The thrust of this allegation is that Julia Gillard produced a very business friendly draft of the Fair Work Act, and Greg Combet and Kevin Rudd intervened to make it more favourable to unions.

Gottliebsen, of course, is over the moon that Gillard didn’t want the “former ACTU boss” to have his way. If it’s true, Labor supporters will be less so.

I wonder if there’s going to be a drum beat of this stuff every day. The end result is not just to destabilise the Labor campaign’s progress and allow the opposition to talk up a narrative of “government instability”, but also to instill doubts about Gillard’s beliefs among a raft of different segments of the electorate.

It’s diabolically clever.

I’m starting to wonder if a certain departing Cabinet Minister, who’s refused to repudiate his earlier characterisation of the PM as a “conservative careerist”, has a hand in all this, particularly given Wayne Swan’s comments that the leaks weren’t coming from where people might expect.

Tony Abbott won’t have been helped by signing a ‘contract’ not to reintroduce WorkChoices during an interrogation by Neil Mitchell. Not only is it a reminder of Mark Latham, but it’s also playing right into the trap he set for himself – only commitments he gives in writing can be trusted. Then there’s the fact that he’s talking about a toxic policy he’d tried to neutralise. Oh, and the ghost of Peter Costello mocking Julia Gillard’s accent is hardly a good look.

Spare a thought for Abbott. He was one of only a small number of Ministers to oppose WorkChoices in the Howard Cabinet. Whether that’s his Santamarian heritage, or whether he actually has a political antenna is moot. Nor would a Senate with The Greens in the balance of power contemplate a package of WorkChoices nasties. And the government does have to take a position on cases before Fair Work Australia, the legislation does require ministerial determinations and instructions, and it’s the second most heavily amended act after the Taxation Act. But Eric Abetz, the wrong person for the job if ever there was one, was very unwise to be talking about ‘tweaking’.

There’s something else going on here. Abbott has annoyed business by raising taxes to pay for his parental leave thoughtbubble, and non-mining business (most of it) by opposing a tax cut along with the RSPT and MRRT. The WorkChoices pledge will also gnaw at the Liberal base. Abbott’s strategy was to consolidate that first, then move to the centre. Whether a Liberal party led by him, and obsessed with its defeat on this issue by the ACTU, can ever do that is another question entirely.

Normally seen by many in the Labor Party as too close to sections of the business community, Howes has received significant criticism from sections of that same business community for the advertising campaign and what they now see as the likelihood that he will be a leading figure arguing the case for the government’s tax between now and the next election.

Gosh. Imagine that. A union leader defending a Labor government.

I’m not sure what sort of dark insinuations are contained in this passage – the AWU might encounter trouble dealing with bosses? Howes’ path to parliament might be one strewn with pitfalls? Of course, it’s perfectly ok for the self same “sections of [the] business community” to run their own prominent advertising in the paper Van Onselen works for, presumably because they are not acting out of class interest but in the national interest, which, as he probably believes, is identical to the industry’s interest. That’s certainly what the mining industry would have us believe.

The whole article is premised on a very tenuous distinction between “reform” (good) and “class warfare” (bad). Bill Kelty might be surprised to learn that he’d never uttered dire threats of the consequences of de-unionisation in the mining industry, or that the Accord tradeoff of tax cuts and a social wage for wage restraint had no class dimension. Or, for that matter, that his push to reshape the union movement on industry rather than craft and occupational lines was designed, among other things, to make it a more effective vehicle for a class politics.

But, leaving aside the details of Van Onselen’s grasp of labour and political history, and indeed Kelty’s merits or otherwise as a leader of the labour movement, what I’m interested in is how the trope of “class warfare” can be invoked to delegitimise an argument. Note that it’s not an argument in itself – and it’s an absurdity if it is, as both his reasoning and the basic fact that any distributive action by the state necessarily shifts wealth from one class to another as well as impacting on individuals in the aggregate demonstrate. Maybe Van Onselen believes that progressive taxation is “class warfare”. I don’t know.

The invocation of “class warfare”, and it is that, not an argument, seeks to circumscribe the limits of what is sayable in political debate.

When did it become such a shibboleth, and would any of those who invoke it as if it’s a heresy care to explain why?

Update: Guy Beres.

In the wake of the privatisation imbroglio perpetrated by the Bligh government, expectations were that solidarity between Labor and labour wouldn’t be at the forefront of the Brisbane May Day March. Anna Bligh, and I believe Treasurer Andrew Fraser, disappeared to North America, first purporting to show an interest in bionics, and then holding a ‘virtual Cabinet’ with the provincial government of British Columbia.

What these ventures have to do with anything is anyone’s guess. Commenters on the Brisbane Times‘ story correctly pointed out that Peter Beattie is already paid 250k a year to represent Queensland’s trade interests in North America, and that a ‘virtual’ meeting could surely be virtual for the Canadians, and in Brisbane for the Premier.

To his credit, Deputy Premier Paul Lucas fronted the march, but was met with the jeers which the State Labor crew richly deserve. Kevin Rudd kept his distance, preferring to march with the LHMU, a union well back in the parade, and concentrating on the Resources Super Tax in his address, an initiative I warmly welcome.

In a nutshell, the impasse of Labor politics, and the scissions the Labour movement has fallen prone to, is encapsulated in the events of this day.

It’s a longer story, but I’ve previously argued that (late) modern Labor’s political Janus face results from at least two factors: the corporatised economism of state politics, where slogans about jobs mask a wholesale surrender to business interests; and the weakening of the links between workers, unions and the professional political class.

John Quiggin has provided us with some reflections on Labour Day:

Among his thoughts, he argues:

The old-style politics of class (with the working class represented by male manual workers, gathered in large, naturally solidaristic workplaces) is no longer relevant to the great majority of Australian workers. That doesn’t mean that class has ceased to matter, but it does mean that workers experience class and power relationships more in terms of individual experience than as collective interactions between classes. So, in particular, unions need to be seen more as mutual aid associations that protect their individual members against exploitation and unfair treatment than as vehicles for the mobilisation of the working class. The kinds of legal changes sought to reverse the generally anti-union trend of past decades needs to reflect this orientation.

I think this underplays the degree to which the union movement, particularly as represented by the ACTU, has long practiced a broader class politics transcending trade and occupational union particularism. While I also think that class politics has to move beyond a masculinised workerism, and to take account of the changed social and cultural conditions of twenty first century Australia, I’m not sure things are so simple as John suggests, though he’s surely right that the casualisation of work and a host of other social and economic changes have individualised work relationships.

But I don’t think unions need to return to being essentially mutual benefit societies. They do have a role in building solidarity where there is none, though this role may have to include creating the conditions for more solidaristic workplace relations, through rethinking how unions can intervene in shaping the labour market itself.

I think there’s a great need to develop an approach which does respond to the fracturing of class, the refashioning of the workplace, and the naturalisation of expectations around insecure work. It’s something I’d like to do more work on, and will be writing further about, but it’s also something I think is well worth a preliminary discussion on a very fractured Brisbane Labour Day.

NB: My previous May Day post is here.

Abbott’s been addressing some business functions of late, no doubt because he has to build some bridges and mend some fences on economic issues, and raise some campaign dosh. It’s had nowhere near as prominent a part in reporting as his remarks on virginity and ironing, but I did notice that he’d been preaching the virtues of “flexibility” in industrial relations. No detail, but it’s not hard to deconstruct the message he’s sending.

Update: Via Andrew Reynolds in comments, a link to the poll.

Update: Abbott wants to scrap penalty rates and bring back statutory individual employment agreements.

However, Gillard and Kevin Rudd might themselves bear some of the responsibility for this decision, which will – rightly – be a political problem for the Labor government. The Commission was heavily criticised by Labor in opposition, and next year it’s due to be abolished, its functions rolled into the AIRC’s replacement – Fair Work Australia. If the criticisms made of the process and of the narrow economic orthodoxy of its chair, Professor Ian Harper, have merit, it surely should have been open to the ALP to hand back the wage setting powers to the AIRC earlier. The ‘softly, softly’ approach to IR reform is full of contradictions, one of which will unfortunately now impact on those least able to afford to shrug their shoulders at the political game. It isn’t a good look for a Labor government.

Elsewhere: Via Andos in comments on another thread, a link to a useful interview on ABC Radio with ACOSS. The point is made that research from the OECD (and from other sources, I might add) debunks the notion that there is a strong correlation between small rises in minimum wages and unemployment.

Update: Matt C notes in comments that the FPC’s own modelling of its previous decisions shows only a minimal effect on unemployment of a decision not to increase the rate.

Elsewhere: Rob Corr.

Update: New post.

But while most Australians probably had other things on their mind, John Howard’s former Workplace Relations advisor and Alexander Downer’s replacement as Mayo MP, Jamie Briggs, found time on Boxing Day to denounce third party campaigns as a “a growing cancer in our democracy”.

Briggs named GetUp! and the ACTU’s Your Rights at Work campaign as examples of what he was talking about.

I don’t have any particular problem with disclosure of funding for third party campaigns, though I would object to caps on donations. But the hyperbole from Briggs (and no doubt his views are shared by Nick Minchin and others) is absurd and dangerous. Props to Andrew Norton for sounding the alarm. Norton refers to Briggs’ call for disclosure and observes:

He hasn’t even noticed that they already provide this information, with another report due early February 2009. Last year’s was really not that interesting, telling us a) that political campaigns cost money and that b) left-wing persons and organisations provide that money to left-wing campaigns.

What GetUp! and the ACTU are doing in their campaigns is crystal clear from the campaigns themselves. They are in a very different situation to political parties, which may privately offer favours to donors.

Briggs’ attitude, plus conversations I have had with other Liberals, makes me worried about the Party’s response to the Rudd government’s green paper on election funding and regulation. I fear that they will agree to draconian restrictions on political freedoms in an attempt to control the left’s current political ascendancy. As with the Howard government in its later years, they are too concerned with short-term problems, and show too little interest in the systemic consequences of their actions.

If, although as one would imagine there’s some equivocation going on, the opposition allow the laws to pass substantially unaltered, the business whining will be futile. That in itself may push the opposition into a more negative stance. The passage of the laws through the Senate early next year could get interesting.

The whole “keep business satisfied” implementation agenda might have seemed like a good idea last year. It’s not looking so flash now, particularly as the ACTU finally wakes up to the fact that they’ve effectively been locked out of the policy making process.

Elsewhere: More discussion of the poll at The Poll Bludger. Also interesting is the comparison with ratings of attributes between Malcolm Turnbull and Kevin Rudd (with the proviso that the data on Rudd dates from June). Turnbull will be worried at the 47% “out of touch” figure. How do you actually turn that around? Brendan Nelson didn’t do so by emoting and going trucking.

Julia Gillard outlined the results of consultations and more of the shape of the policy which will be embodied in legislation soon to be introduced into Parliament in an address to the National Press Club yesterday. The transcript is here. Commentary is largely focused on the unfair dismissal changes for small business, and there’s a sample of the reaction in a good article summarising union and academic views in The Age. But equally important are the machinations going on in the Industrial Relations Commission over “modern awards”, where employers have been presenting what are basically award-stripping ambit claims, and some odd interventions from Gillard herself [the process was examined in a previous LP post by Senator Rachel Siewert of The Greens] and the rather weak protections for collective bargaining that have been outlined.

It’s all very well to say that Fair Work Australia will be able to make good faith bargaining orders, but if they’re only weakly enforceable, and if there’s no power to arbitrate in the face of, well, bad faith, then it seems somewhat of a fig leaf. The ongoing legal maneouvring Telstra have engaged in, which has just had a setback with employees rejecting a non-union collective agreement in a Commission ordered ballot, is a case in point. Differential pay offers (which have nothing to do with rewarding merit and performance and everything to do with de-unionisation), legal stalling, failure to recognise bargaining agents and “wait them out” negotiating are all weapons in the armoury of management strategy, and it’s far from clear from what Gillard had to say that these tactics couldn’t be employed by business under the new laws.

Many Labor MPs aren’t happy campers at the moment, among others. Kevin Rudd’s cosy meetings with Fairfax management have not gone down well, and MPs are concerned that their constituents have been let down. IR is going to be back on the political agenda in a big way in the very near future, and the sentiment in the community for employment rights and the union’s third party campaigning skills now represent as much of a political danger for Labor as they were a political plus in the 2007 federal election.