Latest Blog

Workers deserved better from unions on Garrett's insulation failures

Monday 22nd February 2010

I have a confession to make. I have a soft spot for the Australian Workers Union.

Before anyone gets too excited, let me explain. My great, great aunt was Dame Mary Gilmore, the first female member of the AWU. Dame Mary was one of Australia’s greatest ever poets who now graces our ten dollar note.

Dame Mary edited the women’s page of the Australian Worker before heading off to South America in 1900 to be part of William Lane’s ‘New Australia’ commune in Paraguay.

Like all communist experiments it failed. Aunt Mary then spent two years living a very cold and lonely existence with her newborn son, while Uncle Bill went from one Argentine sheep station to the next to earn enough money to get them all back to Australia.

Some might think Dame Mary would be turning in her grave if she knew her great, great nephew was now a Federal Liberal Member of Parliament. But don’t be too quick to assume. While I am sure we would probably disagree on fundamental issues about the role of the state and the rights of the individual over the collective, there is much we would probably agree on.

Dame Mary was a devout nationalist and tireless campaigner for the rights of indigenous Australians, long before it was a mainstream political issue. Her famous poem ‘No foe shall gather our harvest’ rallied a nation during the war years, making her a national celebrity, not unlike Johnny Farnham and ‘You’re the voice’.

Aunt Mary may even share some of my cynicism about today’s labour movement.

Like many of her generation, being a part of the union in the 1890s was a good idea. Had I been a shearer or bush school teacher at the time, I suspect I would have joined up as well.

There are many tremendous stories of union achievement. Recently, I was on Christmas Island and learned the story of the Union of Christmas Island Workers who ended the use of coolies in the phosphate mine and achieved pay parity for their workers. They also pioneered one of our earlier examples of employee share ownership by coordinating members’ investment to reopen the mine, after the previous owners had shut it down.

There are of course still examples today of good work done by the union movement. However, my concern is that as times have changed, great union leaders of the past have been replaced more and more by post-Hawke suits and apparatchiks.

Their goal - use their standing as union leaders to promote their own personal profile and invest themselves in the national political debate as Labor stooges. This is how they are required to spend their time while they wait for their seat in parliament or Government appointment.

With one eye always to their own political future you have to ask the question about who comes first, the Labor Party or union members?

When the current fiasco broke regarding Peter Garrett’s bungled home insulation programme, it was not the union movement who were the first to break ranks and come clean on the warnings they gave the Government. They were far from whistleblowers.

Instead, union leaders were caught flat footed. They rushed to confess their warnings only after industry bodies and the Coalition shamed them into it. The unions were quite prepared to accept the assurances given by Mr Garrett. It would seem that not embarrassing the Rudd Government had taken priority.

Had the home insulation initiative been a Coalition Government programme, there would have been union marches from Trades Hall to public rallies in Federation Square. This has not happened, nor is it likely to. They haven’t even called on Mr Garrett to stand down.

One such union leader who was slow to their feet was the general secretary of Aunt Mary’s AWU and my regular twitter combatant, Paul Howes. Paul is one of the union movement’s new guard. He’s articulate, certainly not shy and no stranger to public commentary.

Paul ranges freely and widely, regardless of whether the issue is relevant to his role as union secretary or whether the AWU even has a policy position on the issue. For example, Paul is a regular critic of the Coalition on border protection, arguing the case for people smugglers, whom he compares to freedom fighters. I’m not sure he’s tested this position with the rank and file at the AWU.

But when there is an issue of direct relevance, such as Mr Garrett’s home insulation programme that placed workers at direct risk, there was an uncharacteristic silence.

His only alleged comment was to back up the ACTU and only after the issue was well out in eth public domain. So outraged was he about the Government’s abuses of worker safety, he used his next regular column in Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph to chide Tony Abbott over his opposition to the Government’s ETS. Sock it to them Paul, let ‘em know who’s boss.

But it didn’t stop there, the rage continued when he addressed the National Press Club last week, where he uttered not one word on Garrett or the safety abuses. Perhaps he intends to send Peter a very sternly worded letter.

Four young Australians have been killed and the union movement seems content to absolve the Government they paid $30 million to install at the last election. They are clearly happy with the Government’s excuse from Lindsay Tanner that they just didn’t have the time to dot the i’s and cross the t’s.

Australian workers deserved better from their unions on Mr Garrett’s bungling of the home insulation programme. Their intoxication as political operatives and mindless pursuit of power for its own sake, has swamped the nobles purposes for which they were formed.

I’m not sure Aunt Mary would be too pleased with how things have worked out for her old movement – is seems like Bill Lane’s Paraguayan commune all over again.

Comments

Add a comment

No comments have been added yet.