Greens determine Labor response
The Australian Greens will determine the ALP’s response to the Trade Union Royal Commission. If Labor cuts ties with the CFMEU, for example, the union would support the Greens against Labor. We know this because the Electrical Trades Union disaffiliated from Labor in 2010 and played a big part in winning the Melbourne seat for Adam Bandt, donating more than $500,000 to the Greens. Indeed, the ETU has gone quite ‘alternative’. The Victorian branch has ‘crowdfunded’ the ‘Earthworker Cooperative’ to install locally made solar hot water systems into low-income housing. Socialism and environmentalism in one fell swoop!
The Australian Greens have received significant donations in the past few years from the CFMEU, particularly in Victoria, from the CEPU, the AMWU and from the Maritime Union. The CEPU and CFMEU are named by the Commissioner; the ETU, AMWU and the MUA are not. These unions typically represent blue-collar workers, the old core of the Australian labour movement and the Party. What they have in common with the inner-city tertiary educated, white-collar, postmodern green voters is a complete mystery. Anthony Albanese, for example, is seeking to move from Grayndler to Barton following an electoral redistribution, which threatens to overwhelm his seat with Greens voters, despite the fact that Grayndler will have a safer margin than Barton against the Liberal party.
Labor will go to the next election opposing the recommendations of the TURC, the reinstatement of the Building and Construction Commissioner and a 50 per cent target for greenhouse gas reductions to save the likes of Albanese, Tanya Plibersek and others.
The workers, united, will never be defeated (repeat ad nauseum)
Commissioner Dyson Heydon did not mince his words: ‘At a blockade of a Grocon site by the CFMEU a driver of a minibus, who happened to be suffering from cancer, attempted to drive out of the blockaded area… CFMEU members surrounded his van, yelling abuse and punching the windscreen. One of them was John Setka, then Assistant State Secretary, who… punched the windscreen, and… shouted: “I hope you die of your cancer”. Is this in the great Keir Hardie traditions of fraternal solidarity in the face of monopoly capitalism?’
Especially when trade union officials colluded with capitalists, in particular – executives from or contractors to ‘Cbus, the Thiess Group, the John Holland Group, the ACI Group, Downer EDI Engineering Power Pty Ltd, Winslow Constructors Pty Ltd and the Mirvac Group.’ The time-honoured way to deal with a recalcitrant union official in the construction industry was to buy him a house. A union thug can disrupt a billion dollar project by sending in officials on the flimsiest of health and safety pretext. Bosses will continue to do deals, such as hiring union safety officers or paying for union memberships or the occasional beachside shack while ever it is the cheapest way to achieve industrial peace. The only other way to achieve industrial peace is to have recourse to an effective regulator. The legislation to re-establish the ABCC to ensure the rule of law is enforced in the building and construction industry has been sitting in the Parliament unable to pass for two years.The Bill demands a level of penalties that will act as a deterrent to unlawful behaviour and enables the Commissioner to compel witnesses to attend an examination or to produce documents, to break down the ‘culture of silence’ in the sector. These kinds of powers are also granted to a range of other Commonwealth regulatory bodies such as the ACCC, APRA, ASIC and the ATO.
Greens in blue collars
The Greens have been strong opponents of legislation to re-establish the ABCC. It is easy to understand Labor’s position, less so the Greens, unless and until you appreciate that Labor and the Greens are fighting over spoils of city seats and the balance of power.
Victorian Greens senator Janet Rice gave a spirited speech against the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Bill 2013.
‘Across Australia today, thousands of Australians took to the streets to protest the government’s attack on their wages and conditions. They are standing up for their rights at work, and the Greens are proud to stand with them.’ Stirring stuff from the former Ride to Work Coordinator of Bicycle Victoria.
Adam Bandt, the Greens member for Melbourne, formerly a partner at Slater and Gordon, knowing which side his bread is buttered, got stuck in. ‘This is not a government of liberals. This is a government of corporate shills who are willing to stand up and say whatever their mates on one side of the fence want them to.’
Dance to the death
Labor is in a dance to the death with the Greens for the hearts (if not the minds) of blue-collar trade union officials (if not workers). Even in its darkest periods of racism and tariff protection, the Labor Party has always had the interests of its, predominantly blue-collar, workers at heart.
In time, the Labor Party acted to lift workers’ eyes from these short-term ‘fixes’ to economic and social measures of considerable integrity. The Greens, on the other hand, have set out to destroy all blue-collar jobs, using university students, public servants and doctor’s wives as the electoral battering ram.
That some unions have supported the Greens is a fitting touchstone to the findings of the Royal Commission that too many trade unions leaders have sold workers’ interests to others.
