If you’ve been following politics over the last year you will have noticed that Labor’s connection to the union movement has become a political hot potato.

The Prime Minister claims that Labor’s frontbench is made up of 70 per cent union officials and that poses a threat to small business, and, by extension, the economy. Industrial Relation minister Joe Hockey has added that unions are becoming obsolete in a recent interview on ABC radio. Labor has responded with its own negative attack ads against the Coalition’s claims. So, what’s the deal?

The ALP’s origins are rooted in the union movement and unions still remain a crucial part of its structure. This has been solidified through large levels of union funding and the unionised part of the workforce traditionally being Labor voters. And there are ties beyond that. Labor policy decisions require a certain number of union delegates to vote at State Conferences, which then feed into the National Conference. Subsequently, unions have an official and important, but unelected, role in deciding Labor policy.

However, union power in Australia has been on the decline for a long time and not just under John Howard.

Dr Rick Kuhn of the Australian National University says that the campaign against Labor’s union links is a “tried and trusted” tactic of conservative parties in Australia. He argues that the validity of this argument is highly tenuous and has increasingly lost relevance in the modern political debate.

Labor now has “the most right-wing policies ever, especially in industrial relations”, Kuhn says. Labor is no longer promising to “tear up” WorkChoices, rather it’s offering what some have called “WorkChoices lite”, in which many of the new changes will continue albeit in a diluted form. According to Kuhn, it’s a sign of union desperation that they haven’t been more critical of the Labor IR policy.

Joe Hockey’s comments suggesting that the unions have become irrelevant might have interesting ramifications throughout the campaign. The unions are unlikely to take this kind of attack lying down. They have already promised to campaign hard in 22 marginal seats such as Eden-Monaro and harness discontent over WorkChoices into electoral results.

It remains to be seen if the Government’s campaign against the unions and Labor’s ties will be effective. Kuhn argues that by keeping the issue of workplace relations on the agenda, the Government acknowledges its importance and keeps it in the public spotlight.

There is a case that Labor is the party running scared from a frank discussion about the workplace. According to Kuhn, the Labor party will be keen to deflect criticism by distancing itself from the unions. By doing this, they potentially have a bigger field to manoeuvre; they can keep the money the unions donate, but reduce their capacity to have a voice.

Labor has hit back at the Coalition’s campaign by calling it “desperate”, and reiterating that frontbencher’s roles in the unions were often many years ago.

It is not definite that Rudd’s frontbench will be the plaything of the unions. Julia Gillard was President of the Australian Union of Students, hardly the most militant of the unions. Wayne Swan has had little to do with the unions. And as for Rudd, he has never been a union official and it looks like he’s doing everything he can to distance himself from union activity. He can barely string a sentence together without furnishing it with the words “economic conservative”.

As for the claim of 70 per cent union representation in a possible Labor ministry is too high, it’s worth reflecting on the presently unrepresentative nature of our parliament in general.

Whatever its intentions, parliament is certainly not a cross-section of modern day Australia – it’s comprised of mainly white, tertiary educated, men. In this light, does it really matter if only 20 per cent of Australians are union members, but 70 per cent of Labor frontbenchers are? The Liberal party has a large number of lawyers, managers, and business people in its ranks. There doesn’t seem to be as much commentary about this.

Despite constant grandstanding, union power is at a historical low and union membership is in long-term decline. Running a scare campaign against unionists is surely more difficult when they have increasingly limited power. It remains to be seen how effective the stereotype of scary men in wife-beaters will be in changing the votes of the electorate.

Will both parties be prepared to dip their toes in the murky waters of scare campaigns, class politics, and workplaces?

You bet. 

Leah Ginnivan is in her first year of a Bachelor of Philosophy at ANU, majoring in Political Science and English. She is keeping a blog for electiontracker.net about issues that affect young people out bush.

Photo: Tyler F. Smith

Edited by Thomas Arup

For more information:

Parliamentary research note on make-up of Parliament