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History repeats itself, Stanley Bruce
and John Howard compared
"Ex-senator
Arthur Rae bluntly expressed the more militant viewpoint: 'why
shouldn't some unions run between two sets of courts trying to get the
best deal? Doesn't the capitalist try to get all he can? And when by an
oversight or through their unscientific methods, or their own
conflicting interests, they leave loopholes through which the workers
can draw some few slender advantages, what arrant fools we would be to
help them close the gaps and patch their rotten social structure'." Labor Daily, June 16, 1926. (From Studies in Australian Politics: the 1926
Referendum, A.W. Wildafsky. The
Fall of the Bruce-Page Government by D. Carboch.)
By Bob Gould
There are striking parallels between Prime Minister John Howard's
current attempt to transfer industrial relations powers from state to
federal jurisdictions, and to destroy the federal arbitration system,
and the efforts of conservative Prime Minister Stanley Bruce to do the
same thing in 1926-29.
To fully understand the 1926 developments and the current developments
it's necessary to go back to the beginnings of industrial arbitration
in Australia, at the start of the 20th century.
Jack Hutson's book, Penal Colony to
Penal Power, describes the establishment and early evolution of
the Australian industrial relations system, with the rapid emergence of
state systems and the parallel emergence of a federal system.
William Holman, an early NSW Labor premier, describes in his memoir the
successful initial resistance of the state Labor politicians in NSW and
other states to transferring all industrial relations to the federal
sphere.
Greg Patmore, in his informative, Foundations
of Industrial Justice. The Presidents of the Industrial Relations
Commission of NSW, 1902-1998, provides a very detailed
description of the NSW industrial system, which emerged as a more
favourable arena for the defence of working class interests than the
federal system.
Socialists and syndicalists initially opposed the whole arbitration
set-up in favour of collective bargaining, but the rapid establishment
and institutionalisation of the system forced on socialists,
syndicalists and other militant unionists the practical necessity of
operating within the system, while not relying on it. Trade union
activists developed the practice of relying on militant mass
mobilisation of members to achieve industrial demands, which were then
usually ratified, eventually, in the industrial commission.
The two important article by Peter Sheldon from Labour History, which are available
on the Ozleft website, about the struggles of the
rockchoppers and other
labourers' unions in NSW, are fascinating insights into the way
militant union activists operated both within and outside the system,
and also how Justice Heydon, a very reactionary early president the NSW
Industrial Commission, tried to curb union militancy by widespread use
of his legal powers.
One aspect of the institution of compulsory arbitration and awards, at
both state and federal levels, which hadn't been anticipated by
socialists and syndicalists, was that the simple act of acquiring an
award and union coverage rapidly led to the extension of trade unionism
to very wide sections of industry, to women and the unskilled and most
oppressed, who were very hard to organise through normal trade union
methods.
The rapid expansion of trade union membership and organisation from
about 1903 to the early 1920s was spectacular.
In this situation, radicals who had initially opposed the system
rapidly learned to operate a dual policy, both using militant
organisation and mobilization, and also becoming fairly skilled in
using the legal framework of the system to the best advantage for
unions and their members.
Over time, extra-legal mobilisation and strikes tended to dominate in
periods of militancy and industrial upsurge, and legal activity through
the industrial courts predominated in periods of downturn.
In NSW, the degree to which unions could make gains in the Industrial
Commission framework depended, to some extent, on the nature of the
political and industrial standpoint of the commission president. People
like Heydon and George Beeby tended to be pretty conscious
reactionaries, while some Labor appointees were reasonably pro-union,
and Premier Jack Lang's appointee, A.B. Piddington, tended to be
extremely progressive.
The trigger for the move by Tory Prime Minister Stanley Bruce to seize
control of industrial powers from the states was Piddington's decision
in the NSW commission to introduce the 44-hour week, which enraged the
bourgeoisie.
Bruce's move
Bruce's proposal in 1926 was surrounded by the same kind of rhetoric as
Howard's is today about getting rid of the anarchy of divided systems,
and the virtues of freedom of contract.
Initially the federal opposition leader, Matt Charlton, supported the
changes on vaguely Labor centralist grounds, as did a number of federal
union officials who were located in Melbourne.
Immediately, however, militant figures such as Albert Willis in the
Miners' Federation, and Arthur Rae, a Labor senator who was one of the
founders of the AWU, started vigorous agitation against the transfer,
which was rapidly backed up by the then emerging Lang machine in the
NSW Labor Party.
The period around 1926 happened to be when the Lang machine was
becoming a coherent force in the NSW Labor Party, and an important part
of that machine was a group of union officials loosely described as the
Trades Hall Reds, led by Jock Garden. These officials had a certain
bureaucratic militancy in their industrial approach.
The NSW Labor Party prosecuted a potent mix of traditional states
rights sentiment, expressed by Lang himself, and vigorous defence of
the trade union advantages of preserving the state system, expressed by
the Trades Hall Reds and Garden, and most articulately by Arthur Rae in
the statement at the start of this paper.
The NSW opposition to the transfer rapidly won trade union support in
other states, and this opposition meshed with traditional states'
rights sentiment in the smaller states..
In the event, the referendum was defeated, with narrow majorities in
favour in NSW and Queensland and substantial majorities against in SA,
WA, Tasmania and Victoria, to give an overall majority against.
In the run-up to the referendum, Matt Charlton and the Victorian
federal officials were totally isolated and only got a few votes for
the federal centralist position at a national unions conference (the
form of national union collaboration before the formatoin of the ACTU)
called to discuss the crisis.
The whole event is discussed in colourful, demotic way in a chapter
from Lang's book, The Great Bust,
which is available on the Ozleft website.
Two years later, in 1928-29, Bruce tried again, in a slightly different
way. He issued a kind of ultimatum to the states that unless they
transferred industrial powers to the federal government he would
effectively abolish the federal arbitration commission by an act of the
federal parliament.
When it came to discussion in the parliament, after the rejection of
the transfer by the states, a political Pandora's Box was opened.
Billy Hughes, who hated Bruce and was still smarting over his removal
from the Tory leadership, had a certain nostalgic interest in
preserving the arbitration system, which had been one of the
achievements, from his point of view, of the period when he was a Labor
leader before the conscription split of 1916.
Hughes' revolt unleashed a series of unpredictable political
cross-currents, including hostility to Bruce by the emerging film
industry, which had axes of its own to grind with the federal Liberal
government.
Bruce's legislation was eventually defeated in the Commonwealth
parliament. He called an election, and the Tories were slaughtered. The
Scullin Labor Government was elected and Bruce lost his own seat to
E.J. Holloway of the Melbourne Trades Hall Council.
These events are discussed in Dagmar Carboch's essay in the book
mentioned above. It is also discussed in Lang's The Great Bust.
In 1944 the Curtin Labor Government went to the people with a powers
referendum that would have transferred industrial relations to the
federal sphere, and that referendum was also defeated.
After World War II, even up to the present, the division between the
federal and state systems held certain advantages for most trade unions.
In NSW, the Industrial Commission has been the arena where a certain
amount of industrial militancy, supplemented by energetic advocacy in
the commission, has often led to wages and conditions outcomes for
various groups of workers better than in most other states and the
federal arena, and these breakthroughs have eventually flowed to other
jurisdictions.
The experience of the NSW Nurses' Association is a pretty good example
of the utility of the NSW Industrial Commission as a venue.
In the nursing industry for the past 25 years, sporadic but consistent
militancy at the base, recurrent and sometimes successful challenges to
conservative union officials in ballots, and a fairly democratic union
structure, have intertwined with reasonably effective advocacy in the
commission to achieve substantial and continuing wages and conditions
outcomes for nurses, which have flowed to other states.
It's this constellation of factors, a bit like A.B. Piddington's
granting of the 44-hour week under Lang, that has driven Howard, like
Stanley Bruce before him, to try to demolish arbitration at both and
state and federal levels, and particularly at state level.
Howard's proposals to weight the whole system as it is weighted in the
US, against unions and workers, is the greatest crisis that the working
class has faced in Australia for many years.
Lessons of the past for defeating Howard's so-called reforms
Howard is moving ahead with his "reforms" in a period not unlike the
late 1920s, when trade union organisation and density has receded
somewhat, partly because of very mistaken policies by union leaders,
such as the Accord and bureaucratically imposed union amalgamations,
frequently not on rational industrial lines.
The working class is entering this struggle, as it often does, rather
defensively. It's necessary in this situation for the labour movement
and its assorted leaderships to do several things, informed by history
and by examination of current circumstances.
Firstly, it is indispensable that the unions mobilise the maximum
possible industrial militancy in this struggle.
Secondly, it important to conduct a serious public education campaign,
because the working class, both organised and unorganised, initially
understands only dimly what the issues are. From that point of view,
the ACTU advertisements, which shouldn't be a substitute for mobilising
industrial militancy, are an excellent and effective beginning.
The third prong of the campaign is the maximum possible mobilisation of
political pressure to defeat Howard's proposals. This particular
socialist and left-winger has become a ferocious states-righter for the
time being. Like Arthur Rae I think it's entirely reasonable to
mobilise the states rights sentiments that always exist in Australian
politics to defeat the Tory onslaught.
There's a substantial division in the ranks of the bourgeoisie on these
questions, with states rights sentiment all over the country in
National and Liberal ranks. A states rights rejection of the transfer
of state powers to the federal government was even supported
overwhelmingly at the recent national meeting of the Liberal Party,
despite Prime Minister Howard's strenuous opposition.
There's an emerging possibility that states' rights sentiment might
lead to the defeat of the transfer of powers in the Senate.
The transfer of powers is the central aspect of Howard's proposals,
because the persistence of the state systems would make it very
difficult for Howard to proceed at the federal level.
If Howard does manage to get his proposals through the Senate, the next
phase has to be the united Labor state government and trade union
challenge to the law in the High Court. It's not clear that even this
conservative High Court would endorse the transfer of powers, because
many of the conservative judges are Tory traditionalists and states'
righters.
Time is not working in Howard's favour, as it didn't work in Bruce's
favour from 1926-29. If a High Court challenge is eventually necessary,
it probably won't start until early next year, and will probably
proceed through most of next year.
If Howard were to face that situation, he'd be in much the same
position as Bruce was, drifting into a federal election with the
albatross of turmoil surrounding what will be by that time very
unpopular industrial legislation around his neck.
To summarise, my view is that the labour movement should conduct a
campaign with three essential components: the maximum possible
industrial mobilisation, the best possible educational campaign and the
maximum exploitation of political and legal mechanisms to exploit
Howard's weaknesses, which in this context is particularly the
deep-rooted traditional states rights sentiment.
Vignette 1. Senator
Arthur Rae is one of my great Australian socialist political heroes. As
a very young man he was a founder of the AWU. There's a picture of him,
along with the other founders of the AWU, dressed up to the nines, in
the first modern history of the AWU, by John Meritt.
Arthur Rae was elected as a Labor senator in the early years of the
20th century. He lost his seat in 1914, but was re-elected to the
Senate in the Lang years. He was an autodidact and a knowledgeable
socialist theorist. He was first, foremost and last, a proletarian
agitator and he used his position as a Labor politician in bourgeois
parliaments to continue his socialist agitation.
He was expelled from the AWU in the early 1920s because of his support
for the Bush Workers' Propaganda Group and his opposition to the
bureacratisation of the AWU. He later supported the breakaway Pastoral
Workers Industrial Union from his position in the Senate.
Rae lived long enough to support the agitation in support of the
admission to Australia of Egon Irwin Kisch, the Czech socialist and
opponent of fascism, and in his old age this grey-haired Labor Senator
climbed on to the Strathaird, where the immigration authorities were
holding Kisch by refusing him permission to land.
The successful struggle against the Bruce government was one of Arthur
Rae's finest hours.
Vignette 2. In the late
1950s and the early 1960s I was a member of a small revolutionary
socialist group led by Nick Origlass. We were active in the Labor Party
and part of our activity was to send standard socialist resolutions,
often written by Nick in slightly strange language, to the state
conference every year.
These resolutions would come from the Balmain branch and State
Electoral Council, the Dulwich Hill branch, the Vaucluse SEC and the
North Bondi branch (where I was), the Unanderra branch and the South
Coast SEC, and the Boilermakers Union and the Ship Painters and Dockers
Union.
One year, in a fit of youthful enthusiasm, I suggested a resolution
calling for the abolition of the arbitration system and its replacement
by collective bargaining. Nick, quite properly, pulled me up. He said:
"are you crazy, do you seriously want to abolish awards, legal
recognition of unions and the legal enforcement of industrial health
and safety".
He said: "It was valid for socialists to oppose arbitration when it was
initially imposed, but now it is part of the industrial and political
landscape and it has certain benefits for the working class, which the
overwhelming majority of workers accept. What matters to socialists is
the constraints the system places on working class mobilization and
organization. The correct proposition now is that we should demand the
elimination from the arbitration act and the industrial system of all
restraints on union activity, such as the penal clauses."
Like Arthur Rae before him, he said, "socialists aren't obliged to play
by the bosses' rules. We should accept the things that are useful for
the working class and reject the bad things."
We sent a resolution in that spirit to the state Labor conference, Nick
Origlass had a particular and entirely valid preoccupation with the
penal clauses and his position was that union officials and unions
should defy the penal clauses and in due course one union official,
Clarrie O'Shea, did, during a rising a rising arc of industrial
mobilization.
The ruling class faltered and for the next generation the penal clauses
were a dead letter. Leftist Labor activists played their part too,
rejecting proposals for an Accord at the 1971 Labor Party federal
conference. A whole period of working class mobilization and
improvements proceed from those events, and that period only ended with
the second set of Accord measures carried out by the new Labor
government in 1983, after they were supported by the ACTU federal
unions conference in 1982, all except for one courageous elected
official who was a delegate from NSW, and who was persecuted by the
bureaucracy for quite a while afterwards for her defiance.
Vignette 3. The Maritime
Union dispute of 1998 took place after a long period of working class
demobilisation and trade union decline. It was a defensive kind of
dispute, marked by a massive community mobilisation, pickets, etc,
judicious industrial confrontation and vigorous court activity in
defence of the union.
It was an important partial victory achieved in very adverse objective
circumstances. In my view, the generally defensive features of the
trade union mobilization were valid in the difficult circumstances and
led to the preservation of unionism on the Australian waterfront, which
is a very big achievement when compared, for instance, with the
deunionisation of the British waterfront.
The partial success of the MUA struggle is very important in the
current defensive circumstances confronting the trade union and labour
movement in the light of Howard's assault on the rights of the working
class.
Paper for the
Ninth Australian Labour History Conference, Sydney, June 30, 2005.
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