[Marxism] Right wing Australian Unionists Response to re-election of conservatives

[Jason Jones <redjayjones@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The following article was published in the Melbourne Sunday Age.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Long-look-at-shortcomings-a-union-view/2004/11/06/1099547434803.html

Long look at shortcomings: a union view
By Michelle Grattan
November 7, 2004

Bill Shorten, national secretary of the Australian Workers' Union, is a 
new-style unionist in one of Australia's oldest unions.


He has a law degree and an arts degree, and an MBA from the Melbourne Business 
School. His late father worked at Melbourne's dry docks, but father-in-law 
Julian Beale is a wealthy businessman who served as a federal Liberal MP. 
Shorten has smokos with shop stewards, but he's also a relaxed guest at 
business dinners.

His world embraces the corporate boardroom and the woolshed's "board". Shearers 
have always been at the heart of the AWU and, in much diminished numbers, they 
remain so.

A week ago, Shorten was defending a ban the union had placed on sheep weighing 
more than 70 kilograms unless they are sedated. In the wool industry, one of 
the productivity advances has been bigger sheep. But they're bad news for 
shearers' backs.

Shorten, 37, is one of the new generation that Labor looks to for its future. 
He's a few years away from Parliament (he's just committed to a new union 
term), but admits to parliamentary ambition and is talked about as a possible 
successor to Bob Sercombe in the seat of Maribyrnong.

As a member of the ALP national executive, Shorten is part of the post-election 
debate on Labor; he'll soon publish his analysis in the Fabian Society 
newsletter. His talk is big picture and centrist, defensive of the rights of 
organised (union) labour, but including much of the language of business and 
the global economy.

On Thursday, the AWU - the president of which is old-style unionist Bill Ludwig 
- met in its Spencer Street headquarters to mull on Labor's election rout. With 
the Coalition's control of the Senate looming next year, the union anticipates 
hard times.

For the AWU, the frontline fight is for job security - protection of wages and 
conditions against the trend to casualisation. "Our members are at the business 
end of a huge shift in workplace organisation. They have few illusions about 
what they face. We accept that the change in the Senate and the failure of the 
Labor Party for the fourth successive time means the AWU needs to be leading 
the debate," he says.
If they want to win, Labor has to appeal to the centre."
Bill Shorten
The Senate win gives John Howard "unfettered influence. And the one thing the 
Prime Minister has been consistent on in his 30 years of public life is that he 
doesn't like unions."

Shorten also predicts life will become harder for state Labor governments: "The 
Liberal strategy will shift from blaming the Senate to blaming the states for 
everything the Coalition doesn't achieve."

Shorten has plenty of messages for the weakened ALP, but says his union isn't 
over-reacting to its comments about overhauling its industrial relations policy 
in consultation with business.

"I think the debate is one more of style than substance at this point. The 
federal caucus has woken up with a massive political hangover after the 
drubbing of October 9.

"The way forward for Labor is not to accept the binary debate about particular 
forms of employment regulation. That's putting the answer before the question. 
The question really is, what generates a productive economy which competes on 
the global market?"

To win, Labor must "occupy the centre ground, not just the big-L left. I remind 
them, it's union members who live in the centre."

Labor "appealed too much to the left and the Greens. Not that those issues - 
Iraq, refugees - aren't important. But if they want to win, Labor has to appeal 
to the centre.

"We want the Labor Party to have policies which secure our jobs, not those sort 
of forest policies and other things which are unexplained . . .

"The ALP is not going to win power federally using pseudo-Green left policies 
that play into only five or six inner-city federal electorates."

Labor must also realise "that tax cuts are not evil. The Hawke-Keating 
government put in seven tax cuts across their 13 years. Some of my members are 
paying at the highest marginal rate.

"There's nothing wrong with tax cuts. We don't want to fall for the sort of 
charming but somewhat introspective left-wing myth that people don't mind 
paying more taxes if they get better services . . . our members want both. But 
in a beauty parade, lower taxes will always unfortunately win a majority of the 
centre ground."

The AWU's role "is to help anchor (Labor) in the real world". Labor, he says, 
"should be the party of big economic ideas . . . for the problems coming down 
the road in five to eight years' time . . . skill shortages and the ageing 
population.

"How, when we help members move through the income tax brackets, do we stop 
their pay being eaten away by high taxes? How do we encourage greater national 
savings?

"Specifically, interest rates are the No. 1 vote-changing issue in an economy 
driven by record levels of personal household and private sector debt. Other 
policies, however valid, cannot compete with safe economic management in the 
current climate."

A week ago, Mr Latham said Labor must appeal to "the new middle class . . . 
with its army of contractors, consultants, franchises and small 
businesspeople". Shorten welcomes this but notes: "There are about 750,000 
people who are self-employed contractors in Australia. There are over 8 million 
PAYE tax earners - employees."

There is one other sharp thing Shorten has to say - about that complicated tax 
and family policy released during the campaign: "I have not found a member of 
the union who can explain it to me."




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