Labor and unions in uneasy embrace

THE modern labour movement needs to rediscover its constructive reformist purpose.

Bill Leak

LIKE an old black-and-white movie they're back -- the greying yet fiery icons of a spirit now fading. Turning on the radio or going online became a hazard this week with 82-year-old Bob Hawke singing Solidarity Forever, former union chief Bill Kelty invoking "romantic warriors" as his theme, and Paul Keating spreading love and compassion throughout the great trade union dinner.

The moral of the week is that it's best to keep them locked up. Out of sight. On the loose, they're a box-office smash, compelling and capable of provoking a nostalgia deadly to any current Labor politician or union official.

"It's too easy to accept defeat, to say the Labor Party will not win," Kelty told the ACTU Congress dinner in his honour, as the wider Labor movement under the titular leadership of Julia Gillard stares into an electoral abyss.

Kelty sought to inspire the movement by recalling the great collaboration of the 1980s and 90s. "We modernised the economy but we did it in a Labor way, a Labor way, a union way." he declared.

Keating praised Kelty as the anti-narcissist with a national vision; Kelty explained the brilliance of the old Labor-union model with its high growth, increased productivity and falling unemployment; Hawke, rarely in the same room with Keating these days, "agreed with everything Paul said" about Bill before breaking into the most tribal of union songs.

It was a "back to the future" moment. A sweet dream before waking to the 2012 daylight nightmare. Hawke, Kelty and Keating are legends that only burn brighter with the years. It is fitting to celebrate their times and, even among those who watched them for so long, always compelling to see them again.

But the past is another country. Such heroes can appear on the ramparts but they are retired generals who, like their successors, have no easy solutions to the contemporary battlefield.

Hawke, Keating and Kelty invoke past glories to insist the labour movement is as relevant as ever. Yet the rallying cries at the ACTU Congress in Sydney to deny the movement has entered its prolonged death throes merely betray such lurking fears.

Is it just five short years since the 2007 ACTU-led campaign caught the nation's mood and poleaxed John Howard over Work Choices? How could the landscape have been so transformed?

Now the unions are on the defensive, the Labor government is discredited, a former union official, Craig Thomson, is the epicentre of a national disgrace, the business community is ascendant in calling for a revision of the post-Work Choices industrial laws and the wider movement remains baffled about how it happened.

Kelty gave the game away. In a speech that endorsed Gillard's policies, Kelty admitted he was stumped about the reasons for Labor's collapse. "It's got me beat," he lamented. But as a realist he warned it was no good just blaming the media or Tony Abbott (virtually the entire script of Gillard). In short, the movement and the party had to engage in more self-assessment. Obviously, he's right.

But what to do? Gillard offered little, just ritualistic rhetoric about her union values, Abbott's scare campaign, spurious reassurances there is "nothing to fear" from cost-of-living pressures and declarations about Labor's highly redistributive battlers' budget.

Kelty's message was that Labor and the unions must rediscover the spirit of the 80s when, facing immense economic challenges, they combined in a constructive reformist agenda.

Yet the Hawke-Keating-Kelty policy structures and formal ALP-ACTU Accord cannot be rebuilt or resurrected. The truth is that Labor and unions today are allied but in significant policy tension. The extent of their shared strategy is limited, far more tokenistic than meaningful.

The best and most revealing speech to the Congress was from Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten, who came with a message. After the compulsory homilies, Shorten hit three big themes. First, he wants the unions to "reclaim the middle ground of economic debate on industrial relations". Shorten was explicit: he wants the unions not just to reposition but to engage the productivity agenda and not "vacate the ground" to the right wing (presumably business and the Coalition). He kept repeating the idea of getting back to the "middle ground", which can only mean he thinks the unions currently hold the wrong ground though, of course, he didn't concede this.

Second, he wants to see the unions as agents of change reformers. "The economy, as we know it, is experiencing great change," Shorten said. It was unions that grappled daily with such changes from manufacturing, services, population ageing, the rise of Asia, the march of women and the implications of the internet. Nothing will stop these changes and, Shorten argued, it was the job of unions to "lead, not follow" and work "in tandem with a Labor government" to make such inevitable changes more effective.

Finally, he said the unions must seek harmony, not conflict, in the workplace. "That is the Labor way," Shorten said. He rejected the view that unions wanted to make people unhappy, that they wanted conflict or class war. This was a Liberal Party mantra, not a Labor story (note this message). "We mustn't let ourselves get fitted up -- that somehow we are the class warriors," Shorten said. "I don't believe that the 'us and them' rhetoric is what describes the modern Australian workplace or describes 98 to 99 per cent of what Australian trade union representatives do."

Using these principles, he declared his faith in the ability of the movement. It was a sophisticated speech from a former union leader and loyalist who was urging the unions towards unmistakable change. In outlook, Shorten is the closest Labor has to the Hawke-Keating-Kelty ethos. He had to be cautious but the point is apparent: he talks with the emerging authority of a future leader and, can you believe, he has something to say!

The truth, however, is that the movement today is far away from the framework Shorten espoused and the Congress proved that.

The ACTU is creating a new campaign fighting fund to bankroll its efforts against the Coalition and business in the election year. The model is the 2007 campaign when the ACTU ran the most potent third force campaign in Australian history. The idea is pushed by new ACTU secretary Dave Oliver, who wants the ACTU to become a "high-profile, independent campaigning organisation". The message is a united and determined union effort to stop Abbott becoming PM on the apparent conviction that Abbott is a tool of business despite his reluctance to commit to its preferred IR agenda. But the caravan has moved on.

A conspicuous ACTU campaign will help mobilise the faithful yet only further alienate the voting majority from Labor at the election.

The Congress enshrined a push to try to limit casual work following a report from former deputy PM Brian Howe, yet this raises pivotal questions for the movement. Is the motive to assist workers or unions? While some casuals feel exploited, others will resent unions telling them they can't work this way.

"There is no casualisation problem in Australia," Australian Industry Group chief Innes Willox said. There is one guarantee: this campaign will hurt productivity.

The unions, contrary to Shorten's advice, are hulking down to defend their gains, resist reform and contest the business push to reverse the IR laws.

The reform collaboration that Kelty seeks to revive does not exist and is yet to appear on the radar. The 80s experience belongs to another place. The class-based political tactics embraced by Gillard and Wayne Swan only confirm this.

The unions, for better or worse, will line up in the Labor trenches. This will not help Labor win the election but may help Labor improve its overall vote.

When BHP Billiton chairman Jac Nasser warned that Australia was a high-cost nation that had a flawed IR system and a tax system generating investor negativity, the inevitability of Australia's descent into political polarisation was further confirmed. All sides are party to this descent. It now has a life of its own. The mood, however, was set by Labor and its priorities.

It is noteworthy that Swan did not attack Nasser. On the contrary, he was conciliatory, unlike the unions that are intensifying their industrial action against BHP. "We see ourselves working very much with large companies," Swan said of Labor's growth agenda.

There is much confusion about Labor's strategy because it has two spearheads: growth amid redistribution. Swan's budget is about the surplus and about redistributing income away from the better-off to regain the base vote. He wants the kudos of a responsible budget and he wants to wedge Abbott as a sectional-interest Tory who backs billionaires.

The budget embodies a Gillard-Swan agreed strategy. Yet it is Swan before and post-budget who has put his brand and imprint on Labor's strategy. More and more, Swan shapes the character and tenor of this government.

His game plan, as he told the Per Capita think tank, is about "growing wealth the Labor way". Swan is personally offended at Abbott's tactic of invoking Ben Chifley. "You're no Ben Chifley," he told Abbott this week. Swan, in effect, has taken up Labor's last stand against Abbott.

It is rooted in Labor tribalism, Australian egalitarianism and unification of the movement.

Rejecting the idea that "we should grow the pie by increasing inequity", Swan's accusation is that Abbott and Joe Hockey would govern for a privileged minority, undermine working conditions and compromise Labor reforms. The early results on this tactic will be critical.