Unions may be losing membership but get their way anyhow

When my sister started teaching in 1976, she asked her high school civics class to name the then prime minister. Half of the students answered Bob Hawke, even though he was, at that stage, the president of the ACTU. He did not become PM until 1983. (Mind you, maybe those students really did know a thing or two.)

My guess is that if you asked high school students today to name the president (or secretary) of the ACTU, very few would be able even to hazard a guess. That goes for most adults as well. The decline in the power of the ACTU has been precipitous. No one really cares what its leaders think or say, although, bizarrely, Malcolm Turnbull invited the ACTU secretary — Dave Oliver, if you were wondering — to some kind of mini-summit to discuss reform. Bear in mind that 15 per cent of the workforce now belongs to a trade union. I’m not sure who was representing the other 85 per cent.

But while the ACTU is essentially irrelevant — does anyone take any notice of the bleatings from Oliver and Ged Kearney (ACTU president, just in case you didn’t know)? — the same cannot be said of certain unions.

These unions, many representing public sector workers, operate to rip off the public by exerting political power. It doesn’t really matter to them that there is low unionisation at large; their concerns are much more parochial and selfish. If they can achieve their ends without strike action, so much the better. Workers don’t really want to be losing pay to secure large pay rises and generous conditions.

We see this particularly at the state level where the unions representing ambos, firefighters, police, nurses and teachers, in particular, draw on the public’s general sympathy for the roles these workers fulfil to extract above-market concessions from governments in terms of pay and conditions.

While it helps if Labor is in power, the unions have figured out that, as long as they can keep the public on-side and disguise the true nature of their extremely generous pay and conditions, there is really not too much downside to the Tories (to use Anthony Albanese’s pejorative term for the Coalition) having an occasional turn in power. In any case, undermining Coalition governments is so much fun.

Take Victoria. The behaviour of the Ambulance Employees Association when the Coalition was in power was nothing short of disgraceful. Ambulances — public property — were defaced to give prominence to their industrial campaign. There was never any intention on the part of the AEA to settle the dispute with the government. The workers were on a promise from Labor and part of the deal was the ambos would contribute to the defeat of the Napthine government.

Unsurprisingly, the deal has paid off handsomely for the union and the ambos. No sooner had Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union-controlled Premier Daniel Andrews settled himself behind the big desk than the entire board of Ambulance Victoria was sacked and an extraordinarily generous new agreement was settled with the union.

In addition to a $3000 “sign-on” bonus — just a freebie, courtesy of taxpayers — the ambos secured a pay rise of 12 per cent across two years. This is at a time private sector pay rises are averaging about 2 per cent a year.

Other new allowances and changes to classifications have further inflated the ambos’ remuneration. The AEA got everything it wanted; it just required a bit of patience and having compliant politicians do their bidding.

Securing the unswerving allegiance of Labor politicians is central. This is why the unions will fight tooth and nail to ensure their dominance in terms of preselecting parliamentary candidates. Of course, union donations to the Labor Party, particularly to certain members of parliament, always focus the minds of the recipients.

While Labor pretends there are competitive selections for lower house seats, in Victoria and some other states the unions have full monopoly rights to nominate upper house members. This is why these upper houses look like retirement villages for ex-union officials whose careers in the main have been completely without distinction.

Of course it is vital for the unions to shore up their power at the federal level as well and to insist on policies enshrined in legislation that are favourable to them. We see this in terms of the extraordinarily high and rising proportion of federal Labor politicians who have been trade union officials, which is surely strange in view of the declining extent of unionisation.

Even when Labor is not in power, there is still scope for the favours to be doled out: witness Labor’s Senate blocking tactics in relation to the re-establishment of the Australian Building and Construction Commission; the establishment of the Registered Organisations Commission to strengthen regulation of unions (and employer associations); and reforming the governance of industry super funds to include independent directors.

The fact the Greens are now part of the conspiracy on the public helps. The trade unions have strategically handed over funds and support to the Greens to the extent their position in respect of all union-related matters is now indistinguishable from Labor.

But here’s the real kicker: with very few exceptions, the election of Coalition governments at the state and federal levels makes not a jot of difference to the ability of the unions to get their way. In Victoria, Queensland and South Australia, the Coalition oppositions now stand for nothing apart from getting into power. They have no intention of upsetting the trade unions.

Falling numbers of union members — who cares? When you have all the politicians on your case and there are plenty of sources of income other than members’ dues, there’s barely a care in the world for most officials. And a royal commission on trade unions — just keep calling it a political witch-hunt.