Before the 2007 federal election, Julia Gillard turned her attention to what the Labor Party needed to do to win back government in a book called Coming to the Party.
She said reforming Labor’s factional system was high on the agenda because, “we are no longer talking about factionalism, we are talking about fractionalism – a Party in which almost anyone with a pocket full of votes, often procured in dubious circumstances, believes it is their right to demand something from the Party in return.”
She ought to know. Prominent among the so-called “faceless men” from the factions who ensured that she became prime minister in June 2010 were Bill Shorten and Paul Howes from the Australian Workers Union, Don Farrell from the Shoppers and Distributers Alliance and David Feeney from the Transport Workers Union.
Between them they control a tad more than a pocket full of votes. There are about 423,000 members of these three unions. The dubious circumstances in which these factional heavies procured their influence was to affiliate their combined membership to Labor without bothering to consult members.
The reason for this might have something to do with the voting patterns of union members that the Australian Electoral Study reveals. In 2007, after an election campaign by the union movement that cost more than $60 million, 37% of unionists voted for parties other than Labor.
In 2010, a bare majority of unionists, 52%, put Labor first on the ballot. Fairfax Media has reported that union officials were briefed this month on the ACTU’s internal polling, which showed that one-third of unionists were undecided about their voting intentions just four weeks from the federal election.
The peak union body’s response was to use a call centre and social media to target 390,000 union members in the 38 most marginal electorates. Whether call centre workers, most of who the union movement has failed to unionise, can persuade union members to vote Labor remains to be seen. But what workers think about blanket affiliation is well known.
In 2010, the Electrical Trades Union in Victoria conducted a ballot of its members on the question. Eighty-seven percent rejected it. The union instead concentrated on improving its members' wages and conditions, which are among the best in the country. As a result, they are one of the few unions that have been able to consistently raise their membership in an environment deliberately made difficult by legislation from Labor and Coalition governments alike.
A Tony Abbott victory would certainly worsen things for workers but a victory by Kevin Rudd victory will not restore union rights. The conventional conservative wisdom that Labor is beholden to its union base and that workers reap the benefits is completely wrong-headed. The beneficiaries on the union side are not the long-suffering members but those officials preselected for parliamentary careers who then continue to do what they’ve been accustomed to do – putting themselves first.
Unionisation rates continue to decline. There were 1.8 million union members in the workforce in 2011, but there were also 1.5 million who had previously been members but had declined to renew their membership. TV advertisements are unlikely to turn this around.