The defeat of the Bill Ethel leadership in the elections of the Western Australian branch of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union is a blow to the already too small left wing in the union officialdom. The prize goes to the Labor Party, which, through the Builders Labourers, Painters and Plasterers Union, backed the winning Joe McDonald ticket.
It is a crime that in a state where the Labor Party is so discredited among workers another union should be handed back to it. The principal daily voice for big business, the Financial Review, appreciated the victory in a November 7 article: "Unlike in Victoria, however, victory for the BLF-backed candidate may be welcomed by employers. In the west, the political complexions of the CFMEU and the BLF are the reverse of Victoria and NSW. The CFMEU has been controlled by the far Left, while the BLF leadership is moderate, centre-Left ALP ."
The union movement could have done without adding to its stock of Labor and big business lackeys. Just as workers are taking another beating at the hands of the Liberals and Democrats with the passing of the federal government's draconian Workplace Relations Bill, the WA CFMEU is taken over by forces whose perspective is to collaborate with the agents of the corporate sector.
Unlike the Ethel leadership, the new leadership of the CFMEU is unlikely to pursue the interests of its membership uncompromisingly. Despite all the "militant" talk from McDonald and the Western Australian BLF, their militancy is reduced to the shop floor. The impact of a union limited to this level is, at best, to gain a concession here or there, and, at worst, to sell the bosses' story about how hard times are and why half the work force has to go (while the other half get to work another two hours a day for no extra pay).
The militancy that has been lost with the Ethel leadership is the loss that counts: a perspective of resisting all government and corporate attacks against workers and an unwillingness to sell one worker out to save another. In Australia today, once who have sold your soul to the Labor Party, given up such political independence, you can no longer be such a union militant.