Labor students: cream or scum?

[Nick Fredman <nfredman@xxxxxxxxxx>]

[I think this has no html styling, please let me know if I'm wrong,
it's not at all obvious how to do it in Eudora]

Bob Gould, in his report on the recent Australian Labor Party special
conference, writes some interesting things about the sociology of the
layers of working class youth who go to uni and get involved in the
ALP and the labour movement from there. Typically for him though he
gives an overly rosy view of this layer, and also implies these
people are the dominant group of progressive and active students,
which is highly questionable, and also of students and young people
moving into the labour movement, which is at least somewhat
questionable.

I think it was the father of the hapless recent ALP leader Kim
Beazley who lamented that Labor was attracting now not the cream of
the working class, but the scum of the middle class (no doubt Bob
will know the correct reference). This may be as one sided as Gould's
analysis but the main point is not that Labor student organisations
obviously contain careerists and generally dubious elements, but that
*their organisations*, being fundamentally tied to a bourgeois party,
are *generally* a block to the student movement and the class
struggle as a whole. Also, while alliances of various sorts are
needed with Laborite activists, student officials and organisations,
the Labor students are far from being the only or most important
layer for Marxists to relate to. I'll make a few points from my most
direct experience and observations, which is from several stints on
campus while there was a significant upsurge against the Labor
government's introduction of fees in the late 80s, a smaller campaign
against attacks on income support in the early 90s, and a largish but
short-lived campaign against the Liberals slashing of funding in
1996-7. I'd be interested in hearing other comrades' experiences or
observations of social democratic students and Marxist tactics on
campuses.

Since the labour movement and social movements began to die down in
Australia from the early 80s, the ongoing all-rounded capitalist
crisis has continually produced a radicalisation of youth, albeit at
a low level. Since at least the time the Hawke ALP government began
to move rapidly to the right after 1983, little of this
radicalisation has been expressed in the ALP: much more has it been
expressed in the explosive growth of the Nuclear Disarmament Party in
1984, the growth of the Greens in the 90s, environment campaigns,
student rights campaigns, quite large student feminist and
environmentalist conferences, and more recently
anti-capitalist/global justice actions and alliances. In many of
these issues and activities the far left has been quite central.

A quite large campaign sprung up after the Hawke Labor government
announced an upfront fee for all tertiary students in late 1986,
involving rallies of up to 20 000 people, mass boycotting, big
occupations etc. Of the 100s, perhaps 1000s, of students who became
activists some oriented to the ALP, but the far left probably grew a
lot more rapidly and certainly challenged Labor for hegemony over
this fairly large movement, and definitely lead it on the ground for
a time (at the first National Union of Students conference in 1988
the far left around Left Alliance had, with 40% support, about the
same weight as all the Labor factions). The main problem for the
radical left, then and more recently, has not been missing out on all
the Labor student action, but that most activists didn't join any
organisations (or have other frameworks or perspectives to continue
their activity) and dropped out when the movement died down. In fact
the main problem for that campaign was the role played by the
Eurocommunist CP students who dominated left Alliance, who
deprioritised campaign building in favour of an oh-so-clever
"interventionist" courting of the Labor students in maneuvers to set
up NUS (of course most Labor students spent *all* their time in
maneuverings). Once securely in control of NUS, the labor students
diverted the campaign into lobbying and an expensive High Court
challenge.

A few years later there was some renewed campaigning against attacks
on income support, initiated (as virtually all student campaigns have
been) by the far left, and generally supported by the Labor officials
in NUS. However the laborites worked hard to keep other issues, such
as steadily increasing fees, off the agenda, not wanting to embarrass
too much the Keating Labor government. Though the election of the
Howard Liberals in 1996 encouraged the laborites to fight a little
more, this has been the pattern since: some support for campaigns,
sometimes not, attempts to water down demands, and much more time and
effort put into wheeling and dealing over student council and NUS
positions than building any struggles. The hideous nature of NUS
conference, from which year after year whole layers of students
return battered and often demoralised after seeing any political
debate, let alone campaign organising, ditched in favour of cynical
and aggressive hustling for positions (I saw it myself in 1997), is a
reflection of the priorities of most laborites of all factions.

In relation to the question of careerism, I think Gould seriously
underestimates an important socio-economic fact: any kind of
employment, let alone a lucrative professional career, is far from
certain for many graduates. $25 000/year for being a student official
can seem very attractive c.f. less than $10 000/year max student
income support, and a career as a union functionary or ALP staffer
can be very secure c.f. other areas. There's a very material basis
for people to compromise (to varying extents of course) their
politics and principles in order to become an appendage of the ALP
machine.

The point is that the Labor students are contradictory (and
variegated) and our tactics must recognise that. And they are not at
all the most important layer to relate to. There have a significant
weight but this has increased with the downturn in student politics
since the late 80s, rather than being a reflection of radicalisation.
At least as many students have been politicising through activist
campaigns, collectives and conferences, as leftist officials in
student councils and NUS, and around the left groups, and these
people, on the whole, are far better material. Perhaps the Laborites
tend more on the whole to go on to union work, but there's quite a
few socialists, Greens and independent leftists taking this path now
too (probably more so in my union the NTEU than others, partly
possibly because of more difficulty gaining positions in other unions
without being a Laborite: e.g. I was disgusted to hear a couple of
years ago how my very lovable DSP comrade, and minor Sydney rock
identity, John Gauci, was hounded from his CPSU Organising Works
position by the despicable Michael Costa, then head of the NSW Labor
Council, now state minister for cops, ably assisted at the time by a
young Laborite worm). The main failing of the Marxist left on
campuses I think is not at all errors in relating to the Laborites
but in not convincing enough students who get interested in radical
politics to some degree on campus to continue their involvement in
working life (and this is as much a question of building bigger
social movement campaigns, a bigger class struggle left in the
unions, a bigger "left culture" in general in society, as "party
building" per se).

The campus I work at now and did my last bit of study on is not
really typical, being in a small regional centre with a significant
"alternative" history. However the facts that out of the several
scores of people who've had,  in the last 5 years, some involvement
with progressive campaigns, the student council, student activist
conferences etc, not a single one has been a laborite or felt any use
in caucusing with laborites at NUS meetings, and that there's been
absolutely no public Laborite activity, must say something.

I could say more about the actual approach by the far left towards
the labor students, towards which there have been various errors, if
anyone was interested, but I mainly wanted to answer Gould distorted
representation of Australian student sociology and politics.



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