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Nowhere to go: unions and the ALP

After 120 years, the relationship between unions and the Australian Labor Party

(ALP) has stalled. It cannot go back to the social democratic heyday of the

Accord, nor forward to a new world where unions remain important but share

their ownership of the ALP with other interest groups, notably those that 

underpin the Greens. There is no need for unions and the ALP to sever the links

altogether, but the exclusivity of the relationship is not sustainable.

Whats the problem? In a nutshell, union affiliation with the ALP no longer

delivers the benefits to either side that it once did. Unions no longer get the same

degree of policy payoff by being in the ALP, and the ALPs reliance on union

financial support is much less than it was; down from about 80 per cent a few

decades ago to about 15 per cent now.

Controversy about the unions-ALP relationship is hardly new. In his 1963 book,

Labors Role in Modern Society, ALP federal leader Arthur Calwell noted that 

since the ALPs narrow defeat at the 1961 federal election his party had received

a lot of advice from new friends including that the party should sever, or at least 

loosen, our links with the trade union movement so that it could overcome the

claimed electoral negatives of its working class image. Calwell rejected that 

advice forcefully. But times have changed, and Calwells vision of modernity is

dust.

Union membership lingers at historic lows. Whats more, union membership is

increasingly concentrated in middle-class, university-educated workforces,

notably teachers and nurses. These unions are not affiliated with the ALP, and

their members do not want a close relationship with the ALP. The new ACTU

president, Ged Kearney, a career nurse, reflects these views when she advocates

a more independent relationship with the ALP Government. Many union officials

face the reality that their members are likely to vote against them if they are too

cosy with ALP Governments, particularly at state level. This scepticism is an

Accord legacy, but it is also a reflection of the changing face of unionism in this

country.

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Calwell could not envisage a world in which unions might act independently. In

the same book, he argued that a union movement that chose to end its

relationship with the ALP and opted instead to bargain between Labor and the

conservative parties on a level footing would destroy itself. Yet, this is the

position that unions find themselves increasingly adopting today. The prospect 

of a long-term conservative government in NSW leaves the unions representing

state employees with little choice.

The 1916 conscription debate brought sectarianism to the fore in Australian

politics. Labor added the Irish Catholic vote to its union constituency. For many

years the NSW ALP had a (predominantly) catholic Right faction in deadly

combat with a (predominantly) Left faction. But the days are long gone when

two working class boys from inner Sydney, Premier Cahill and Archbishop

Gilroy, could sit down and decide the future of the NSW ALP. The new Liberal

Premier of NSW, Barry OFarrell, is of Irish descent, and proudly so. The current 

ALP prime minister and her predecessor are protestants, the current Opposition

leader is a catholic.

Where to from here?

When the Accord collapsed in the early nineties, so did the prospect of social

democracy. Under intense political pressure, and weakened by declining union

densities, the Australian union movement turned from Sweden to the USA for

inspiration. Australian unions cherry-picked campaign ideas from their US

counterparts, while eschewing the pressure group model that characterizes the

relationship between American unions and the Democrat party. The culmination

of this approach was the ACTUs Your Rights at Work campaign (YR@W) against 

the Howard Governments anti-union Work Choices legislation, which helped

return the ALP to national Government.

Since the euphoria of the 2007 election victory, however, the relationship has

not been able to go forward. Union policy influence in the Rudd and Gillard

governments has been minimal, especially outside industrial relations. Unionists

often struggle to get a serious role in policy discussion, and they are frequently

spoken of, and treated like, any other interest group. There are no Keatings and

no Keltys this time around.

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The debate about union links with the ALP dates back to the earliest days of the

partys history and is linked to broader debates about the degree of control the

party organisation should exert over caucus, and the extent to which the ALP is

to be understood as a party established by unions to promote policies supported

by the union movement or is a broader socialist, progressive or centre-left party.

At first, to fight the 1891 NSW election, the NSW Labor Council established Labor

Electoral Leagues in each electorate open to anyone who shared the new partys

values and was willing to pay the 5s annual membership fee. The local leagues

(now called branches) pre-selected their own candidates. At the 1891 election

the new party won 35 in the Legislative Assembly, an outstanding result. The

new parliamentary party soon split on a protectionist issue. Led by Joseph Cook,

17 MPs supported the free trade cause and opposed a measure to implement 

new customs duties. In 1895, the partys central executive, effectively the NSW

Labor Council, sought to expel the free trade dissidents. Nevertheless, a handful

of local leagues continued to endorse the dissidents including Cook in his

constituency of Hartley, near Lithgow. In response, the central executive

required local pre-selections to be approved by itself and in return for this

reduction in their autonomy gave the local leagues the right to send delegates to

State Conference, and to submit policy motions for its consid eration.

This basic model, which encapsulates the formal links between unions and the

ALP, was followed by other states and has remained in place ever since. In 2003,

then federal ALP leader, Simon Crean, a former president of the ACTU, following

the recommendations of the Hawke-Wran review, secured agreement to a

consistent 50:50 split between branch and union delegates at state conferences.

The logic of a 50:50 split was to give effect of the notion of a partnership

between unions and the ALP branches, and diminish any electoral negativity

surrounding union control of the party, or undue influence over it. It damaged

Creans leadership.

The frozen nature of affiliation patterns means that the ALP has a relationship

with some unions, but not a formal, ongoing relationship with the ACTU. It is

halfway house, it excludes many unionists and it excludes many other non-union

groups.

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If the ALP and unions dont need each other so much anymore, and if they want 

to act more independently of each other, why are changes to affiliation resisted

so strongly?

The short answer is pre-selection for parliament. As a general rule, union

officials from affiliated unions, and from the ACTU, win ALP pre -selection.

Officials from unions not affiliated with the ALP are far less successful. For the

ALP to separate from its union base, a generation or two of powerful union

officials would have to vote against their own career prospects.

Nevertheless, the ALP could weaken the exclusivity of its internal links with

unions, allowing other social groupings to participate more fully. This could be

achieved, for instance, by introducing primaries. A move that would reflect the

reforms undertaken by the US Democrats in the 1970s, which reduced the back 

room influence of unions and opened up Democrat candidate races to a range of 

groups representing women, gays, African-americans, environmentalists and so

on. American unions still have a lot of clout with the Democrats, but space has

been opened up for a broader range of groups.

If the ALP and the unions continue to resist reform they will continue to cede

ground to the Greens, while to many swinging voters their obsession with formal

links and tight control over pre-selections will look increasingly odd.