ALP’s owners hope to turn back time

Next year we have this to look forward to: being ruled by new Labor, which remains tied to the socialist objective set out in 1921.

ACTU secretary Sally McManus and president Michele O'Neil in the Qantas lounge. Picture: Supplied

We end 2018 in a sorry state, politically. Our federal government limps towards the 2019 election, and although a surplus is allegedly on the way, there are structural deficiencies within that will always cruel the good news.

On its worst day, the Coalition presents as a mean boys club cast in a homogenous mould, selfish, self-obsessed and hypocritically self-righteous. Like introspective managers, its members sit in their offices poring over spreadsheets, delighting in the improving numbers, while out on the factory floor the unions circulate, whispering messages of discontent and planting the seeds of resentful envy.

As a result, next year we have this to look forward to: being ruled by new Labor, which remains tied to the socialist objective set out in a mission statement written in 1921.

Despite much talk, this objective has never been abandoned and the ALP still formally defines itself as a “democratic socialist” party that seeks to achieve “the democratic socialisation of industry, production, distribution and exchange, to the extent necessary to eliminate exploitation and other antisocial features in these fields”.

There is no better way to achieve a socialist outcome in industry, production, distribution and exchange than through industrial relations legislation, and, accordingly, Labor’s owners — the unions — have their desired changes all mapped out.

If the grand plan makes it through parliament, we are really in for dramatic change.

Bargaining at the enterprise level has failed, according to unions. In many respects this is true. The bargaining system is best avoided, and if it has failed then the failure is the result of three reasons.

One, we live in a free country. Despite rules that can mandate negotiations, no business can be forced to make an offer of an enterprise agreement to its workforce — and so some simply don’t, no matter what.

Two, nothing lasts forever, and so no contract can be binding indefinitely. An enterprise agreement, like any other written contract in existence, once past its expiry date, can be dissolved. In extreme circumstances, workers then can see their pay packets fall back towards the award wage as the benefits of the agreement are lost.

This is awful, but sometimes a smaller pay packet is preferable to unemployment.

Three, everything, including the bargaining system, is subject to the checking mechanism of the free market.

While one company can be forced into an agreement with overly high wages and conditions, sooner or later, if every other player in the industry isn’t forced there too, competition might cause the company to lose market share, and then wages will have to moderate or jobs will be lost.

Faced with these three realities, someone has put their dreaming hat on and conjured up the enticing prospect of industry bargaining.

This scheme comes with a Fair Work Commission empowered to bang the gavel and compel employers to pay wage outcomes.

It is a fantastical dream; if realised, with minimal effort, union membership would skyrocket and riches would flow into union coffers.

Under an industry bargaining model, the union would first serve the relevant employer group with a log of claims and a draft enterprise agreement. In this way, in a room somewhere, a handful of people would sit down around the table and negotiate the wages and conditions for the employees of businesses they have never come into contact with.

If there was disagreement, the union could call a strike in a large unionised company and try to force the employer group to agree to sign up.

If the strike didn’t work, then the union could apply to the Fair Work Commission and ask it to arbitrate (enforce by order) the agreement.

Once the agreement was arbitrated, every single company in the industry would receive notification from the commission that the agreement now applies to their workers. They would be informed that they must adopt the agreement and comply with its wage rates or be subject to prosecution and back-pay debt.

The second part of the plan, never discussed openly, is the desire to charge compulsory bargaining fees for all the workers in the industry who are not union members.

The “freeloader” problem — workers who benefit from union-negotiated pay rises but won’t join a union — is often complained about.

The imposition of compulsory bargaining fees would solve that problem, as every worker in the industry would need to pay the union in exchange for the new agreement that has just been negotiated with the employer group or arbitrated in the commission.

Who is to say what will happen next year.

But at this stage it appears as though industry bargaining is a dream that the Labor machine is hellbent on realising.

It is a pre-1980s scenario. Back in those days, every self-respecting union official drove a Ford or a Holden, and always carried golf clubs in the boot.

Merry Christmas to all.