ALP trickle will become a flood
The response of rank-and-file unionists to Victorian Electrical Trades
Union leader Dean Mighell's resignation from the Labor Party was predictable:
“Good on yer mate, it's about time!” They don't want another cent of their
money given to the second bosses' party that the ALP is, and that is what
will happen if they are given a say on the matter.
The ALP is well and truly exposed as an alternative party of the corporate
rich in the eyes of most workers. They don't need the bitter experience
of a Crean Labor government to teach them the bleeding obvious — not after
Hawke and Keating.
A recent survey of Year 9 students indicates that 80% of teenagers understand
that the Coalition and Labor parties don't act in the interest of society's
majority. Yet there are some whiney voices from a dogmatically stupid section
of the left crying: “Please, don't leave the ALP, stay in and fight. It's
still the workers' party! Fight for the 60-40 rule that gives the union
officials a majority vote at Labor conferences.” They find it hard to grasp
the fact that even with this trade union majority, the ALP has embraced
privatisation, social cutbacks, anti-union laws and “free market” globalisation.
There is absolutely nothing progressive to defend in the institutional
position of the trade union officials in the ALP today.
The theoretical possibility of union control of the ALP has done nothing
to undermine Labor's commitment to the defence of the capitalist class's
interests. Bureaucratic union officials have used their privileged positions
not to defend the interests of their members, but to use the ALP as a job
trust for themselves.
The ALP, and its factions, are used to protect the positions of Labor-loyal
union officials within the unions. The ALP, and its factions, also provide
union officials with career paths into cosy positions in parliament and,
for some, into lucrative ministerial offices in the federal and state governments.
That's been the system in the ALP since its earliest days and if you don't
start off in that system cynical and venal, the chances are that you will
quickly end up that way.
But if you don't think it's worth defending the 60-40 rule, does that
mean you have given up on the struggle for workers to win control of their
unions? What nonsense! Keeping the union bureaucrats' job trust intact
makes it easier for them to maintain their domination of the unions. They
use it as a political club to keep out or isolate militants who fight their
way into union leaderships.
Australia's militant union leaderships are slowly coming to the conclusion
that it is time to leave the ALP. And when they do so, they meet an enthusiastic
response from the ranks in their unions.
Then the little whiney voice from the dogmatic left protests: “But the
election results show most workers still vote for the ALP, so it must be
a workers' party!” But workers don't have much choice yet do they? The
Greens are just beginning to command attention as a progressive alternative
and the Socialist Alliance is just starting out with modest resources and
limited influence.
The Socialist Alliance's political fortunes can change quickly because
the political situation is more than ripe for a flood of unionists out
of ALP Inc. We've seen the beginnings of this in Britain. A few months
ago, a handful of union officials left Blair's New Labour to join the Socialist
Alliance of England. On March 16, more than 1000 unionists attended the
first Socialist Alliance trade union conference.
The Socialist Alliance in Australia has plans for a national trade unionists'
conference later this year.
The job of building a real party of the working class (in its true sense,
not in the bosses' caricature) in this country may be complicated. We'll
have to make new alliances, experiment a little, even make a few mistakes.
But if we are serious about starting this process then we have got to
be able to recognise a step forward when it happens. Dean Mighell's and
Victorian United Firefighters Union leader Peter Marshall's decision to
quit the ALP is just such a step forward. And with a bit of effort, we
can help turn this trickle of unionists out of the ALP into a flood.
From Green Left Weekly, March 27, 2002.
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