“We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other and fight to defend our rights and liberties.”
The parallels between the oath taken by rebellious miners in 1854 and the solidarity required for successful organising explain trade unionists’ enthusiasm for the Eureka rebellion. They also explain the Australian Building and Construction Commission’s hostility to it – or, at least, to the famous Southern Cross flag.
In a new directive, the ABCC has launched a crackdown on the display in the construction industry of union logos and mottos, including “images generally attributed to, or associated with an organisation, such as the iconic symbol of the five white stars and white cross on the Eureka Stockade flag”.
For decades, culture warriors championed the Aussie battler against the politically correct left, which was, we were told, determined to muzzle the knockabout spirit of the blue collar larrikin.
The latest directive doubles down on the ABCC’s longstanding censorship campaign, implying that even a single union logo might breach the national construction code for companies contracted for commonwealth-funded building work.
The commission says the rules allow individual employees to join or not join a union without encountering triggering phrases like “100% union”, “no ticket, no start” or “no freeloaders”.
In other context, we’d describe that as the imposition of a “safe space” – precisely the kind of measure that usually induces foaming apoplexy from the culture warriors.
Why might conservatives be so keen to protect the delicate sensibilities of non-union workers from the suggestion that they shouldn’t freeload on their mates?
The answer is obvious to anyone who’s ever worked for a living.
The Turnbull government likes to pretend that each employee negotiates with his or her employer from a position of equality; that an individual worker and an individual boss nut out the wages and conditions on a particular job like two old chums having a pleasant chinwag before settling on terms to their mutual advantage.
In reality, a lone employee possesses almost no power at all, particularly when up against a multimillion dollar construction company.
Unionism means collectivism: the willingness of ordinary people to “stand truly by each other” as they jointly fight for outcomes that benefit them all. Every worker who doesn’t join accepts the improved wages and conditions won by the union without sharing in the sacrifices.
The crackdown on the Southern Cross is not merely a question of symbolism – it’s the latest installment in a campaign to rid the nation of trade unionism.
Early in 2017, the academic Andrew Stewart argued that Australian laws were “so restrictive on the right to strike that they are way out of step with the laws of just about every other developed country”.
The recent NSW rail dispute showed precisely what he meant. The Rail, Tram and Bus Union had carefully negotiated all the legal strictures that governed so-called “protected” industrial action, which can only take place after the expiration of a previous enterprise agreement, must be limited to a single enterprise, must be on behalf of workers’ own claims (rather than in support of others) and cannot involve pattern bargaining (say, to achieve a common result across a supply chain). The union had given the requisite notice; it had conducted a ballot in which members overwhelmingly voted to strike.
Despite all of that, the Fair Work Commission ordered unionists back to work, on the basis that a strike would “endanger the welfare of a part of the population” relying on public transport and “threaten […] to cause significant damage to the economy of Sydney”.
In other words, because the strike would have been effective, it became illegal.
In the wake of the rail dispute, the ACTU’s Sally McManus declared the right to strike in Australia “very nearly dead”.
The ABCC’s new directive underscores her point, illustrating how activities that generations of unionists would have taken for granted have now been criminalised. This, it should go without saying, is a disaster for the left – and for anyone who cares about social justice.
You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand why. Quite simply, power gives nothing away without a struggle. As the Australia Institute’s Jim Stanford recently told the ABC, “strikes have become almost non-existent in Australia’s economy.”
Without unions fighting at the workplace, record profits don’t trickle down – and so the richest 1% of Australians own more wealth than the bottom 70% of us combined.
But the war on unionism has consequences that extend beyond wages and conditions. Since the late 19th century, the trade unions have, without question, collectively formed the most significant social movement in Australian society – and as such they’ve been the bedrock of just about every campaign for civil liberties and democratic reforms. The fight against conscription; the struggle for Indigenous rights; the battle for equal pay for women; the movements against war; the anti-apartheid campaign; the solidarity campaigns with various anti-colonial causes: all of these rested, to a greater or lesser degree, on the infrastructure and social power of trade unionism, which itself depended, in the final instance, on the right to strike.
If we allow the destruction of our trade unions, we will lose much else besides.
Understandably, the ACTU is now lobbying for legislative reform, a campaign that implicitly rests on the election of the ALP. But there are good reasons for scepticism that a Shorten administration would turn the situation around, especially given the traditional hostility of Labor governments to industrial militancy.
In 2006, public anger at John Howard’s Work Choices helped bring Kevin Rudd to power. But when Rudd and Julia Gillard implemented the Fair Work Commission they retained many of the limitations on strike action – with the consequences we’re seeing now.
In any case, legislative reform, in and of itself, would not revive the unions.
The Australia Institute’s study chronicles an astonishing 97% decline in the frequency of disputes since the 1970s. The draconian anti-strike laws can thus be understood as a result of union weakness as much as a cause of it, with governments able to chip steadily away at industrial freedom, confident that the movement would not fight back.
That’s why it’s difficult to see the movement rebuilding without unions taking a stand on their own behalf. In the current climate, an open confrontation with the Turnbull government – up to and including civil disobedience – might well resonate within the working class and the broader community.
Let’s not forget the response to the rebellious miners of Eureka. When the stockade’s leading figures were brought for trial to Melbourne, the jury took only half an hour to find them not guilty of the treason charges they faced. A crowd of ten thousand heard the verdict – and then carried the rebel leaders through the streets of the city, glorying in their triumph.
A mass campaign for union rights would be neither easy or simple.
But, whatever the ABCC might think, many Australians still believe in standing together and fighting for liberty – and that’s a good starting point.