Labor's Growing Schism

The concept of the ‘labour movement’ is in trouble in Australia.

At the start of December the political wing of the movement has had a lousy fortnight.

The Victorian Government fell.

The NSW Labor Party had to sack its party president when his union’s journal suggested it would support individual candidates from all political persuasions.

The South Australian Premier needed armed police protection to enter his own state conference to defend a union sponsored motion to dump his leadership and to defend the State Budget

Finally, a union affiliated with the Queensland ALP is thinking about standing candidates against Labor because of anger about the privatisation of assets such as Queensland Rail.

These states have (or had) long term Labor governments operating as being solid, conservative managers of the economy that moved to the centre on traditionally weak areas such as law and order and encouraged development whilst showing concern for the environment.

However, this model appears to have reached in use-by date, with the greatest pressure being placed on it by the ALP’s labour movement partner – the unions.

ACTU President Ged Kearney has publicly suggested that unions be prepared to criticise Labor publicly and be more independent of its traditional ally and her executive has endorsed a paper suggesting it be on a permanent campaign footing in a bid to advance an independent political agenda.

During the 20th century, There was a time that ‘the labour movement’ – the concept that permitted the representatives of labour and those who wished to express solidarity with the working class to operate within one political party – worked satisfactorily.

This meant in practice a coalition of employed workers and a professional class generally residing in the inner city.

However, the Greens ‘four pillars’ (ecological sustainability, social equality and economic justice, grassroots democracy and peace and disarmament and nonviolence) is an agenda increasingly appealing to a ‘progressive’ middle class constituency than one put out by a regimented party with 50% union control designed to achieve social justice primarily through the improvement of working conditions through the wages and taxation system.

At the same time both state and federal ALP governments are making decisions designed to introduce a ‘seamless economy’, including reforms designed to increase productivity – and as recent ructions illustrate, not every reform will be fully supported by unions as jobs and conditions come under threat.

The net result of trying to satisfy the social goals of the progressive professional classes and the industrial goals of the unions means that the ALP is not satisfying either part of its traditional disparate coalition.

Earlier in the year Dean Mighell openly questioned whether affiliation with the ALP remains in the strategic interests of the union movement whilst Michael Costa has again called for reform to remove the power of the union bosses.

In much the same way as there has been a ‘structural separation’ of the wholesale and retail arms of Telstra, any review of what constitutes ‘the labour movement’ may mean a structural separation of the movement’s erstwhile industrial and political arms.

As the traditional fault lines of labour vs. capital have blur to the point of being non-existent the unions can then prosecute the interests of members as they see fit, whilst the ALP can, should it choose, develop into a modern social democratic party so it can best compete in the Australian political market place of the 21st century.