinet ministers.
As for the substantive bit of the post – in an ideal world Unions shouldn’t have any say about external environmental matters, though they should have the opportunity to withdraw their members labour from obviously unethical, clearly environmental vandalising activities. Trouble is it’s so hit and miss, issues get picked up at random and aren’t considered in full context. I don’t trust unions to pick the right fights.
“with a deal of influence, it is true, but it shouldn’t be overstated”
Michael O’Connor is on the Labor Party national executive. He is very influential.
wilful what do you mean by “external environmental matters”? If workers for a particular company collectively agree that their employer’s business practices (which the workers must carry out) would cause significant environmental damage, then why on earth shouldn’t they be able to apply collective pressure to change said business practices?
You say you don’t trust unions to pick the right fights, but without the various fights they’ve picked (and won) over the decades do you honestly feel Australia would be better off?
If not, then why not trust them to generally get it right, given their track record?
Actually, replace that “significant” with “significant and/or avoidable”. The workers may agree that the damage isn’t hugely significant but it easily enough avoided that there is no reason not to avoid it (naturally the employer sees “any dollar cost” as a reason not to).
well should unionised diesel mechanics service trawler engines of Australian tuna fishers? Even though it’s the japs that are overfishing? What about orange roughy? What about GM farming? What about nuclear power in a few more years?
Sure unions have saved a few buildings, including the City Baths here in Melbourne I believe, but in a perfect world that shouldn’t be their responsibility, and also there have been plenty of places tragically knocked over by unionised workers.
I wouldn’t have a problem if unions attempted to collective bargain with employers to prevent their use of GM farming, or building of nuclear power plants. I think it’s highly unlikely they’d succeed, and even they did I hardly think it’s going to cost Australia massively. If there are particular cases where it’s clear that union bargaining power is significantly threatening the Australian economy, that can be dealt with when and if it occurs.
We don’t live in a perfect world. Unions now no longer have the power to attempt to save buildings – so who will?
“You say you don’t trust unions to pick the right fights, but without the various fights they’ve picked (and won) over the decades do you honestly feel Australia would be better off?
If not, then why not trust them to generally get it right, given their track record?”
With that question we come to the heart of the issue. We are better off letting governments make decisions to conservative the environment for two reasons:
1) It’s more democratic: ie everyone gets a say through the ballot process.
2) It’s more economically efficient, as well as perhaps more likely to protect the environment. This is because environmental decisions will be made according to rules which apply throughout the nation and the economy. This will avoid absurd outcomes like one company not performing a certain activity because the union won’t let it, and a less unionised company moving in to do it instead. Or the situation where strikes are made against relatively smaller environmental harms, whilst there is no industrial action on activities which cause greater harm. Of the situation where strikes occur over an activity that is somewhat harmful to the environment and very lucrative, whilst projects which cause the same harm to the environment but are less lucrative do not suffer from industrial action.
3) For the reasons stated in (2), its fairer because its more consistent and uniform. ie: the same rules apply to all.
Commentary is sad. The impulse for the post is good, heaven knows, but why the milquetoast kicker? Let us have a minute’s silence for all those poor experience deprived enslaved sods from the recent past to the not so distant future who feel they can’t withdraw their paid labour for multiple necessary and urgent socially responsible reasons simply because the rule-makers say so.
There’s good grounds for apprehension here, but it would be best to wait to see the legislation before being too specific about the complaints. A broad statement in The Australian that “Strikes over social causes such as the environment or management rights would be banned” can translate into many different things once you get to specifics of legislation.
There is a lot of complexity surrounding the interconnection between the Workplace Relations Act and the Trade Practices Act when it comes to secondary boycotts, allowable matters, unproteected strike action and the like. The right to strike has never been absolute in Australia. Straight out strikes outside of bargaining periods in support of other industrial action elsewhere has been illegal for some time – well before Workchoices.
Other forms of actions such as boycotts are often legal. Various efforts to prosecute such boycotts (usually targetted against social activist groups rather than trade unions as they fewer resources) have been unsuccessful (for example the wool industry using tax payers dllars to drag Australian animal rights activists through the courts for years because of their campaign against mulesing). AFAIK, none have ever been fought all the way to the High Court, so there is no defnitive legal ruling on some aspects of this, but such efforts to stop boycotts of this type seem to me to be a misuse of the Trade Practices Act which are unlikely ever to succeed.
Strike action – particularly outside of a bargaining period – solely on the basis an ‘outside’ environmental cause (e.g. building workers go on strike because they are against the pulp mill) will never be legalised. But if we are talking about strikes (and don’t forget there are other forms of industrial, workplace and union action outside of strikes) related to environmental and social issues that directly link to the relevant workplace or industry – particularly during a bragining period when other factors may also be in play – I don’t think it will necessarily be as black and white as the newspaper quote suggests. In particular, the notion of “management rights” is very broad and does not need to relate to environmental or social issues at all.
None of this is to excuse Labor for their retention of many of the Workchoices measures. I am duty bound for the rest of eternity to point out the hypocrisy evident in the mountains of abuse heaped on the Democrats by many Unions and the doctrinaire Left for every IR measure they let through the Senate during the Howard era, compared to the mild whimpers now forthcoming for Labor as they keep many things far more anti-union than anything they complained loudly about through the Howard years (eg unfair dismissals, right of entry, secret ballots, Building & Construction Commission). Not surprising of course, but it still pisses me off.
Leon, sure, but realistically unions AREN’T going to go on strike simply because of some general problem with environmental irresponsibility occurring anywhere in Australia. They are going to go on strike hoping for their employers to change current practices because they are directly involved in implementing those practices. If the strike works and the employers change their practices, and environmental damage is prevented, then governments can determine whether it makes sense to codify said changes to business practices into law (and in some cases, the nature of the environmental damage may be too specific to warrant such legislation). And of course, if the strike does manage to persuade employers to change their practices and this results somehow in even worse environmental damage, then there is a useful lesson to be learned: whatever changes were made are almost certainly a bad idea if enacted at a federal level.
I really don’t see the need to specifically legislate againt “collective bargaining in an attempt to achieve environmental outcomes” until we have mutiple examples of unions attempting such bargaining and bringing about consequences that the rest of us have to pay for.
In fact, I’d be very curious to the see the public reaction to the government sending in police to break up, say, a strike by the foresty union where workers are refusing to chop down a particularly environmentally sensitive forest.
Having successfully campaigned within a few workplaces, on a small scale, for better environmental standards, I can’t see why unions should be prohibited from bringing this to the table in negotiations. I found myself affected on a personal level via complicity in (for one example) throwing vast quantities of cardboard in landfill-destined skips. It made me feel fucking sick to do it, literally.
People who object strongly to the practices they are complicit in should be given the chance to object formally and legally. They can always fail after all.
And anyone is surprised? A neo-liberal Govt? Well Duh!
Dudd is Howard without the populism. Populism meant that Howard threw money at issues, some (not a lot of course) was actually spent on useful things, they even occasionally changed tack.
Dudd, a much better neo-liberal, took care of that nonsense quickly.
On the other thread “Is neo-liberalism dead?”, nope it is not, it lives in Canberra and in the Laboral party. Interestingly, I expect the Liberals will dump it faster than the Laborals.
This is a repeat of Bliar, without the lying charm. God help us because no one else will.
wizofaus,
I don’t think you understand me. I am saying that allowing legislation to decide which projects go ahead is far better than the random lottery of which workplaces have the militant unionists, because at least the legislation is based on principles which are applied consistently.
Andrew,
Unfortunately for the Democrats, there’s often a difference between what a party says in Opposition and what it does in government. For example, apparently Labor never talked about economic rationalisation before it was elected in 1983. And we all remember the “never ever” GST lol.
FDB gets it. The AMWU’s activities during the 1990s and prior to WorkChoices were aimed at identifying workplace improvements in environmental performance by utilising workers’ knowledge of production processes and their ideas about how these could be improved, and setting in place structures (such as workplace environmental committees and environmental clauses in EBAs) to enable this to happen. What FDB also alludes to here is the alienation of labour which occurs when workers are required to sell their labour to produce unsustainable products and/or participate in unsustainable production processes without the right to organise and bargain to remedy the lack of sustainability.
Briefly in response to Leon Bertrand’s comment, achieving sustainability requires both government regulation and legislation which firms and individuals must comply with, and initiatives by non-government actors (such as unions, workforces, communities and company managements) which go Beyond Compliance.
Andrew Bartlett wrote:
Andrew, when are you going to face up to your personal guilt for every position Don Chipp adopted when he was a Liberal MP in the 1960s and 1970s?
Leon, and I’m saying let legislation be informed by the experiences of individual unions successfully (or otherwise) negotiating for changes to business practices for environmental causes.
Sometimes there just aren’t simple “principles that can be applied consistently” to every environmental issue, and even when there are, determining what they are can’t be done from an ivory tower. Having real-life examples of what sort of negotiations have been effective can only be a good thing.
Of course if you believe that the only successful unions will be the most “militant” ones then fine, although I’m curious what evidence you have to back up that claim.
wizofaus,
It seems to me that you have concerns regaring consultation behind environmental decisions made by governments and in public forums. But unions have already a huge platform to air their concerns. Not only does the media give them a run, but they also have lots of money to spend on advertising, as we have seen in the last 3 years. Plus most unions are affiliated with the ALP, so they get access to the ears of politicians a much more than most of us.
The issue is whether unions should be allowed to strike on environmental issues. My view is that they do not need such a right in order to campaign on environmental issues if they wish to do so. Furthermore, workplace practices would usually be able to be made more environmentally friendly anyway, if this could be done at minimal cost, without a right to strike on such issues. Unions don’t always need to stike or be able to strike in order to have influence within workplaces.
As for your final sentence, I’m just alluding to the fact that most unions wouldn’t be inclined to strike on such issues anyway. Things have changed a lot since the 1970′s, even most trade unions.
Fine Leon – but I take the opposite view that governments do not need a right to prevent unions from striking over environmental issues should they wish to do.
And I agree, we’re talking about a relatively rare phenomena here – meaning there’s even less justification for legislation to specifically prevent it.
Are there any stats on whether the legislation has actually had an effect?
And did we clear up whether it applied only to striking, or to any sort of bargaining over environmental causes?
Really, the unions just need to come up with a legal argument that will relate any topic they want to strike about to employment conditions.
If the world heats, then working conditions will heat, so that is an employment condition. After that wack global warming decision in that British court, anything’s possible.
The jurisprudence from the Australian High Court downwards on what is directly related to employment is very narrow, Howard C. Hence the importance of this.
The problem is even unions or collectivised workers of whatever number and formal organisational status are too timid – or more to the point, fearful – to take industrial action around environmental issues that, e.g., impinge either on their own individual health and safety or on others external to their workplace or industry. There are countless examples of both of these occurring encompassing and deriving from arguably the majority of workplaces. If you can’t think of any examples of this you are living in a cocoon or are pathologically delusional – or worse.
Wouldn’t it be grand to see such cases involving technically illegal stopworks or strikes reach the courts, including the highest in the goddam land, with lots of media exposure and critical analysis on the range of issues workers raised.
My fave example of what at the time was technically legal – though no more – under then state OH&S legislation is that of the OH&S workplace delegate calling a halt to factory-wide work because unsupervised and ill-informed contractors were using oxy-fuel welding torches less than an metre from the open door of an ammunition holding store in a government factory situated in a heavily populated residential suburb.
Of course it took industrial action in the first place to get such entitlements on the books.
Give me 20 years to work through the Democrat ones first (19.9 for the GST, 0.1 for the rest) and I’ll move on to Liberal Don’s deeds after that. (mind you, he did a bit of his own mea culpa-ing for some of those decisions in his later years – besides, some his and Janine’s positions in the 80s were way too left-wing for a moderate like me)
By the way, here’s a union (CFMEU, the dreaded Michael O’Connor) campaign that is about the environment, being imported rainforest timbers being sold as tissues in Woolworths Select Brand. Of course, this is really job protectionism for the Union, but it’s still a solid cause.
http://www.wakeupwoolworths.com/
Well see I would agree that the foresty union striking over the fact that Woolies is stocking products that use imported timber is ridiculous – but surely sufficiently ridiculous that no law is needed against such a practice.
OTOH, if Woolies workers wanted to strike over it, because they refused to take part in the “unsustainable” practices of their employer, then sure, they should be able to.
If its so ridiculous should employers be allowed to under those sorts of circumstances find other works who don’t care and fire the ones who are striking?
Sure they should. The point of a strike is to hurt the employer just enough to make it worthwhile for them to agree to a negotiation, not to send them bankrupt. If the employer is forbidden from hiring other workers, then strikes definitely have the potential to have far greater consequences whereby everybody suffers.
But remember that “finding other workers who don’t care” still has a significant cost attached to it from the employer’s POV, and is something they’d generally prefer to avoid.
How many time do I have to say it – it is a neo liberal Govt to the core. It hates unions, it hates workers, it hates wage rises, etc.
It loves the big boys, especially banks and coal (plus Bumby, with their essential help).
Taking one comment from the other things I mentioned in other threads and expanding a bit:
Now Howard was a neo liberal populist. Clever in a rat cunning way. Distract the herd with racist statements (we all known what they were) and crank up immigration to the highest levels ever seen (ie paying off the big boys in keeping wages down = bigger bonuses for them).
Now Dudd, is not a populist, though he is trying hard now .. what is he talking about at the moment? And what’s her name rabbiting on about something and producing workchoices? So he, just after getting into power, boasted about increasing immigration even more than Howard, front page Australian Newspaper in front of the BCA .. and they said they’d open up to unskilled workers as well .. just after the Budget with its prediction of higher unemployment.
Do I have to spell it out for you?
Ok then Dudd thinks moving Telstra jobs to India “a wonderful thing”, “comnpetition”, “will increase GDP”, “make everyone wealthier”, etc.
Well we have all heard that story.