- The Guardian
- Issue #2109
Unions are in the news a lot lately. Our front page this week and last week details the ongoing campaign of demonisation against the very effective CFMEU. Governments are being urged to take anti-union action. There is also agitation to get unions out of their role in Industry Super, which consistently gets better results for members than private super.
Unions aren’t going away. Even in the midst of a massive campaign against the CFMEU, Nine journalist John Sylvester said “If the CFMEU’s job is to improve workers’ wages and conditions, it has done a good job.”
That is the CFMEU’s job. It seems to be succeeding.
Attacks on the CFMEU will spill over into attacks on every union so let’s get back to basics. Why unions? Why should we bother with them? Why not just go to work, get paid, enjoy the weekend?
Unions were formed at a time when none of those things could be taken for granted. The eight hour working day, the weekend, sick leave, above-starvation level pay, and other conditions we take for granted all had to be fought for.
If you’re reading this paper, you’ve probably heard about unions fighting for and winning the eight-hour day, sick leave, and so on. What a lot of people forget is that these good conditions do not keep themselves. They need to be enforced, and they need to be fought for constantly.
If you’re sceptical, just pay attention to what employer groups are saying. Groups like the Australian Industry Group and the Business Council of Australia never stop lobbying for lower wages, fewer conditions and less safety. They dress it up as “flexibility” or “productivity,” but what they’re always after is less for working people, more for employers.
On safety, the battle is far from over; people still die at work, and unions still need to fight hard for more safety.
Like all human institutions, unions aren’t perfect. They don’t always achieve what they’re after. Success is never guaranteed. That’s not because unions are a bad idea. Unions are a good idea because of what they are. A union is workers organising to protect their interests.
Employers, and governments never have workers’ interests at heart the way a union does, because employers and politicians aren’t workers themselves.
The other thing it’s really important to say about unions falling short of what a worker wants them to do is this: unions don’t operate in a vacuum. Working people in this country have faced a long-term and sustained campaign to weaken, demonise and handicap unions.
That campaign has operated in the form of propaganda – depicting all unionists as thugs and bludgers, and ignoring the very positive role unions have played in this country. See our articles on the CFMEU in this issue and the last for some positive news on what unions have done.
Governments have also worked hard to handicap unions; passing laws and regulations that make it extra difficult for unions to operate effectively.
In the midst of the recent barrage of CFMEU-demonisation, if you look closely at the supposed “chequered history” of CFMEU officials, a lot of the law-breaking amounts to doing the job of a union rep, and breaking laws that never should have existed in the first place. It should never be illegal for a union representative to enter a workplace to help workers. It should never be against the law to call a strike or a stopwork meeting.
It’s the duty of Communist Party of Australia members to join and be active in their unions.
Join your union. Ask how you can help. Find out how to be active in it. Find out about wider campaigns the union is involved in and get into those.
We have a lot of work to do.
