Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had outlined the package to
the National Press Club on July 11, in a speech titled: “The Australian
Economy in Transition: Building a New National Competitiveness Agenda.”
The main thrust of this agenda is a package of reforms to boost
productivity and international competitiveness to be delivered by a
co-operative trade union movement.
Under the 1980s’ Accord the trade union movement
agreed to co-operate with employers, restrain wages and make no extra
claims on employers. In return the government promised certain reforms,
including Medibank, tax indexation, a (toothless) Price Surveillance
Authority and the regular indexation of wages in line with price rises.
The theory was: wage restraint would result in
higher profits, leading to new investments followed by the creation of
more jobs. In practice, real wages fell and profits rose, while much of
the new investment went into job-replacing technology or offshore.
Full wage indexation did not last and trade unions
began the process of trading off working conditions in return for wage
rises – the aim being to fund wage rises out of productivity increases.
In fact employers often increased profits, following reductions in
manning levels, longer working hours, loss of paid breaks and new
enterprise “flexibility” measures.
While the unions co-operated, the employers never
let up in their pursuit of maximising profits and drawing every extra
drop of blood out of workers.
While the trade unions were pursuing “class
peace”, Labor was able to push through a number of highly regressive
(for workers) reforms – the OECD and IMF’s structural adjustment program
of privatisation, financial deregulation, trade liberalisation (winding
back tariffs) and competition policy.
The trade union movement sacrificed its
independence, its right to pursue its own demands in the interests of
workers. In fact, it quietly dropped its opposition to privatisation,
pursuit of a 35-hour week and a number of other policy positions.
“That these changes [economic – Ed] took place in
Australia in the 1980s without damaging social cohesion must be
attributed to the partnership of a Labor government and working
Australians,” ACTU president Ged Kearney noted, in a speech to a
symposium on “The relevance of the Accord for unions today” at Macquarie
University on May 31.
“It is impossible to envisage the same social
stability during such a period of significant economic restructuring
under a Liberal Government,” Kearney said.
“The difference was the Accord, and the important
role that unions played in mitigating the impact of reforms by demanding
a social trade-off for both wage restraint and continued cooperation
with massive restructuring of the trade and financial system.”
Role of Accord
She is correct. The Accord was the vehicle by
which the ALP delivered a compliant trade union movement during a period
of significant changes that would have previously been strongly
resisted by organised labour.
Kearney also referred to the sacrifices that
workers made. “We frequently hear business leaders and their
cheerleaders in the media calling for a return to the Accord, but where
is their willingness to compromise in the same way that the labour
movement did in the 1980s?
“When are they ever prepared to put aside their
self-interest for the national interest? The moment any reform is
floated – whether it be a resource rent levy or a price on carbon – they
are quick off the mark to oppose it if it poses even the slightest
threat to their bloated profits.”
Of course, the answer to that question is never. And they never will. After all they are capitalists!
Ged notes: “There were unintended consequences
from that period that we are grappling with today: the growth of
precarious work, skyrocketing executive salaries, the spread of sham
business practices grew and insufficient attention paid to inequality,
especially at the top end.”
She also acknowledges that, “Wage restraint from
1983 to 1990 meant unions held back from doing their core work of
bargaining with employers for better wages and conditions, and some
forgot how to organise and are still paying the price.”
Suppression of class consciousness
That is correct. But there were other serious
outcomes, in particular, the dumbing down of class consciousness and the
acceptance of the idea that gains could be won through sitting around a
table with employers or in a court, without struggle. The Accord
promoted the idea that workers and companies have common economic
interests, that boosting profits somehow helps workers. Whereas every
extra dollar in profits is a dollar less in wages and vice versa. The
economic interests of labour and capital are diametrically opposed.
A new generation of trade union officials grew up
having never blown the whistle on a job instead believing the way
forward was co-operation with the boss. As Kearney correctly points out,
“some forgot how to organise and are still paying the price.”
Despite recognising some of the negative outcomes
of the Accord years of co-operation and wage restraint, Kearney still
calls for a return to the Accord ideology. “We need tripartite dialogue
and agreement in all major sectors of the economy with unions and
employers talking to each other and working through the issues, with
government at the table as necessary.
“The business community – and the Coalition – must
get over the attitude of looking at every significant national reform
proposal through the filter of their own self-interest. It needs to
constructively engage rather than blocking at every step.”
She fails to acknowledge that employers will never
give up their interests, never stop waging the class struggle. Trade
unions can co-operate with employers and make as many sacrifices as they
wish, but employers will never, for one moment, reciprocate if it hurts
their profits.
In fact, the experience during the Accord years was that when workers made sacrifices employers demanded more blood.
New transition period
Rudd, in presenting his new Productivity Package
to the National Press Club, refers to an Australia in transition. Big
economic and social changes lie ahead.
To understand the nature of these changes – the
new demands of big business – look no further than Greece, Spain or
Portugal and the austerity programs there.
There is a new drive by transnational capital for a
massive take-back of past gains by the working class in industrialised
countries and making their businesses more internationally competitive.
This includes dismantling the welfare state, corporate tax cuts,
slashing wages, casualising workforces, winding back the public sector,
deregulating labour markets, and extending the powers and reach of
monopoly capital.
The aim of Rudd’s call for a return to class
collaboration by the trade union movement is to offer employers
something that the Liberals cannot: a compliant, co-operative union
movement during another period of radical economic change which is not
in the interests of workers.
The same policies delivered by the Liberals would
be met with strong resistance by the labour movement, a point made by
Kearney in relation to the 1980s. Workers, through their trade unions,
are being called upon to make further sacrifices through a revamped
Accord process.
http://www.cpa.org.au/guardian/2013/1604/08-rudd-plays.html
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