Corporate donations to counter Left kept for union elections

Big business ended a practice of donating huge sums of money to right-wing unions in 1984.

Big business ended a practice of donating huge sums of money to right-wing unions to combat the influence of communists and the Far Left in 1984, with a final cash donation of $300,000. At least some of this money was kept in the NSW Labor Council safe for use in union elections, altho­ugh some was also used for ALP affairs.

In my new book, When We Were Young and Foolish, I reveal the practice of massive corporate giving to union leaders to battle the Left.

Business also gave substantial amounts of money to BA Santamaria’s anti-communist National Civic Council to support campaigns inside unions.

The Far Left itself historically had many external sources of funding. Some sections of the Far Left also had a history of ballot-rigging­, as was proved conclusively in court cases after the anti-commun­ist Laurie Short won control of the Ironworkers Union in the 1950s.

Historically, the Soviet Union had given large amounts of money to various Australian communist parties and front organisations.

Corporate giving was predom­in­antly so that right-wing union leaders could defend themselves in campaigns waged against them by left-wing opponents, and so that right-wing challengers could mount campaigns against communist and Far Left leaderships in traditionally left-wing unions. There is no suggestion that any of this corporate giving was illegal, unethical or in any way improper.

It was known to many trade union, and to some corporate, insiders, but was never discussed publicly.

The NSW Labor Council decid­ed in 1984 that it would no longer raise money for or partic­ipate directly in internal union elections.

The Right had a strong major­ity in the Labor Council and it was felt that competent union leaderships should be able to ensure their own re-election through their good service of union members’ industrial needs.

As well, the Fraser government passed legislation that tightened disclosure laws for companies and unions.

Long-term Labor Council secret­ary John Ducker was an espec­ially effective fundraiser. He sought donations from senior business figures such as Kerry Packer.

A substantial amount of money was donated through companies associated with the Metal Trades Industry Association.

Donations for the NCC’s anti-communist union activities in Sydney were mostly handled by the late Jack Kane, who had been a senator in the 1970s for the anti-communist breakaway from the Australian Labor Party, the Democratic Labor Party.

Kane ran a small organisation called Industrial Data, which produced an insiders’ newsletter that companies paid substantial money to subscribe to.

Very occasionally in the early 1980s, I would write these news­letters for Kane, and on one or two occasions, as a very young man, Tony Abbott wrote them too.

They were generally based on briefings from sympathetic union officials. Money raised from the Industrial Data newsletters was partly used to fund anti-Left effor­ts in the trade union movement.

The ALP banned its members from joining or participating in the NCC.

However, right-wing Labor figures and the NCC co-operated closely in anti-Left union affairs, including when Barrie Unsworth, who went on to become NSW premier, was secretary of the Labor Council.

One campaign that the Labor Council and the NCC participated in jointly was a long-running, but ultimately unsuccessful, challenge to the Communist Party and Far Left control of the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union.

This campaign involved then prime minister Bob Hawke appear­ing in a staged photograph with one of the challengers to the AMWU leadership.

This photo was widely used in the challengers’ campaign literature.

Mr Hawke did not publicly endors­e the challenge, but the appearan­ce of the photo infuriated the industrial Left.