Newsletter No. 28
NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2005
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Who are Howard’s IR backers and how do we stop them? Are Australia’s new industrial relations laws really ‘everything to do with the prejudices one politician formed in the last quarter of the last century’ (K Beazley, Hansard 3.11.05 p3). John Howard himself might even believe this, but the truth is big business writes his scripts. Behind Howard’s IR policy is more than a decade of close liaison between Liberal ministers and national business organisations (‘Last push..’ SMH 15.10.05). Government echoes business with claims that an ‘emphasis on fairness only leads to regulatory excess and inefficiency’ (Business Council of Australia, AFR 16.2.05; IR Minister Andrews, 25.2.05). Far from getting ahead of big business, Howard’s laws are just a step toward fully implementing its agenda: an opportunity business is eager to exploit. Business groups ‘welcomed’ the release of the Howard IR policy, though the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Business Council of Australia ‘wanted the changes to go further in deregulating industrial relations… (claiming) there would still be excessive regulation... as the government replaced a regulated arbitration system with a regulated bargaining system and a legislated safety net of minimum wages & conditions’ (‘Howard toughens IR plan’ AFR 10.10.05). These demands are part of a global business agenda: for example, Forbes magazine argues unions impede market efficiency and workers should compete, not combine. It opposes laws that restrict work hours or protect minimum conditions, like over-time or paid holidays. The government endlessly proclaims the new IR laws will create a ‘stronger economy, more jobs, higher pay’. Of course the most direct way to do this is to invest in an educated, skilled workforce and appropriate infrastructure and services — all requiring a strong public presence in the economy; and to progressively reduce standard work hours so the benefits of the resulting productivity growth are shared broadly and equitably across the workforce. However, this is exactly what the ruling interests want to avoid at all costs and what Howard’s laws set out to stop, because it would redistribute wealth and power more closely into workers’ hands; and undercut the very process of exploitation and expropriation that is the state enforced basis of capital’s power and existence. Big business’s strength is not that it can establish a government or pass laws of any kind at any time it wishes; but that it can force every government to serve it; or as each system of domination decays, possibly substitute another system better suited to changed conditions. Yet the passage from one system to another also signifies a political crisis where the working class can challenge corporate control of social direction. To argue the new industrial relations policy is merely a ‘personal ideological fixation’ ill-prepares workers to resist what is shaping up to be a shift from social democracy to an authoritarian state able to serve a capitalist class needing more extreme measures to retain control. It also helps a ‘loyal’ opposition divert attention from its need to cosy up to the same class to get its go at administering capitalism. Workers instinctively know it is the bosses as a class, not the government that is the instigator of the new regime, because it is in the workplace they confront the enormity of its injustices. Howard tries to pretend his policy mainly aims to help small business, for example, with unfair dismissal laws — even as ‘the continuing weaknesses of legislative and regulatory structures and the apparently significant lobbying power of corporate business’ (E Jones U Syd 2005) increasingly exploit and ruin small-medium enterprises. Eighty per cent of businesses, overwhelmingly small-medium enterprises, think the new IR regime will make little difference to them (‘Businesses don’t buy IR hype..’ AFR 12.7.05) It is the corporate sector that has pressed for a national IR system, fewer awards and protected conditions, individual contracts and a crack down on union influence, because they most directly benefit from these changes. Firms like QANTAS, Leightons & Rio Tinto are straining at the leash. With their global connections and strategic capabilities they are also most aware of the growing crises — generated by their own competition, the need for resource security and the impact of their exploitation — that will require them to suppress the ‘proletariat’. Howard is an ‘establishment’ politician: big business’s watch and attack dog, who keeps the middle classes attached to the ruling order, while marginalising, suppressing and atomising labour. A part of his task is to change the composition of the workforce so a layer of enterprise workers — ‘providers of personalised services... independent contractors, franchisees or consultants’ (AFR 12.7.05) — form a bulwark against organised labour. When a downturn inevitably squeezes them, their resentment can be turned against labour, risking their mobilisation as fascist gangs if labour — or the left — appears too strong. The ‘working and popular masses’ must be just as determined to resist this shift to a police state to suppress labour’s independent organisation, as the capitalists are to achieve it, to retain the power to exploit and expropriate on which they depend. To win, workers and their allies must take on not only the government, but the class that rules through it and the system through which it operates. This, in the end, requires global effort, but also needs immediate and continuing action. Labour has to show leadership to the middle layers by courageous resistance and by putting forward a positive, inclusive vision for humanity’s future. A progressive reduction of work hours should be a centrepiece of a package of enlightened labour laws that restructure our work time and empower our lives — moving us towards a society based on cooperation, rather than exploitation: one focused on participation and ‘re-creation’ rather than wasteful consumerism and self-centredness. In the course of this resistance it may start to dawn on the whole world, as is happening in places like Argentina and Venezuela — that the capitalist class is not actually necessary: that workers can manage and capitalism must no longer hold hostage humanity’s future. The current campaign and options The Australian Council of Trade Unions aims to stir widespread revulsion to the IR legislation so the government is defeated next election and the laws repealed. Its media campaign — mainly TV, has so far been more effective than the government/business propaganda and it has mobilised nationally. Once the IR is law the ACTU will, till next election, ‘hold government accountable’, highlighting the impact of the law in operation. It will also use its 2006 Congress to articulate an alternative vision and use this to influence ‘progressive’ parties’ policies. This aims to be broader than just IR policy — it is to also build ‘a movement for change ... a movement for democratic rights … a broad coalition of people committed to a better future’ (G Combet 15.11.05). A ‘community activists’ network’ is developing, but needs to go beyond the scale of a ‘pilot’ phase in mainly marginal seats. It should crystallise widespread revolt against the government’s anti-democratic drift, and expose and resist its laws at local level throughout the country. If resistance to the laws escalates it could easily outstrip an electoral focus. Industrial action could render the Howard government incapable of governing. The labour movement — the organisations of labour — leading a broad democratic front, could maximise the change it brings about — much more than an ALP used to compromise could otherwise promise. |