SolidarityEconomy.net

Max Ogden, SolidarityEconomy.net

January 16, 2007, Australia

With acknowledgements for helpful comments – Dave Davies, Dave Feickert, and Greg Pettiona

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has led a very fine campaign against the reactionary industrial relations legislation and is winning the public debate. However in the long term the union movement needs to add another important dimension to its strategy, if it is not only to regain and increase membership and the critical role that a democratic union movement should have in Australian workplaces and society generally, but also become an important and publicly recognised force for improved productivity, sustainability, skills and jobs.

Union membership is down to 24% density overall and only 17% in the private sector, (some suggest it is lower), although there has been a small upturn during the last couple of years. This is one of the most dramatic falls of any country in the OECD as it has come off a comparatively high base of in excess of 60% in about thirty years, and most of the loss was happening before the Howard government came to power. Polling and research suggests that 40% of unionists voted for Howard at the last election. This is not a good record.

The strategy I am suggesting, of unions becoming a force for improved productivity, is very difficult and the problems should not be underestimated in the current political and cultural climate. Only the union movement in the long run is responsible for its own success or failure as no one else will do the job for it, although an Australian Labor Party (ALP) government will be of great assistance. The union movement must, even in these very difficult circumstances implement its own independent strategy immediately, and not simply rely on the re-election of the ALP, while in an election year that must be the central objective.

The strategy suggests building on the important and growing alliance of progressive forces who see the rights and importance of the union movement as critical to their own democratic rights, and for achieving their particular progressive aims, by bringing into dialogue whenever and wherever possible, those employers who have an interest in maintaining a constructive relationship with their unions.

Are Howard’s Laws More Productive?

The arguments used by the Howard Government for its Industrial Relations (IR) laws are that more jobs will be created, and productivity will improve. In fact we know that this will not happen. When New Zealand had similar but less extreme laws as Australia from ’91-’99, the “Employments Contract Act”, they dropped from third in the OECD for productivity improvements to twenty fourth. During that period Australia still had a collective approach to industrial relations, and had a much better productivity record. And if any jobs are created by the new laws, and that is very doubtful, they will be at the low end.

The union movement is correctly concentrating on the unfairness of the laws and for the restoration of democratic union rights. However the unions also need to present themselves as an important component of improved business performance through vigorous bargaining about management within enterprise and industry agreements. But it should not be through passive partnerships which leave management in control and receiving the benefits of improved performance.

Critical Role of Labour Process

I would like first to focus some attention on the labour process. The process of how a product or service is created, is still the key to the making of profit/surplus, of those who actually carry out the work. Adam Smith in the late 18th century, was first to focus on how productivity could be greatly enhanced by breaking down the production process into very small components, so instead of one person making a whole product, many workers would each do a very small part and pass it on to the next person, thus producing vastly more product, with lesser skills at significantly lower costs.

During the 19th century, Babbage, often referred to as the father of computing, and particularly Frederick Taylor developed these ideas further, with Taylor drawing up his code of Scientific Management which divided tasks to the absolute minimum so that low skilled people could be employed. This laid the basis for the low cost, high volume, mass production techniques so exploited by Henry Ford, and all subsequent production of consumer goods and also clerical work. To this day, even in so called knowledge industries, the influence of Taylor can still be seen as his system was not only about cheaper production, but was essentially about management extending maximum control of the labour process. Marx got to the essence of how the labour process, controlled exclusively by the employer, was not only the source of producing surplus value, but also the source of the deep alienation most employees experience. This is not only about the employee having no ownership of the product/service they produce, but also the frustration of the debilitating work process at the bottom of an hierarchical structure, with very little room for using one’s intelligence and innovative abilities, and in most cases results in tyrannical management systems, which are now exacerbated with the Work Choices legislation.

The limitation of most union movements over the last century and a half has been to deal only with the symptoms of exploitation and alienation through improved wages, conditions, and sometimes but rarely taking on extremely bad management systems. This is not to suggest that these achievements have not been significant, but they rarely tackle the underlying alienation. Marx recognised this limitation of unions fairly early. The problem in recognising this limitation was that the labour movement in its left formations such as Communist parties and some social democratic parties, leapt to the conclusion that only a change to social ownership could deal with this fundamental problem.

Social Ownership Does Not Change the Labour Process

We learnt the hard way that social ownership as it was practiced in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe had little or no impact on alienation or improved productivity and was often worse, especially as they embraced Taylorism in a militarised form. The wide experience of government ownership and public service employment in the western world also demonstrated that this form of ownership and employment had little impact on the alienation and often poor health that employees experienced and huge bureaucracies, which are created by the infinite division of labour, made it worse. No matter under what form of ownership, the fundamental problem is the debilitating work system and resultant hierarchical structure.

I know from my experience as a fitter, shop steward, union official of nearly thirty years, numerous seminars and discussions with members and activists, a great deal of reading and international experience, that there is a deep well of resentment, and enormous potential support for the union movement, if they develop a strategy to bring workers alienation into the open and make it an integral element of the bargaining process.

This is not about quality of working life or job satisfaction strategies practiced by many employers and human resource managers over the last thirty years. These initiatives usually created more cynicism as they are superficial and designed to leave all the processes and management in control, so unions require a strategy that goes much deeper.

Even the work of the Scandinavian unions in pursuing quality of working life strategies in the eighties, which was very helpful and led the way, still often missed the point that dealing with inefficiencies is really what gets workers interested in change. In a recent discussion, a Norwegian colleague with very long experience of such work, agreed with that view.

Employees Dislike Inefficient Workplaces

When workers set out for work each day they probably, unconsciously have the following in mind as to their workday:

Get home in one piece.
Do something worth while for the community, and be recognised for it.
Do something interesting and challenging.
Produce a worthwhile product or service.
Do the work effectively and efficiently. (Effective means that a result is achieved; efficient means that it is achieved with minimum input and waste.)
In the process, learn something, improve skills and have the possibility of going on to more skilled work.
Work in a congenial atmosphere where friends are made.

What gets employees enthusiastic to improve and change work systems is not a superficial quality-of-working life project or win/win, (not that they can’t be helpful), but doing something about the inefficiency and waste which they experience every day. Most workers don’t like working in wasteful and inefficient workplaces, particularly when they can usually see how things could be made much better, but are never asked. This goes for white, blue collar and knowledge workers, as most businesses are nowhere near as productive as they could be.

However once employees have the freedom to make improvements which inevitably means working differently e.g in teams, more decision making, less demarcation, requiring new skills and responsibilities, etc., thats when they experience more challenging and interesting work. In other words we don’t develop quality of working life as an empty thing in itself, but start with the purpose of making the workplace more productive, and quality of working life takes on a new meaning and employees, once started, won’t give that up without a fight.

Managing is Too Important to be Left Only to Managers

In a large New Zealand dairy company there has been a program for several years which the union initiated, to implement a management improvement system known as TRACC to improve productive performance. The union supported TRACC or as it is known in that company Manufacturing Excellence (ME) because it is a genuine process for business improvement. It begins at the shopfloor where the employees virtually from day one are trained to understand the underpinning concepts of productivity (such as the importance of teamwork and leading and managing change) as well as being trained in the technical aspects of productivity measurement and methodologies. Employees increasingly take responsibility for saving time, waste, controlling quality, innovating new processes and even products from material previously wasted. As a result, there is a change in the role of middle managers; they have a coaching role that makes them more visible and accountable as part of the work team, and the employees become more skilled with important responsibilities, and they like it.

About 12 months ago the company indicated that taken together four of their plants had savings over five years of $100 mill., much of it resulting from less down time and far more product coming through to the market, from the same inputs. There was no loss of jobs in the areas where ME was operating, but as a result of increased efficiency and productivity, and higher quality in certain product lines, this put pressure on other parts of the organisation, for example, logistics and sales operations to respond.

On top of their bargained wage increase the employees received a bonus for this improvement. Management, after a recent international study tour, announced that they intended to keep working constructively with their unions because they found in their study that workplaces with such a constructive relationship were more productive. The Company at the Executive level now understands the importance of working with the unions instead of, as some middle managers had attempted, bypassing the them.

Another NZ manufacturing plant which had never made a profit, was turned around using the same system and resulted in the employees receiving $6,000 each in bonus, again with no job loss.

In the dairy example where the union density is 98%, a discussion at the national level in mid-’06, of shop stewards involved with the program, had a comment from one, and endorsed by the others to the effect that, “there would be a riot in my plant if either the union or management were to withdraw ME, we would never again co-operate to improve performance”. In a survey conducted by Michael Law of Waikato University among the union members about ME, there were generally positive responses about the impact on their jobs, while also indicating weaknesses and criticisms. However in response to the question : “In general do you agree that unions should be involved in promoting High Performance Work Systems such as ME?” 70.7% agreed or strongly agreed. This alone suggests a crucial element for a union strategy of relevance.

In David Peetz’s recent book, “Brave New Workplace” he quotes from a study within a large Australian bank which examined “duel commitment,” i.e. union members having both a commitment to their union and the performance of the company, and the authors concluded:

“The findings of this study are quite clear. Bank branch performance was clearly higher when employees displayed loyalty to their union, were satisfied with its performance and believed that the industrial relations climate between the two parties was trustful and co-operative. A collective work orientation was also associated with better performance outcomes”. It will not surprise to hear that this company continues to work constructively with their unions, and is not interested in the Work Choices legislation.

Also From David Peetz’s book : “surveys show unionists simultaneously want unions to cooperate with management and (even more strongly) want management to cooperate with unions, while demanding (more strongly again) that unions vigorously stand up for the interest of members when they are threatened. Indeed it may seem paradoxical, but union members are more willing to go into conflict with the employer when members perceive their union to have been cooperative”.

Collective Bargaining/Unions & Productivity

There has been a fair amount of research about the links between unions/collective bargaining and productivity some of which is quoted in Peetz’s book., the World Bank, Black and Lynch in the US, et. el.. In general the conclusions suggest that there is little evidence that unions/collective bargaining per se are an impediment to business performance. Even research commissioned by the Business Council of Australia, mentioned by Peetz, designed to show that individual contracts and less union intervention will improve productivity, could not prove the point.

What does come through, such as in the World Bank study into collective bargaining, is that it is more equitable which would be expected, and on balance probably assists productivity. The Lynch and Black studies show that where a management is introducing a process for improving performance e.g. TRACC, and the employees are unionised, the improvement will be significantly better than when they are not unionised.

This is not saying that all unionised workplaces are more efficient than non-union workplaces. Black and Lynch show that where a management has no effective plans for change such as for example introducing a TRACC process or are incompetent and the place is unionised, the likelihood is that productive performance will fall.

The responsibility for improved performance rests with management, but if they are competent and visionary they will realise that having a unionised workforce has considerable potential, and some employers, especially a few larger ones, acknowledge this and work constructively with their unions.

Unfortunately the leaders of most Australian employer organisations, many of whom have never managed anything, are ideologically driven to deny the considerable amount of research demonstrating the positive role unions can play.

If unions have a potential positive effect as passive participants, if they were to pro-actively bargain and even take the initiative about business performance such as is happening in some workplaces in New Zealand, mobilise the knowledge and commitment of their shop stewards, officials and members, the union impact would be much greater.

By the union setting out to make itself indispensable to the success of the business, and taking their strategy beyond bargaining about traditional wages and conditions, it opens another important way to generate membership support and potentially new members.

A very important lesson from the recent New Zealand experiences and those in Australia in the nineties when there had been some collaboration between employers and unions to improve performance, is that the unions must have their own clear and independent strategy for bargaining about workplace and industry performance. Without that it will not only not be successful for improving performance, but the unions and their members will lose out.

Boxing and Dancing

This is not simply a process of partnership, but one of arms length bargaining precisely as unions do with regard to wages and conditions. However the unions must have their own set of objectives e.g. their own principals as to better work systems for their members, high skills, better occupational health and safety (OH&S), job security, stronger union organisation and more members etc.. We constantly hear of trust being needed to achieve significant workplace change and business improvement, but that is putting the cart before the horse. Trust will only emerge when there are genuine negotiations and the proper implementation of the agreement. This rarely happened in the nineties so very little changed, except that the employer decided what was in their best interest. In retrospect the lack of a clear union strategy undermined the union’s role and tended to make many members cynical about the exercise.

The process is best described in a recent book from Europe, “Strategic Unionism and Partnership”, as one of Boxing and Dancing. That is unions continue to bargain with employers as always, and at times they dance (cooperate with employers to improve business performance), and at other times they will box in the traditional way when necessary to take industrial action to protect and advance their interests. The important point about boxing and dancing is that boxing is recognised as a legitimate element of employer/union relationships and it will occur from time to time, but that should not stand in the way of resuming the dancing mode.

In a quote from the book by the President of the Swedish Metal Workers Union he said, “Sometimes it’s a dance, sometimes its boxing. We also have a referee when we box in the form of the [agreement] rules. We have also talked about how big the ring should be, how many rounds there should be, and what one should hit and shouldn’t hit”. Although both boxing and dancing existed previously, their nature had changed … “If you take the old dance floor – we both boxed and danced. But one danced sometimes after one boxed, in order that boxing matches weren’t too long … now its about 90% dancing and 10% boxing. With three year deals they’re very short boxing matches …But its bloody important that we don’t stop boxing .. we wouldn’t get any legitimacy for the Industry Agreement if it wasn’t clear that we can also take industrial action.”

New Zealand Unions Seek New Directions

Arising from the experience of TRACC in the dairy industry and other businesses, the New Zealand union movement through the NZ Council of Trade Unions (NZCTU) is developing strategies and activity to give the unions a higher profile in relation to business performance, under the rubric: Unions and High Performance Work Systems (HPWS).

In partnership with the NZ Government, the NZCTU and with support from some employers is currently taking 3,600 shop stewards through training to help them understand productivity and HPWS, and begin to equip them to bargain at the enterprise level about business performance. The early reports of the training suggest that the participants are not only very interested in productivity, but want to do something about it when they return to their workplace.

A couple of unions are preparing a folder of material for use by officials and shop stewards titled “Unions and High Performance Work Systems” which sets out union principals for workplace change, steps for consulting their members, identifying impediments to efficiency, and how they might bargain about these.

The union movement is developing its own agenda for business improvement and not simply relying on the employer.

Occupational Health and Safety

Another very important reason for unions to intervene in the management designed labour process is occupational health. An extract from an article by Peter Botsman In Australian Prospect of ’05 referring to the work of Michael Marmot sums it up rather well; “Organisations that make you sick have always existed, but the mass pathology associated with work and organisation is a new discovery. In a twenty five year long research project that began with a study of health and longevity among Whitehall public servants, Michael Marmot found that autonomy, security, the amount of control that people have over their lives, and above all, place in the organisation hierarchy, are critical factors in the prevalence of ill health. (Marmot ’04) Marmot’s original study found, contrary to expectations, that “it was not the case that people in high stress jobs had a higher risk of heart attack, rather it went exactly the other way: people at the bottom of the hierarchy had a higher risk of heart attacks” (Marmot ’02). In extending his original findings Marmot found that the lower the place in the public servant hierarchy, the higher the risk of all major causes of death.

The Whitehall study found that amongst male British civil servants, all in stable employment, none in poverty, there was nonetheless a gradient of mortality. “Each grade in the civil service has higher mortality than the one above it” (Marmot ’99)

In his further examinations of the public health implications of this work, Marmot finds that across all western countries a similar gradient of ill health occurs. In the US for example, people in the lowest income category had 3.9 times the risk of dying than people in the highest income category”.

Marmot argues that “The work environment, particularly the lack of control over the work environment, was an important predictor of coronary heart disease. These findings were replicated in a variety of different national settings. The data was so robust that Marmot concluded: “Where do we find the health gradient? Pretty well everywhere”. (Marmot ’04)

This understanding of the health impact of the way work is organised which is not usually obvious, (we normally look for the obvious causes of accidents or disease) provides a further compelling argument for unions to intervene in the way work is organised and managed. It also means unions should insist that work and these background causes, be required as part of a doctor’s examination of an employee’s health.

Union Ambivalence about Productivity Role

Unfortunately many unions and especially a lot of union officials are ambivalent about the union impact on business performance. There are those argue the class struggle theory and say that it is not the unions job to help the employer run their business because there is a fundamental conflict between employees and employers. Nevertheless even with such a conflict, their members don’t necessarily see it that way, and anyway as shown by Peetz, would appreciate the opportunity to play a significant role in improving performance.

In numerous seminars in which I have been involved where these issues were discussed the shop stewards rarely saw inefficiencies as a class or systemic issue, but the cause was incompetence of their particular management, and that management down the road at another workplace would have to be better. This even led to discussions where the participants argued that no place could have a management as bad as their particular one. On one occasion in a shop stewards seminar in the USA, the participants argued that US managers had to be the worst in the world!

It is important that union training in Australia should include sessions/material for union officials especially, but also shop stewards to understand key elements of what makes businesses more productive. This will equip them even in today’s very difficult climate, with some knowledge and skills to bargain with management when companies get into difficulties due to poor management, so that they don’t only bargain about redundancy pay, but can in some detail talk about how the business might become efficient enough to maintain most if not all the jobs which would otherwise be lost.

Traditional Class Struggle?

Nowadays there has to be serious question mark over class struggle as the basis for mobilising workers, as there is little sign of it among workers. In Australia at the moment there is a vicious class attack by most employers, particularly employer organisations and the Federal Government on workers, especially the lower paid, but there is little evidence that this is being reciprocated by a class response from workers. It is estimated that 40% of unionists voted for the Howard Government at the last election which hardly suggests an understanding of class struggle. Class struggle assumes there are two classes in combat and that currently does not exist, nor has it in Australia at least for a couple of generations. We must not mistake the very good campaign conducted by the unions in opposition to the Work Choices legislation as class struggle, as it is only mobilising a small percentage of workers, despite the polls continuing to show strong public opposition to the IR laws.

There are still union officials and activists who take an uncompromising approach that see all employers as the enemy. A laudable objective if the rest of their members agreed with them, but the overwhelming majority don’t see it that way. The theory being that by bringing workers into militant struggle they will learn that dealing only with their employer and around local issues such as wages & conditions is very limited, and only by them taking power will they achieve some sense of power and democracy.

The overwhelming percentage of workers do not see themselves as being in a class struggle, nor even hating their employer when at times it would be well justified, nor do many see themselves as working class, and only a very small percentage have ever experienced industrial action. In other words while there is objectively a class struggle with the ruling class attacking workers as possibly never before since Federation, there is no subjective recognition of this fact from the overwhelming majority of workers, and to have a class struggle it would seem necessary for that to be the case.

The book by Prof. Walter Korpi “The Democratic Class Struggle” in the mid-eighties, raised a lot of interesting thoughts about class struggle in the era of globalisation. Korpi argued that modern class struggle now had to have the strengthening of workplace democracy at its core, and that traditional militant action did not necessarily indicate a higher level of class/political consciousness nor sustained gains.

He pointed out that while countries such as Italy, USA, and Australia had far more strike activity than Sweden, in terms of sustained gains in wages, working conditions, and particularly welfare provisions for protecting the unemployed and the less well off, the Swedes had done much better. While the Swedish labour movement had much less strike activity, their threat of industrial action had been far more important than its actual use. This is because over the years when push came to shove the Swedish union movement has been able to deliver. For example it called the most widespread general strike ever in any country, in the early eighties, which leaves a long memory, so when they threaten action, the employers and governments know very well it can be delivered.

Prof. Korpi argued that class struggle should be manifested in democratising the workplace through what he termed “power resources”. Each time workers/their union increase their power vis a vis the employer/industry such as establishing a union presence and organisation, potential for industrial action both as threats and carried out, rights to a major say in occupational health and safety, consultative mechanisms such as works councils, access to information or participating in company decisions, new work systems which increase worker prerogatives, increased skills, bargaining for improved business performance, etc., they improve their power resources. Each power resource achieved provides the springboard for the next.

This does not suggest that it is a linear process with no setbacks. Clearly in the Australia of 2007 a number of power resources have been lost and will need to be fought for to re-establish again with a view to them being sustained in whichever economic/political climate. However the idea of building on each gain as a logical step to the next helps to provide a longer term and clearer labour movement strategy, and also sees class struggle in another way, better suited to the modern, globalised world.

Contingent Workers and the Role of Workplace Change

A difficult problem for many union movements is the increased numbers of contingent workers, especially in Australia where it is said to be at least 25% of all employees. Organising people with a portfolio of jobs is a challenge requiring new methods some of which are already in place. The strategy suggested here of tackling management about high performance work and management systems could be helpful.

One important feature of high performance work systems is that once a company is moving down that road — requiring sophisticated work and management systems, higher skills, greater employee responsibility — is that such a system operates much better with a stable workforce. The constant chopping and changing of a temporary workforce is at odds with a modern high performance work system, as these require skilled, committed, flexible employees with an ever deeper knowledge of their workplace.

Therefore unions, by pursuing a strategy of high performance and tackling management about their inefficiencies, begins to demonstrate that short term, low cost employment policies undermine their business performance.

Community Unionism is not an Answer in Itself

As unions worldwide experience decline, there is a tendency to look for quick and simple solutions and there aren’t any. One of these is so-called community unionism, i.e. involving local communities in identifying common goals and joining in organising drives.

This is not to suggest that community support and working with communities is not important, or that unions don’t need their critical support at times. However we need to understand that unions are uniquely about work, the workplace and industry, and that is their priority and starting point, and any strategy for renewal and growth must keep that front and centre.

To be effective, links with the community and other coalitions must be based on the concrete interest of the union members, and not some amorphous idea of common interest.

For example in the early nineties the food processing unions through the ACTU developed a comprehensive union workplace and industry strategy with the objective of making the industry globally competitive through new work systems, higher skills, better management, new government initiatives, etc. This logically led into a constructive dialogue with the farmers through the National Farmers’ Federation (NFF) (prior to the Howard Govt.) because both parties realised that there was mutual benefit in such a high quality industry. It also led to constructive relations with the Australian Consumers Association (ACA) around the issues of healthy and good quality food and proper labelling. The unions had useful discussions with the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) around the issue of how the union strategy for a high quality food processing industry should also contribute less waste and environmental damage. Finally it was also the basis for a constructive dialogue with the large food processing companies, who felt obliged to discuss a comprehensive, and strategic plan for their industry coming from the unusual source of their unions.

The point about this example is that the unions engaged the wider community and especially strategic allies, not in some abstract way, but based on the logical relationship of how these allies and community groups could work together to improve the workplace and industry, to the benefit of consumers and the wider society.

Superannuation and Investment Funds

There is an irony in the current attack by employers against unions, in that a significant percentage of the investment funds which fuel their businesses is actually workers’ money through their superannuation contributions. Attempts are slowly being made both in Australia and internationally to influence boards of trustees, and particularly employer representatives to understand the kinds of investment and management systems which will not only provide better business performance, but have a greater likelihood of sustaining the business over a longer period. However it is a long and difficult process.

Institutional funds have traditionally been very reluctant to intervene at the board, or even the annual general meeting, preferring to leave the business strategy and day-to-day management to the so-called experts. Recently we have witnessed some increased institutional investor activism regarding corporate governance, board and CEO remuneration, and internationally in a couple of cases to influence companies to treat their employees and local communities better, with some small success.

The most offensive investors are the private equity funds, described by one writer as the “barbarians at the gate”, whose purpose is to take a successful company into private ownership, squeeze every possible dollar out of it through sackings, speed ups, slashing of wages and conditions, breaking up the company, and then selling off the pieces at a short term profit, often destroying the business in the process. This is precisely what is happening to Qantas Airways at the moment, where we are likely to see the destruction of significant value and jobs, and possibly the demise of the company, so a very small handful of people make a huge profit and move on. One writer in the business pages has already warned the unions of what might happen.

Part of the tragedy is that institutional investors such as some industry superannuation funds are likely to be involved. If the union movement is to embrace a strategy which involves them as an integral element of wealth creation and value adding, it will be very important that it is a holistic strategy, which includes a planned and systematic approach to institutional investors, especially industry superannuation funds. It will be critical to have them understand what kind of management delivers the best results, and that the unions will be playing a constructive role.

It is imperative that if the suggested strategy is to succeed, unions establish some legitimate influence with investment decisions using their member’s money, otherwise the best changes at the workplace level will be easily destroyed by decisions taken in investment board rooms.

National Climate for Constructive Engagement?

Having raised some thoughts which involve a more constructive engagement between the union movement and employers, we need to explore whether and how that maybe possible. The appropriate climate certainly doesn’t exist in Australia at the moment.

A scan of international experience suggests that such constructive engagement is far more possible when government and labour laws provide an encouraging climate for it. The traditional culture in Scandinavia for example has meant that even when social democratic governments have been defeated such as in Sweden recently, the culture of constructive engagement is strong enough to withstand such change, with some different tactics and with more difficulty. The same goes for much of Western Europe. Interestingly the same can be said about some states in the USA where, despite vicious attacks on the union movement at the Federal level, a number of states with more progressive governors have been important in facilitating constructive engagement between unions and employers.

In Ireland there has been a tri-partite agreement between the government, employers, unions, and now involving many other signatories, negotiated every three years since ’87 which has been the key to the spectacular improvement in Ireland’s economy and living standards, and provides the culture for constructive engagement between the social partners, as they are widely known in Europe.

Since ’99 the New Zealand Labor Government has provided a far better climate for constructive engagement, but it hasn’t happened without a lot of effort, as the unions have had to work through new strategies, especially arising from the attacks on them in the nineties by the National Government and the Business Roundtable. While the unions have survived despite losing about 60% of their membership and are now slowly growing, they are only slowly making up the 33% loss of wages among the lower paid which resulted from those attacks. Learning from those lessons they are positioning themselves to play an important role in New Zealand’s economy, and productivity through a pro-active role towards a high road economy – in sharp contrast to the nineties – and virtually forcing employer organisations to take notice of them, and even reluctantly engaging in dialogue about a high road economy.

Can This Happen in Australia?

While we have just about the worst of all climates at the moment with IR laws which can only be described as neo fascist, every opportunity needs to be opened up for constructive dialogue with the better employers to discuss a range of issues, but especially that of a high road economy.

Some things are going well such as the National Manufacturing Forum initiated by all Labor states with the ACTU playing a major role along with some employers, which is about pursuing a high road economy. This initiative needs to inform a more comprehensive strategy so that it is only the beginning of a much wider dialogue.

The union movement needs to grab every opportunity to engage employers in a constructive dialogue about the future, economy, productivity with the long term objective of maybe a more substantial agreement, when we have a government that will commit to such objectives. In other words we need to be putting that in place as much as we can right now, and not wait until a Labor Government is next elected.

With every employer who is prepared to engage constructively with their unions despite the new IR laws, (often under significant pressure from the Howard Government to reject their unions), attempts should be made to engage them in a wider dialogue about the future of Australia, about how constructive engagement seems in most countries to be superior in delivering more productive outcomes and living standards, and the kind of productive and equitable society the union movement is committed to.

Summing Up

The union movement through the ACTU is conducting an excellent campaign against the Howard IR laws focusing on fairness and union and workplace rights.

A further element needs to be added to the campaign to challenge the Howard claim that their laws will lead to higher productivity – that of positioning the unions as an important force for a high road economy, and better productive performance through High Performance Work Systems.

To do this the unions must have their own independent strategy for productive improvement and what they mean by High Performance Work Systems.

The strategy of pursuing High Performance Work Systems adds another component in organising especially with contingent workers.

Unions need to pay more attention to the micro labour process of the way work is performed.

Employees/Union members are interested in, and prepared to work towards, improving productive performance to deal with the inefficient and frustrating management systems they work in, as the first step to more interesting and higher skilled work which logically follows in order to be successful.

Workplace change must be a bargaining process and not some amorphous partnership where the employer holds most of the cards.

Union training must include some segments/materials to equip officials and shop stewards with an understanding of the key elements of what makes businesses productive.

Traditional class struggle theories need to be modified to be seen as democratising the workplace and increasing workers’ power in their place of work and industry.

Unions need to position themselves as an indispensable element of a business’s success.

The process can be defined as Boxing and Dancing where traditional industrial action is used where necessary, as well as constructive dialogue about company performance, and not one or the other.

Community unionism is unlikely to be very helpful to rebuilding the union movement unless it is closely linked to union objectives for work, the workplace, and industry, which is the unique role of a union.

The strategy must be holistic in that there are many components, and the role of investment funds, especially the industry superannuation fundsm, over time will need to be brought into the loop to play a progressive role.

The whole union movement needs right now to develop and grab every opportunity to engage the better employers in constructive dialogue about a more productive and equitable Australia, with a view to a more comprehensive agreement leading up to or during the rule of a Labor Government.