If it weren't for the Union…
February 20th, 2010 by Mercurius | Published in Environment, Industrial Relations, Policy | 77 Comments
I’ve never had much patience for, or interest in, Labour Unions. But recent events have given me pause. So this post is an attempt to triangulate between two hot-running issues of the summer: the late, unlamented roof insulation scheme, and the chaos of serial college collapses in Australia’s vocational and languages education sector.
I’d like to know if we are seeing, in the deaths of insulation installers, and bashed and murdered Indian students, the tangible outcome of freewheeling market-led policies in under- and un-regulated markets. In short: where are the Unions?
The Australian‘s editor today is boringly predictable in their attempts to characterise the roof insulation scheme as a failure of big-government schemes and bureaucrat-led service delivery. But that shoe doesn’t fit: no public servants were harmed in the installation of this roofing material. The whole set-up was a Workchoices wet-dream, with risk and cost systematically managed downwards to the base of the pyramid: Marketing companies won the installation contracts, hired contractors to provide the service, who hired sub-contractors to do the work, who brought in the neighbour’s kids to go up into the crawlspace. So instead of the comically slow, instransigent, late-arriving government servicepersons of 20th century legend, the ALP unleashed a lean, efficient, 21st century employment market that could put young men in harm’s way with unparalleled efficiency and speed.
But even so, four young people didn’t die directly because of a brave new world policy in Canberra. They died because of coalface issues: inadequate supervision, inadequate training, inadequate OH&S. All because a de-unionised workforce of contractors was let loose in a Wild West cash-grab, and the cowboys moved in.
And I perceive in Australia’s export education market a similar force at work: the monthly headline of college collapses are the end-product of under-regulated structures subject to destabilising fluctuations in both student enrolments and teaching staff, who are also under-unionised. The result is students who end up in harm’s way, for reasons that have been more than adequately thrashed out in earlier discussions.
If, instead of the unqualified army of dodgy contractors, we had the Glorious Australian People’s Republic of Batt Installers and English Teachers Corporation, would the service be slow, frustrating, late and bureacratic? Probably. But would four young installers be dead, and dozens more students harrased and beaten, with inadequate pastoral care? Probably not.
Loaded question: Just how much blood is acceptable to grease the gears of capitalism?
Disclosure: The author has previously worked in international colleges in Australia.
Not entirely sure if I can agree with you here. Yes, at the coalface, these operations were underregulated, but the explosion of both insulation installation and vocational colleges was the result of government policy. So there is a story about the interaction between government and deregulated industry and the sudden changing of market dynamics created by a government subsidy and immigration rules, in your two examples.
The answer to your loaded question is, in principle- ‘Not a single drop of blood’
I spent my summer holidays working on process lines,it was noisy,mind-numbing and potentially dangerous,luckily I was able to escape back to university. Most of my fellow employees had no other way of earning a living and without unions their working lives would have been very difficult and dangerous. I suggest that those people who view unions negatively should get real job,particularly with a small business in the service sector, many will change their ideas very quickly. The Coalition line that an individual employee can negotiate freely with an employer is sinister, self-serving propaganda.
The real problem with many unions in the past was the politicisation of the organisation,not the principle of unionism itself. Many highly unionised economies such as Germany have performed very well economically,essentially employers get the unions they deserve.
I never had much time for unions either… until several years ago. A friend of mine had worked for 3 years at a university, was told verbally by her head of school she had tenure and that the paperwork was in transit. Then she had the audacity to fall pregnant and go on materntity leave. Halfway through her leave she was asked to return to the university on a part-time basis, as they were unable to find someone at short notice to fill some classes. She ended up taking a full time teaching load in that part-time basis, and then was told at her next performance review that seeing as she had not met her research targets for that year that her probation was terminated and she was no longer employed by the university. No-one in managemement or in HR wanted to help her – but the union certainly did. She obviously would have had grounds for unfair dismissal after the fact – but having the union to speak up for her brought a speedy end to the whole affair.
It’s also been great having the union help negotiate our enterprise bargaining agreement – management were very quick to give themselves a large salary increase, while telling the rest of us the university was cash-strapped…
Ok, sure unions are a genuine part of the system; they do in most cases help workers in difficult industrial relations tasks and ensure that most get the right pay, conditions and training. No one can really argue otherwise because it doesn’t matter how much we dislike union politics, the argument about not having products we use everyday tainted by the blood of the people who made it, or have it given to us in a dangerous/faulty way is undesirable.
But so are closed shops that lock able workers from entering worksites, unions going onto worksites and making unreasonable demands of employers, rent seeking behavior where every small inconvenience in a worker’s life regardless of relevance to work is paid by employers, employers having to hold onto rubbish staff because union members are protected from dismissal, strikes that take products from consumers profits from business and pay from employees over petty issues, union leaders more interested in public office then defending workplace rights, and of course the serious amount of money that unions pour into political parties and advertising without achieving their goals.
We have chosen an adversarial form of industrial relations that has ultimately not made employers or employees happy, and the outcomes are just as questionable (Another loaded question: Just how much Chinese blood is acceptable to grease the gears of capitalism?).
So while I don’t begrudge the unions for the good/bad points that they add to the process, possibly my argument is that the system needs to be redesigned to help everyone.
PinkyOz.
John Howard had a very good opportunity to get rid of the unions at a time when they were in serious decline. All he had to do was to set up a system that ensured workers would be treated fairly without the need for unions. Then he introduced work choices and then sat back and did nothing when it was obvious that sleazebags were using work choices to screw the workers.
I have spent a lot of time dealing with unions in the iron ore, manganese and coal industries. There were certainly times when they were a pain in the XXXX. However, I always felt they were necessary to provide protection for their members even though their actions at times were against the members interests.
It is interesting to note that the collapse of the unions at Hamersley occurred because their members got sick of the unions and the way they treated their members, not some cunning Rio Tinto plot. The end of the unions meant workers were not locked into narrow, boring jobs and the union preserved class distinction between worker and staff disappeared.
Rio was smart enough to realize that they would only be able to keep union influence to a minimum if workers were better treated than they would have been when the unions held sway. Howard was too dumb to realize this.
It is worth noting that unions were not very effective at protecting workers in situations where withdrawal of labour had a big effect on profits. Most of us would be better off with a system that didn’t depend on unions for workers to be treated fairly.
To draw some arbitrary distinction between workers and unions is simply untrue. Without having members unions do not exist. Their members are workers.
Unfortunately many people cannot appreciate this, partially because some unions are not as democratic as they could be.
And since unions because of workers banding together I don’t know who else will look after their own interests the best.
Worker safety and workplace regulation are exactly what unions do best, so I don’t think saying “more union involvement would help in those areas” is particularly controversial!
Unions are like the police force. You get some good ones and bad ones but most do an essential service in keeping the public safe.
To get rid of either is to invite disaster.
I had my roof insulated in September last year, under the first iteration of the scheme, when the maximum subsidy was $1600. I should also say that I am a long-term renovator and handyman type, and have long experience working alongside tradies. My house is an old Queenslander, with roof spaces it is easy to walk around in. The wiring was all done in the 1980s. There are three roof spaces with a total of some 110 square metres to be covered. Two of the roof spaces have external access from the roof, and one has a small internal manhole in a 3 metre high ceiling. The job was therefore technically easy, but requiring a lot of materials and awkward access.
The process was that I was cold-canvassed by a the salesperson, who arranged for an assessor to come out and develop a quote for the job. This person was a competent young fellow from Dalby or some such place, who had a motor mechanic ticket as well as various OH&S and trades training certificates that he was at pains to show me. He had a good look and took extensive measurements. We agreed that the manhole access might prove difficult and he made notes about it. The quote was for Australian-made ‘eco wool’ fibre batts at $1250, or some $350 less than the available subsidy. For what it’s worth, I’d rough estimated the job at about $1800.
The installation crew arrived less than a week later, consisting of two giant thirtyish Fijians and an Anglo Australian fellow a bit younger. It was a fine calm day on the hot side of mild. Their ute was a brand spanker Ssangyong Musso. Oddly, they asked me to reverse their trailer up to the house – trailer reversing was not it seemed among their skills.
Nonetheless, they commenced to work at the rapid pace that comes from practice, with the Fijian guys doing most of the shifting and laying, and the Anglo doing most of the cutting and fiddly bits. All went well until it came to the manhole access. Their ladders weren’t up to the job, despite the advance warning. And it was doubtful whether the Fijian giants could squeeze through the hole anyway. The issue was resolved by my removing a couple of roofing sheets so they could get in to the space from above. As the crew were cleaning up, I screwed the sheets back on.
The job was done to specs, with the ceilings fully covered. They left no mess and did the whole job in fairly trying conditions in about three and a half hours. They were going on to do another job that day. So, with say half an hour travel time (plus vehicle expenses), my job involved 12 hours’ labour, plus a mountain of materials, plus the quotation and final assessment/signoff visits. I reckon the taxpayer got pretty good value for $1250. s
The job of laying batts is not high skilled, although it does require concentration, attention to detail and working in an unpleasant environment. It has similarities to the job of installing an external tv aerial. It is perfectly legal for homeowners to do the job themselves. The real issue is electrical safety, which isn’t an issue if the wiring has been done properly and is insulated with materials manufactured in the last 40 years. Downlights are a particular hazard, and many low voltage ones have been installed by owner-renovators. In my case he assessor chap asked me appropriate questions about the wiring, after he’d had a good look himself. This is where the primary onus for OH&S lies, it seems to me – if in any doubt the assessor should inform the owner that there may be electrical problems and that the job can’t be done until an electrician gives the all clear on wiring.
On foil insulation, I’m surprised it was allowed at all. Foil is best installed during construction, between the outside skin and the studs/rafters. That way it’s safely out of the way of any electrical connections.
I wonder what the actuarial figures for injuries would be on any large scale nationwide construction/installation activity? How many have occurred in installation of satellite dishes and fibre optic cable? Coronial inquests have yet to determine the specifics of each death. There are still risks no matter how much care is taken and how skilled the workers. The hysteria here reminds me of the statistical nonsense attending annual Christmas and Easter road toll scares – what are the comparative data for a non-holiday period, and are the risks per thousand km travelled any greater?
“I’ve never had much patience for, or interest in, Labour Unions.”
=
‘Larvatus Prodeo is an Australian group blog which discusses politics, sociology, culture, life, religion and science from a left of centre perspective.’
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Hee hee!
I’m with Chav. So much for that “left of centre” perspective. Without unions, we would have ever increasing concentrations of wealth at the top and stagnant or declining wealth amongst the middle and lower income earners, a la the United States. Anyone who doesn’t know about this effect in the US is either ignorant or brainwashed, as far as I’m concerned.
the 8 hour day…remember that one…you can still see the police bullet holes in the wall..well you used to be able to’ i haven’t been into victorian trades hall since the renos
nelson mandela coming to australia first..remember that one….because it was the oz union movement that black banned SA ships before anyone else on the planet even thought of it
the art in working life movement..remember that one….conceptual art no less…long before the art world in australia actually caught on….
occupational health and safety…remember that one….
but hey just so old fashioned and boring..not based on sample polling and very rarely involving hillsong or the salvation army….
I’ve always had a a lot of patience for, and interest in, Labour unions. I’ve been a union member every day of my working life. Good that you have now joined us Mercurius. And a good analysis. I agree with your comment that four people ” died because of coalface issues: inadequate supervision, inadequate training, inadequate OH&S. All because a de-unionised workforce of contractors was let loose in a Wild West cash-grab, and the cowboys moved in.”
But it was this environment the labor Government created and supported, and then funded. It was its failure to take safety seriously – it shares the economic philosophy of the cowboys – that also contributed to the deaths.
Don’t just blame the monkey – blame the organ grinder too.
Chav,#10
Good point,apparently there’s the Working Class Left(pro union) and the Middle Class “Left”.
I’ve always been irritated by those workers who “don’t support unions” but who readily accept the pay and conditions achieved by unions.
John @ 13, don’t forget that these de-unionised times are largely a consequence of the Howard Miracle (although Keating and Hawke deserve some of the blame too). Give credit where it’s due, please.
My son’s high school had less than 600 students when he started Grade 8 in 2004. Due to the deregulation of the public education sector to make schools self-financing, as well as the massive growth in export education incentives, the school began a major campaign to recruit overseas exchange students. Since then, the student population has rapidly grown to over 1000 – with more than 300 being OS students. This has put a huge strain on teachers, equipment, infrastructure and discipline.
I have spoken to a number of teachers at the school who hate the situation, but are afraid to criticise the overseas student program out of a fear of being seen as racist. No doubt the Teachers Federation has the same qualms.
Also, due to the economic downturn, there were over 8000 extra school-leaver applications for university and TAFE places this year in Queensland alone, compared to 2009 when jobs were more plentiful. No doubt it’s a similar story in other states. This has left an unprecedented number of tertiary applicants without offers of a place – and all the uncertainties that brings. (We are not just talking borderline students here, but those who qualified with Year 12 GPAs of at least B+ to A-.)
Yet the National Tertiary Education Union is yet to even notice that this situation has occurred, let alone publicly address it.
If the education unions cannot address the problems created by a deregulated domestic education sector and an overblown export education sector, then who can? I strongly believe in the importance of unions, but they need to be more proactive in dealing with a rapidly changing economic order.
DI@15: The de-unionized times are also partly due to union monopolies and defacto compulsory unionism. Workers didn’t have a choice of the union they were in – it all depended on union agreements. For example, in the Hunter Valley different mines would be allocated to different unions with some mines even being ETU monopolies. In the Pilbara truck drivers at Newman were TWU at Hamersley AWU all because of wheeling and dealing, not a vote of the local workers.
The result was a union movement whose members were often unenthusiastic about what the union was doing. The leadership was used to pushing people around, instead of having to provide a product that encouraged workers to join. Howard would never have been able to achieve what he did without this member dissatisfaction.
As I said, John, Hawke and Keating bear some responsibility. You must remember all the union consolidation which went on in the 80s.
Wrong question. Who gets to decide whose blood is risked, and under what conditions, at what time of the day, for what money?
If your answer is anything except for “the boss”, congratulations, Mercurius, you support trade unionism.
And what Chav said.
Its used because its very very effective at keeping heat out in summer. If I was primarily concerned about keeping cool in summer in a hot humid QLD like environment and had to choose between foil and batts I’d go for foil. In fact too much batt insulation can make matters worse in summer as it makes it harder for the heat to get out at night. Sarking is better/safer but its simply too hard to retrofit to houses – some very enthusiastic people spend a lot of time stapling sarking to the underside of their roof, but it is incredibly labor intensive.
I bet there are quite a few people who have insulated their own homes who didn’t know that you have to make sure there is sufficient space around downlights with no insulation. I was talking to one guy on the weekend who had done is daughter’s place years ago and just covered everything with batts. He only found out its a fire risk with the recent media coverage.
I’m for unions in their safety, wages and conditions role as long as the ‘customers’ are their members, the workers. The NSW OH&S legislation is good to work with and well resources by WorkCover.I hope the harmonisation happening through COAG doesn’t stuff this up.
I’m for the good ideas behind the insulation scheme.
One other element of the insulation schmozzle has been the imperative to get the dosh out asap. This has been an element in a number of ‘stimulus’ initiatives: School buildings, community housing etc. My experience is that this always leads to cutting corners as the big ideas behind an initiative become secondary to other political and bureaucratic imperatives. I expect that the middle managers in the bureaucracy were focusing on the numbers. The pollies and senior bureaucrats were focusing on the … well … you know. These programs should be rolled out in a staged way and properly managed by the bureaucrats so that unintended consequences are discovered and rectified, including proper certification and supervision of contractors.
I’ll be interested to see what happens to the contractors whose workers died or were injured.Industrial manslaughter anyone?
What Chav said, and a question arising:
What Unions are the LP collective members in? I recall Paul has previously identified as a member of the NTEU. What about the rest of you?
d
I’m a member of the NTEU and have always had all the time in the world for unions! :)
Oh yes, ha ha, Chav, the obligatory meta-stoush derail attempt that infects every other thread around here these days. Why talk about the ishoos when there’s so much fascinating navel lint to pick at? Yawn.
‘Most of us would be better off with a system that didn’t depend on unions for workers to be treated fairly.’
Such a system would have to be a legislated system – and how do you think such a system will come about unless workers push for it collectively?
Unions have advocated protective laws for over a century now. That’s why we have laws on OHS and unfair dismissals at all. The issue is that governments can change laws. What stops them from changing those laws, and makes them implement better ones – is political pressure from organised workers. If Union membership in Australia was still around 50%, as opposed to around 20%, do you think Howard would have introduced the same laws as he actually did?
Joined up government, folks.
Due to government policy, the number of insulation installers in Australia has gone from 250 to 7000. To some extent this was foreseeable. If you were running a Labor Government, you’d have the relevant union involved from an early stage (is it the CFMEU? I think it is, and as nobody is going to correct me by the time I finish this post, let’s assume it is).
The organiser from the CFMEU would have been available to talk to trainees at their five-hour sessions. The organiser would have been able to look up “insulation installers” in the Yellow Pages and go and have a friendly chat. This is assuming, of course, that CFMEU organisers aren’t busy having coffee with people who can get them preselection.
I notice that the CFMEU (and if it’s not them, whatever the relevant union is) has been very, very quiet on this whole issue. Nary a peep from Aunty Sharan.
Next time we have a big rollout like this, let’s see Your Rights At Work actually at work, rather than just another slogan.
Does anyone know how I can track down the validity of the “86 housefires”claim that keeps cropping up in relation to the insulation fiasco?? Has an official statement been made by any authority that outlines the details directly linking the fires to dodgy insulation? Just curious as so many figures are being bandied about that it is hard to get a grip on the facts of the matter.
Daisey @ 27 – maybe contact the state fire services? NSW fire service might be a good start as they raised the issue late last year after a significant increase in ceiling/roof fires. One of the interesting reported factoids was that the percentage increase in ceiling fires differs quite a lot between states. I wonder if that is due to different levels of regulation enforcement in the various states.
The grieving sister in Gosford, near Sydney, of a bloke who died in Townsville, Queensland is getting a lot of media time as a defacto industry spokesperson. Grieving sister blames the federal government, hmmm what about state building regulations and OH&S laws that were clearly broken.
Does a large employer want to negotiate individually with each of its 1000+ workforce or does it prefer to pay people by pay categories laid out in an award? How big an HR department do you want to run?
Do small employers want to haggle over employee wages or do they want to work within clearly defined rules. Tradesman tell me that newly arrived immigrants from Asia want to haggle over everything, even agreed price after the work is complete, but that wasn’t the Australian way.
Personally I will not teach without a union ticket because if I tell feral Johnnie to stop doing something, and he persists and someone gets hurt, only the union might stand between me and being personally sued.
Indian students united to complain about high failure rates in Masters studies undertaken at the Melbourne campus of Central Queensland University est 1997.
Indians have united to complain about violence toward taxi drivers in Melbourne.
Indian students have united to complain about violent attacks on Indian students.
Sounds like effective union activity to me!
‘I notice that the CFMEU (and if it’s not them, whatever the relevant union is) has been very, very quiet on this whole issue. Nary a peep from Aunty Sharan.’
That is not true:
http://www.cfmeu.asn.au/news/cfmeu-raised-concerns-about-govt’s-home-insulation-scheme
http://www.actu.org.au/Media/Mediareleases/DeathsofyoungworkersshowHomeInsulationProgramneedsmuchtightersafetyandtraining.aspx
I have come to the conclusion that the entire nation is far better off under conservative government including the workers. For many years I mostly voted Labor but for the last decade I have been a constant conservative voter as I believe that it is impossible for a nation in heavy debt to possibly look after the worker. A nation in debt is a slave to international powers so how could the Labor Party possibly claim to be ‘for the worker’ when they are infact eroding the value of the worker through heavy debt burdens. I am also sick and tired of union bosses being so chummy with their ALP counterparts that they have abandoned the workers. Many of the unions have now stopped fighting against Bligh’s privitisation plans and have proven that they aren’t there to represent workers but are there to funnel votes to the ALP and keep themselves in the top heirarchy with their government mates. When the workers find out how much they have been conned over the decades, they will unleash their wrath on the ALP and the unions in the most unscrupulous way. The Truth will set them free. It has only been conservative governments which have kept debt low and spent wisely. The Labor Party should hold their heads in shame at the state of our nation. Low debt equals lower cost of living and mostly better conditions for workers. For too long the workers have been conned by their union bosses and their ALP spin machine.
Bob I have one word for you which gives the lie to your belief in conservative concern for workers. Workchoices!
Bob, Victoria has kept debt low by outsourcing everything. No one on the payroll but they pay 3 times as much in consultant fees and the work is done in France, Poland, India and the unemployment lines are filled with former train builders, professional engineers who built roads, tramways and rail lines, as well as programmers that wrote and maintained [working] ticket systems
Mercurius, it’s quite a startling admission for someone from the broad left or centre-left to make and Chav is surely entitled to point this out.
I pay me dues to a union that ceased to represent me, possibly two positions ago and I’ve been at the current one for nearly 4 years…. but I continue shell out and always have, just like I do for other worthy causes that I believe in, although I’ve rarely ever required any services personally, maybe a phone call over many decades and unlikely now to etc. (I probably should work out which union I should be in and move over (it’s on the to-do-list, the extra long version).
To the issue at hand, I put up on the other thread that I heard a bloke from the CFMEU on the radio last week who was on the taskforce re: the insulation roll-out. He did say that they put forward the issues they were worried about including re: foil insulation, but the foil industry reps put up their views re: top safety record for decades etc – I think he said “the Govt chose to take the view of industry” etc.
So much for the entire Coalition campaign of 2007 – ie. union bosses running the country.
Dave Noonan from the CFMEU was on the 7.30 report and other news outlets all of last week – from the 7.30 report:
The Union is of course also linking these outcomes to the Building and Construction Industry laws and rights of unions to inspect workplaces & organise generally.
Most small & home building worksite I would assume are mostly, if not nearly all non-unionised worksites, so union involvement was only key at the taskforce level. Considering the rate of workers who die every year on construction sites at an average of one a week, I suspect the Union more than anyone else isn’t shocked that poorly trained people have died on site.
There also seems to be a bun-fight between industry groups over the claims about the different sort of batts installed:
Although there is the other view:
Another on the CFMEU’s reaction from: 12/2/10
http://abc.gov.au/news/stories/2010/02/12/2817921.htm?site=news
awaiting moderation.
I have the usual mixed feelings toward unions of your cardboard cut-out classical liberal.
I’m OK with workers forming organisations for bargaining purposes, to help with safety and so forth.
I’m less OK with said groups achieving their goals through the coercion of others via the state; but to some extent them’s the breaks. So long as violence is kept to a minimum and people are left to do as they please, I don’t much mind unions. I don’t even mind them negotiating closed shops at this firm or that, just so long as that business is allowed to fail in due course.
In this case the question of unionisation seems neither here nor there. It’s more like the classic case of the management not listening to the technicians. The advice — from the ETU, who surprisingly enough understand electrical matters — was that foil insulation would inevitably lead to dangerous situations.
But what would they know? Stupid sparkies. We really wish that this bad news didn’t exist, therefore, it doesn’t. High fives and stimulus spending all round.
Never had a job without union membership and I’ve been an active rank and filer as well as a delegate. More than twenty years ago there was an outrageous issue in an industry where I went on to work for the full two decades. What started out as an issue over prejudicial local employer interpretation of new award provisions turned into rolling state wide stoppages in a major public sector inductry with lightning walkouts. The whole bag including, in the end, replacing the worn out shiny arse union leadership who had signed us out on a real bad deal. I was blackbanned in my local area and had to move cities to find work. But we won, we won well and the union now is one of the few that continues high levels of membership. We organised using immaculate transparency in democratic decision making and achieved total solidaity as a result.
Old fashioned stuff.
Some unions are good and somne are shit. It depends on the competence of the leadership, their commitment to inner democracy and their willingness to take the members with them. The fact of what that Owens, Mundey and Pringle managed to do with the NSW BL’s testifies to the significance of good leadership because at the time the BL’s would have been one of the least educated segments of the workforce in Australia. And, of course, we can see the example of Coombs and the MUA.
Hawke and Keating eroded the social conditions of strong unionism by failing to deliver on the social wage component of the ALP/ACTU accords. Unions gave away their capacity to defend immediately recognizable local issues for the general promise of the social wage. Capital never paid up. Members dropped off because they quite legitimately believed that they were wasting their money.
There is a tendency in many unions towards an idiot type of “prolier than though” masculanism. I once heard Bea Campbell (English feminist/anarchist) deliver a superb talk on Thatcherism in which see warned Australians about what we could expect from Howard’s neo-liberalism. Bea said that Thatcher was “surgical” in her attack on the unions and that it was targetted at the lack of inner democracy. She claimed that the failure of the NUM strikes and the crushing of the NUM (the background to the film Billy Elliot if you don’t know the history)was because the decision to stike was taken at senior council level of the NUM and never actually put to member plebiscite. Lack of inner democracy.
In response, a male unionist who is now a member of federal parliament, spoke through his arse about how no English woman (no kidding) could inform the perfection of Australian union history and practice. A total load of offensive shite. In reply Bea called his attitude “butch and baronial” which was deadly accurate. Howard went on the front foot and did a heap of damage to Australian unions and they were barely able to mount an effective defence. Still here, but struggling. One of the reasons for the collapse of union membership is that leadership is often provided by testosterone soaked deadshittism.
Mercurius: welcome comrade. Time to put that sharp intelligence and facility with words to work in the long struggle.
Bob, I hear you my friend. I am a nurse in aged care and because of Labor’s new fair work laws I am almost $300.00 a week worse off and so are around 15,000 other aged care workers in QLD and NSW. Even Workchoices didn’t treat us this bad. Minister Elliot even spent $144,000 on an analysis through Access Economics on the new model. This Labor government have taken Workchoices to a whole new level. They don’t care about the worker and I agree with you Bob that they simply use unions to syphon votes to the Labor Party. As for the debt situation you talk about, I can’t believe that with all the money they have thrown around, it still takes me well over an hour to get to work and there isn’t a train line for miles. At least Australians knew where they stood with John Howard but with Rudd one is left anxiously waiting to see what pops out of the hat next. He’s like a magician but with no magic.
@32 and @ 39 – Looks like we’re in for a long election year of sockpuppetry!
Hint to Young Liberal propaganda-bots: writing in exactly the same style under different names detracts from the slight suspicion that Tory talking points are genuine comments…
spot on comrade nolan @ 38, thanx.
I too am amused to read that first sentence on an Australian left-wing blog. I thought the general “I didn’t have much time for unions ’till my boss screwed me” statement was reserved for politically naive 20 year olds. I suppose you learn something new every day…
MH @ 1 what is your point exactly? That left to its own devices and absent intervention by the dreaded government, Teh Market is free of mad fluctuations in demand for goods and services?
Of course monopoly capitalism leaves a lot of casualties in its wake. That’s the whole basis of innovation and growth. Market purists will admit it if they are candid, and spout a lot of bullshit about workers in a free labour market not being prepared to take on dangerous jobs if they are stupid or dishonest, but the bottom line is that capitalism requires a lot of losers and capitalists losing their capital are going to cut costs wherever they can.
See also: Qantas, why I don’t fly it any more.
Nary a peep from Aunty Sharan.
Is it the usual thing for people to refer to the head of the ACTU as “Aunty” or “Uncle”? Or is it just when they’re a woman? Just wondering.
Brian: thanks for the headsup re.sockpuppets @ 32+39. Someone’s hand needs sterilising now.
Mark! Dammit. Families confuse me.
Yeah, because LP is where elections are won and lost.
Yeah, it’s not the most productive use of their time, I’d have thought, Jacques!
Tim@31: anyone can pile on after the event, the challenge was for them to have been part of shaping this policy in the first place – a challenge they failed.
Jacques@37: your “I’m OK/I’m less OK” dichotomy does not address the situation with modern unions, where those who are now members are not the founders of those unions, and that those who occupy positions within a union are not necessarily representative of members. A trade union today is a pre-existing entity in the same way that a government department or a corporation is.
Helen@44: stuff whether or not it’s usual, but this sort of thing is usual as it happens. I have long referred to the head of News Ltd as “Uncle Rupert”, others referred to the immediate past Prime Minister as “Little Johnny”, these are accepted means of familiarising remote figures of power.
Anyway the correct fraternal term for a fellow unionist is “Sister Sharan”, Andrew.
I would have thought “Comrade” was more appropriate, Liam …
“Sister Sharan” sounds a bit nunny. But if you were going down that track she would be “Mother Sharan”. Her being the boss and all that.
Andrew@49 – if you had followed the links I provided you would have seen from the ACTU:
‘The ACTU called for a halt to the program in November 2009 after three tragic deaths but withdrew our call following assurances that new procedures would protect workers.’
And from the CFMEU:
‘The union has long held concerns about safety standards among unregulated sections of the building and construction industry. These are concerns that we have consistently raised,” Mr Noonan said.
‘Better unionised sections of the construction industry do have better safety records but more needs to be done to minimize risk to workers, especially younger workers.’
Now you may argue that the ACTU should not have accepted the assurances about new procedures, however unions do not actually have some kind of god-like omnipresence in their industries. They can only really know about areas where (a) they have members, or (b) they are legally entitled to enter the workplace. However the whole legislative thrust of ‘right of entry’ laws over the last decade or so has been to restrict the right of Union Organisers to enter workplaces. During the debate over the Fair Work Act the political pressure from employers was for the WorkChoices right of entry restrictions to stay in place. Even now one of the major complaints from employer groups about Occupational Health and Safety laws is that they give too much leeway for unions to enter the workplace.
So if you think ‘unions’ ought to have acted ‘earlier’ then you should be calling for more generous right of entry and workplace inspection laws for Union Organisers.
“Anyway the correct fraternal term for a fellow unionist is “Sister Sharan”, Andrew.”
Packing in the gender specificity there Liam! What’s the non-gender-specific term for ‘Fraternal’ and ‘Fellow’? How about ‘comradely’ and ‘another’?
d
Hang around enough unionists, Darryl and David, especially old ones, and you’ll get to hear “brother” and “sister” used with affection and without ironic gender-specificity.
Oh I have and I do, Liam. And they do indeed use gender-specific terms without irony and with affection. (So does Tony Abbot, but let’s not go there.) A couple of Labour Days ago the CFMEU, or the BLF had kids shirts saying “My Dad’s a member of the BLF”. I joked that if we’d done the shirts they would have read “my primary care giver is a member of the ASU (Clerical and Administrative) – Southern Qld”.
I am somewhat surprised you made it through a Student Union without having ‘that sort of thing’ beaten out of you. :^)
d
I’m trying to remembere whether Colquhoun actually moved a motion supporting the (spurious) etymology of ‘chairman’, or whether it was just a point raised in the heat of debate.
(Yes, sometimes I do worry about what I remember.)
Daryl, it’s actually not offensively gender specific to call a woman colleage “sister” or man colleague “brother”. As long as you’re respecting identity, what’s the problem?
OBJECTIVELY PRO-TERRORIST!*
*See the other thread.
‘Daryl, it’s actually not offensively gender specific to call a woman colleage “sister” or man colleague “brother”. As long as you’re respecting identity, what’s the problem?’
No problem with the gender-specificity of brother and sister and I didn’t mean suggest that. (Although ‘sister’ has a whole other set of minefields to navigate.)
The gender-specific words I thought you could avoid were “fraternal” and “fellow”.
d
I’m alittle short on time but there are some things I need to say. There are 2 distinct but related issues here and both of them are of my pet hobbyhorses
1 Unionism – particularly in relationship to Government-
One of the phrases that often gets my goat tries to denigrate the ALP by refering to it as being “controlled by the unions”. that is technically incorrect. The ALP is part of the Union Movement. Or at least was. There has been the tendancy for the ALP to go its own way over the last couple of decades ignoring the concerns of the Unions. Of course the political aspirations of many Union Leaders have made this drift possible.
2 Training – Knowing “what to do” is not nearly as good as knowing “what you are doing” The first is the theoretical facts, the second incorporates experience which cannot be taught but can only be learned. These were the things that used to be learned “on the job” under the old apprenticeship concept. Where an insulation installer would gain this experience working on many different construction sites in conjunction with electricians, plumbers, carpenters, tilers …..
The modern concept of “Competency Based Training” not infrequently consiss of a facilitator reading a prepared course with a multiple choice examination at the end of it. If you pass the exam then you are competent, never mind that the facilitator had no experience in the subject.
@35, @42 and earlier.
geez, sorry guys, I guess I missed the ‘No Ticket No Blog’ sign on the entrance to the LP worksite.
Haven’t had stable employment for the last 5 years to do anything about joining, and the previous 15 years were in an industry devoid of unions. Sorry comrades.
That’s what Australia needs. A Bloggers’ Union.
Fine, I nominate this outstanding communicator as our mascot.
well mercurius, the whole argument seems a bit … 80s. You don’t have “patience” for the unions, and your post contrasts a mythical highly inefficient unionised workforce with an efficient but dangerous non-unionised one, which is a bit of a stereotypical right-wing style. Is it that you genuinely believe in the ideal of the heartless efficiency of unfettered capitalism, or you just bought the right-wing anti-union propaganda hook, line and sinker?
I suppose there are other left-wing workplaces that are non-unionized. I just hope you are confident in your ability to bargain effectively for pay and conditions from the LP bosses…
Liam, he’s adorable!
Ooh, I like him Liam. He’d keep us in line.
“geez, sorry guys, I guess I missed the ‘No Ticket No Blog’ sign on the entrance to the LP worksite.
Haven’t had stable employment for the last 5 years to do anything about joining, and the previous 15 years were in an industry devoid of unions. Sorry comrades.”
Mercurius, I emphasize with people faced with the prospect of being the only Union member on the floor, but what I find weird is not that you have worked in non-Unionised , but that you “never had much patience for, or interest in, Labour Unions.” That’s the ‘lede’ in your post and there’s an obvious cognitive dissonance between your apparent attitude and the description of LP as “left of centre” which Chav noted earlier.
Being a some-what old fashioned type, I struggle to reconcile how one can simultaneously be ‘left of centre’ and ‘impatient with, and uninterested in Unions’.
d
Tony Abbott was Minister for Health in 2005 when 1,790 people died at work for the year and 39,510 people were fully incapacitated on his watch. He now has the gall to use the recent tragedies of 4 deaths at work for his political purposes.
This man has no shame.
If we suffered 34 killed in Afghanistan and 780 fully incapacitated each week, it would be a national tragedy.
The dollar cost to Australia of 2005 workplace losses was $Billion 57.5.
Abbott is a dissembler.
John Ward
Gordon
Tasmania
7510
62921211
Mercurius: have I got a job for you! Time to revive the OBU:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Big_Union_%28concept%29#Australia.27s_One_Big_Union
Sign me up bro.
Well, with respect, that’s your problem, not mine.
Anyway, as I thought I made clear in the post, I’m surprised that the media fury about the insulation scheme has focused on every question except the one question that might have made a difference – would Union involvement have saved the scheme, saved lives, and saved the ALP from getting egg all over their collective faces? The fact that this question isn’t even raised tells you where the Overton Window has moved on issues like this.
and presumably the overton window was moved by those who have little time or patience for unions.
Jeepers! You’re snarky and defensive about this. Sure, my opinions are my problems, just as yours are your problem. Good luck with them, I hope they’re working out for you.
d
Mercurius, I don’t understand why you’re snarky about this issue either. I’m sure you have your reasons. But, the top of your post did sound very strange. You didn’t write that you haven’t been in a situation where you could or needed to join a union, but that you didn’t have much time or patience for them, which is completely different.
It’s understandable that some people around here are scratching their heads.
would Union involvement have saved the scheme, saved lives
merc…well yes, of course it would have, sorry but that seems so obvious, having had extended patience for, and interest in, Labour Unions.
our patience has been tested time and time again…but we have remained members, interested and involved…and our interest has revealed the window on its inexorable shift away from a critical labour movement towards a neo conservative christian social democracy…while accepting that deaths are not the bald christian pseudo punk-rock stars fault…and accepting the circumstances that have allowed the scheme to fail are complex…most of that complexity could have to do with kicking the union rep out of the room, or not listening to her for fear of being accused of being “held to ransom”, or plain and simply attacking her as old fashioned and not in tune with the “new” labour….imho.
Sounds about right to me, Eric.
For @71-73, when the primary share of ALP vote is now routinely double the percentage of unionised members of the workforce, and it has been that way for about 25 years now, it really shouldn’t surprise you that there is significant electoral support for Labor, Green and left-leaning parties (and blogs!) that is entirely unaffiliated with Unions. I’m puzzled that you’re so puzzled! :D
I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that no one here is surprised that the ALP gets support from voters who are not left-of-centre.
d
As an old mate of mine once said to me: “you know your in the working class when, like every other bastard, you start thinking ‘how the eff do I get out of this?’”. In other words there is a significant difference between class as a sociological concept and the embodied experience of being a member of the working class. Union membership teaches class consciousness by locating the specificity of individual experience within a comprehensive framework of political understanding. It is no surprise that as union membership has declined the dialogue within the ALP has increased around the need to recreate the party along broader social (emphasis) democratic lines. Equally, therefore, it is no surprise that the party cocked up the supervision of the insulation roll out and four more workers are subsequently dead. I don’t know a single labourer or tradie who doesn’t have a hatfull of stories about the armies of deadshit cowboy fly-by-nighters who infest the economy these days like flies round a fresh turd on a summer day. Only the staffers in Garrett’s office apparently had no idea.