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17 September, 2001In November 2001, the 30th IMF World Congress will take place in Sydney, Australia. One of the problems in Australia today is the decline of industry. The massive attack on jobs in the manufacturing industry is also taking its toll on union membership.
BY STIG JUTTERSTRÖM
Mary Stilly arrived in Sydney at the age of 16. She had grown up in Cyprus in a family of eleven children. Three of her older brothers had already emigrated to Australia, which was one of the reasons that she managed to make the move from a small Mediterranean island to one of the largest islands in the world, somewhere far away where oceans meet. She pined for home but had to cope with the change. Otherwise, what would her father have said? He was the person who had sent her there? "We had to do what our parents told us to do."
This happened in 1958, a few years before researcher and writer Donald Horne coined the phrase, the "lucky country", a label that has since stuck to Australia. Horne's book was published in 1964, became world famous and is regularly reprinted in new editions. For Mary, Australia was "a country of nowhere". At first she had to look after her brothers, doing their cleaning and their washing. But she also worked outside the home, sending money home to her family in Cyprus and learning to speak her new language. Soon she married and started her own family; her three children were born in 1963, 1965 and 1967.
A TOLERANT MULTI-CULTURAL SOCIETY
At that time, immigrants came to Australia from southern Europe -- Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Yugoslavia. Australia, which is the largest of islands but smallest of continents, saw its population increase from 7 million at the end of the war in 1945 to 19 million in 2000. The number of inhabitants, the number of industrial workers and the cities grew. The former British penal colony became one of the most urbanised countries in the world. 85 per cent of the population was concentrated into cities, towns and suburbs, mainly around the coastline.
Australia also became an unusually successful example of a tolerant, multicultural society. If you are accepted as an immigrant in Australia, you are accepted in all respects. In the 1990s, 40 per cent of the immigrants were of Asian origin. Gone are the days of the "White Australia" policy, when immigrants were carefully selected by the colour of their skin. Now entry depends on qualifications, skills, age and the ability to speak English. A quarter of today's Australians were born overseas. Most Australians seem comfortable with the idea of a racially mixed country. The only difficult ethnic conflict which has lately afflicted the country is that of the indigenous population, the aborigines.
GREAT HOPES FOR THE COMPANY
Mary Stilly is employed as a process worker at Sunbeam, a factory in west Sydney that manufactures domestic electrical appliances. 80 per cent of her working time is spent on the production line. The remaining 20 per cent she devotes to being a shop steward for the CEPU (Communications, Electrical, Electronic, Energy, Information, Postal, Plumbing and Allied Services Union of Australia), one of three trade unions in Australia which are affiliated to the International Metalworkers' Federation. Until 1988 Mary was a homeworker, sewing shirts for a textile company using an industrial sewing machine in her family home in the suburb of Earlwood. But when her husband Bill died in 1986, Mary had to find a job outside her home. A$350 (US$175) a week was not a lot to live on. So she started working at Sunbeam, and it only took three years before she was persuaded by a CEPU organiser to become a trade union delegate in the company. "I had great hopes for the company," she said, as she really wanted to do some good both for her colleagues and for the company.
At that time Sunbeam had 1,700 workers; in June 2001 only 250 were left. Perhaps there will be none by the time this article is published. Production is gradually being moved away from Australia to China, and Mary Stilly believes that this is because companies are looking for the cheapest labour, and that the Australian government has ignored the manufacturing industry for over ten years. "The management says that labour costs are cheaper overseas." She doubts, though, that this is a wise policy.
A DESERTED FACTORY
The large factory premises are deserted. Everywhere there are abandoned machines, which is probably the reason why we were not given permission on this occasion to take photos inside the plant. It would seem difficult to think of any other reason. Mary talks about what there used to be, what was made here, and how many workers there once were at this plant. Only four years ago, there was a line here and another there. Over there they made hairdryers, rice boilers, toasters, frying pans, etc. The only items still made are lawn mowers. "But I suppose that production line will soon be gone too," sighs Mary. "It's very sad, very, very sad." Once there was a worker at every machine; now there is only one at either end of each line. There are rumours that manufacturing will be outsourced to Korea.
Mary knows every one in the factory, and says a few words to each as we walk around. One of her colleagues tells us that after ten years as a supervisor here, she is about to get a job in a club. Clubs where people, mostly men, drink beer and play the poker machines have become a growth industry in Australia, as have other service industries.
A LEFT-WING UNION
Sunbeam is only one of many examples which demonstrate the shrinking Australian manufacturing base. It is an area of great concern, not least for the engineering unions. 75 workers at Sunbeam belong to the CEPU, 100 to the AMWU (Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union) and 85 to the AWU (Australian Workers' Union). Doug Cameron is the general secretary of one of these unions, the AMWU, a union that is proud of describing itself as a left-wing and militant union. He confirms that the biggest problem in Australia today is the decline of industry due to the lack of vision by the federal government, a Liberal National Party coalition.
"This government has no ideas, no vision, and no answers for manufacturing workers," says Doug Cameron. "We have to get rid of it at the national elections later this year." In the last five years, 75,000 jobs have been lost in the manufacturing industry. These are net losses. Jobs have also shifted from big workplaces that are well unionised to smaller workplaces and to casual and contract employment where wages are lower and the unions often weaker. Australia has the second highest level of casualisation in the world after Turkey. The average Australian plant has fewer than 8 employees. A plant with 100 employees is a big company in Australia.
A MASSIVE ATTACK ON JOBS
The massive attack on jobs in the manufacturing industry and the lack of support for the industry is also taking its toll on union membership. The level of unionisation in manufacturing industries has declined from 50 per cent at the end of the 1980s to 28-29 per cent today. This is not only on account of the changes from large to small workplaces; it is also the result of an aggressively anti-union government policy, supported by both employers and the leading media.
THE GOVERNMENT PROMOTES NON-UNIONISM
Doug Cameron thinks that Australia is the only country in the world where the government uses hundreds of millions of dollars of tax payers' money for a TV publicity campaign with the message: You don't have to belong to a union. "They are promoting the so-called right of freedom of association, but they are really promoting non-unionism. The government encourages people to leave the union, and the campaign has been efficient. It has affected both the employers and the employees. In many cases workers are unable to be a trade unionist because the employer makes non-unionism a condition for employment.
The government is a Liberal-National Party coalition. "It is basically very market-focused," says Doug Cameron. "It is heavily influenced by Margaret Thatcher's and Ronald Reagan's neo-liberal policies. It picked up all the theory from America and the UK and implemented a pure theory, whereas America and the UK didn't. We cut the tariffs quicker and deeper than any other country in the world. There was a huge pressure on jobs." The problem for left-leaning unions is that this policy did not start with the Liberal-National government headed by John Howard as prime minister, which came to power in 1996. It was initiated by earlier Labour governments. When the Labour Party came to office in 1983, the first action of its new prime minister, Bob Hawke (who had previously been general secretary of ACTU - the Australian Council of Trade Unions), was to allow the Australian dollar to float. Over the next few years the government deregulated the finance sector and privatised state-owned industries.
"CONSENSUS" WAS A KEY WORD
"Consensus" was one of Hawkes' key words. He got industry and trade unions to collaborate by convening the Accord, a national economic summit meeting with union leaders, managing directors and leading politicians. At first this led to some positive results with industry plans and a universal health scheme.
However, by the time Paul Keating, the Labour government's former finance minister, took over as prime minister in 1991, he started on a round of industrial relations reforms that introduced bargaining at local level and productivity-based pay. Howard's present government has greatly accelerated these anti-worker policies, further increasing income inequality.
DEREGULATED THE FINANCE SECTOR
"We opposed the move towards bargaining at local level, as the new labour laws have diminished the workers' capacity to act collectively," says Doug Cameron. "The Labour Party was captured by and capitulated to neo-classical economic theories. The Labour governments deregulated the finance sector and commenced to deregulate the industrial relations system in a big way." Things are not improved by the fact that the AMWU and other large unions are affiliated to the Labour Party. Both the party and the union are factionalised into right and left wings. The AMWU is intending to run a "marginal seat campaign" at the elections, and advertise on TV in support of manufacturing and on the importance of manufacturing. "Some politicians have not been vocal enough, so we have to put pressure on them."
FREE TRADE AND LABOUR STANDARDS
The biggest difference between the AMWU and the Labour Party is about Labour's commitment to free trade. It does not accept that it should be linked to core labour standards, human rights and child labour standards. Labour argues that trade is separate from labour standards and human rights. The trade unions don't agree.
What would change then if there were a Labour government after the elections? "The problem we have is that Labour is not prepared to accept a more sophisticated European model of Social Democracy. They are still driven by the market, much more so than some of the European Labour Parties. But there will be changes in the labour laws. The system will not change back to a national pay award-based system, but the pay awards will be strengthened. Bargaining at local level will still be a major focus for the Labour Party." He says that there is still a great deal of cynicism about the Labour Party amongst trade union members. "There is a huge undecided group, who cannot distinguish between Labour and the Liberals."
"The challenge for the trade unions is to convince the Labour politicians that they have to intervene in the economy," says Cameron. "There is going to be a struggle, a struggle that we welcome and relish. We will debate that with them. We have to take up the challenge in a strong and critical manner to ensure that a Labour government does not behave like a Liberal-Conservative government."
A RICH COUNTRY
Australia is still one of the richest 12 to 15 countries in the world, and the disparity in incomes is less than in the majority of comparable countries. An industrial worker typically earns A$600 (US$310) a week. The differences are increasing however, and the welfare system has been downgraded. A trade unionist tells of how proud he was when he visited Canada in 1976 and was able to boast that there simply were no beggars at all in Australia. There are now 20,000 homeless in Victoria, where the industrial city Melbourne is located. One of his colleagues, a former social worker, gives this answer to the question on whether Australia is a welfare state: "Compared to Europe, no. Compared to America and Asia, yes."
Politically, Australia is dominated by the mining lobby, with very powerful corporations like BHP (Broken Hill Proprietary Company) and Rio Tinto pushing their agendas on the government.
Is it still the "lucky country"? Doug Cameron: "We have massive natural resources and to some extent those resources mean that we are the lucky country in one sense. But when the price of natural resources, when the export value of your minerals and agricultural products declines and when you neglect to build a strong manufacturing industry, in that sense we are not the lucky country. But we can be again."
Mary Stilly from Sunbeam and a different trade union, CEPU, agrees. "Australia was the 'lucky country'. And it still is. But not for the many manufacturing workers who have lost their jobs."
This happened in 1958, a few years before researcher and writer Donald Horne coined the phrase, the "lucky country", a label that has since stuck to Australia. Horne's book was published in 1964, became world famous and is regularly reprinted in new editions. For Mary, Australia was "a country of nowhere". At first she had to look after her brothers, doing their cleaning and their washing. But she also worked outside the home, sending money home to her family in Cyprus and learning to speak her new language. Soon she married and started her own family; her three children were born in 1963, 1965 and 1967.
A TOLERANT MULTI-CULTURAL SOCIETY
At that time, immigrants came to Australia from southern Europe -- Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Yugoslavia. Australia, which is the largest of islands but smallest of continents, saw its population increase from 7 million at the end of the war in 1945 to 19 million in 2000. The number of inhabitants, the number of industrial workers and the cities grew. The former British penal colony became one of the most urbanised countries in the world. 85 per cent of the population was concentrated into cities, towns and suburbs, mainly around the coastline.
Australia also became an unusually successful example of a tolerant, multicultural society. If you are accepted as an immigrant in Australia, you are accepted in all respects. In the 1990s, 40 per cent of the immigrants were of Asian origin. Gone are the days of the "White Australia" policy, when immigrants were carefully selected by the colour of their skin. Now entry depends on qualifications, skills, age and the ability to speak English. A quarter of today's Australians were born overseas. Most Australians seem comfortable with the idea of a racially mixed country. The only difficult ethnic conflict which has lately afflicted the country is that of the indigenous population, the aborigines.
GREAT HOPES FOR THE COMPANY
Mary Stilly is employed as a process worker at Sunbeam, a factory in west Sydney that manufactures domestic electrical appliances. 80 per cent of her working time is spent on the production line. The remaining 20 per cent she devotes to being a shop steward for the CEPU (Communications, Electrical, Electronic, Energy, Information, Postal, Plumbing and Allied Services Union of Australia), one of three trade unions in Australia which are affiliated to the International Metalworkers' Federation. Until 1988 Mary was a homeworker, sewing shirts for a textile company using an industrial sewing machine in her family home in the suburb of Earlwood. But when her husband Bill died in 1986, Mary had to find a job outside her home. A$350 (US$175) a week was not a lot to live on. So she started working at Sunbeam, and it only took three years before she was persuaded by a CEPU organiser to become a trade union delegate in the company. "I had great hopes for the company," she said, as she really wanted to do some good both for her colleagues and for the company.
At that time Sunbeam had 1,700 workers; in June 2001 only 250 were left. Perhaps there will be none by the time this article is published. Production is gradually being moved away from Australia to China, and Mary Stilly believes that this is because companies are looking for the cheapest labour, and that the Australian government has ignored the manufacturing industry for over ten years. "The management says that labour costs are cheaper overseas." She doubts, though, that this is a wise policy.
A DESERTED FACTORY
The large factory premises are deserted. Everywhere there are abandoned machines, which is probably the reason why we were not given permission on this occasion to take photos inside the plant. It would seem difficult to think of any other reason. Mary talks about what there used to be, what was made here, and how many workers there once were at this plant. Only four years ago, there was a line here and another there. Over there they made hairdryers, rice boilers, toasters, frying pans, etc. The only items still made are lawn mowers. "But I suppose that production line will soon be gone too," sighs Mary. "It's very sad, very, very sad." Once there was a worker at every machine; now there is only one at either end of each line. There are rumours that manufacturing will be outsourced to Korea.
Mary knows every one in the factory, and says a few words to each as we walk around. One of her colleagues tells us that after ten years as a supervisor here, she is about to get a job in a club. Clubs where people, mostly men, drink beer and play the poker machines have become a growth industry in Australia, as have other service industries.
A LEFT-WING UNION
Sunbeam is only one of many examples which demonstrate the shrinking Australian manufacturing base. It is an area of great concern, not least for the engineering unions. 75 workers at Sunbeam belong to the CEPU, 100 to the AMWU (Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union) and 85 to the AWU (Australian Workers' Union). Doug Cameron is the general secretary of one of these unions, the AMWU, a union that is proud of describing itself as a left-wing and militant union. He confirms that the biggest problem in Australia today is the decline of industry due to the lack of vision by the federal government, a Liberal National Party coalition.
"This government has no ideas, no vision, and no answers for manufacturing workers," says Doug Cameron. "We have to get rid of it at the national elections later this year." In the last five years, 75,000 jobs have been lost in the manufacturing industry. These are net losses. Jobs have also shifted from big workplaces that are well unionised to smaller workplaces and to casual and contract employment where wages are lower and the unions often weaker. Australia has the second highest level of casualisation in the world after Turkey. The average Australian plant has fewer than 8 employees. A plant with 100 employees is a big company in Australia.
A MASSIVE ATTACK ON JOBS
The massive attack on jobs in the manufacturing industry and the lack of support for the industry is also taking its toll on union membership. The level of unionisation in manufacturing industries has declined from 50 per cent at the end of the 1980s to 28-29 per cent today. This is not only on account of the changes from large to small workplaces; it is also the result of an aggressively anti-union government policy, supported by both employers and the leading media.
THE GOVERNMENT PROMOTES NON-UNIONISM
Doug Cameron thinks that Australia is the only country in the world where the government uses hundreds of millions of dollars of tax payers' money for a TV publicity campaign with the message: You don't have to belong to a union. "They are promoting the so-called right of freedom of association, but they are really promoting non-unionism. The government encourages people to leave the union, and the campaign has been efficient. It has affected both the employers and the employees. In many cases workers are unable to be a trade unionist because the employer makes non-unionism a condition for employment.
The government is a Liberal-National Party coalition. "It is basically very market-focused," says Doug Cameron. "It is heavily influenced by Margaret Thatcher's and Ronald Reagan's neo-liberal policies. It picked up all the theory from America and the UK and implemented a pure theory, whereas America and the UK didn't. We cut the tariffs quicker and deeper than any other country in the world. There was a huge pressure on jobs." The problem for left-leaning unions is that this policy did not start with the Liberal-National government headed by John Howard as prime minister, which came to power in 1996. It was initiated by earlier Labour governments. When the Labour Party came to office in 1983, the first action of its new prime minister, Bob Hawke (who had previously been general secretary of ACTU - the Australian Council of Trade Unions), was to allow the Australian dollar to float. Over the next few years the government deregulated the finance sector and privatised state-owned industries.
"CONSENSUS" WAS A KEY WORD
"Consensus" was one of Hawkes' key words. He got industry and trade unions to collaborate by convening the Accord, a national economic summit meeting with union leaders, managing directors and leading politicians. At first this led to some positive results with industry plans and a universal health scheme.
However, by the time Paul Keating, the Labour government's former finance minister, took over as prime minister in 1991, he started on a round of industrial relations reforms that introduced bargaining at local level and productivity-based pay. Howard's present government has greatly accelerated these anti-worker policies, further increasing income inequality.
DEREGULATED THE FINANCE SECTOR
"We opposed the move towards bargaining at local level, as the new labour laws have diminished the workers' capacity to act collectively," says Doug Cameron. "The Labour Party was captured by and capitulated to neo-classical economic theories. The Labour governments deregulated the finance sector and commenced to deregulate the industrial relations system in a big way." Things are not improved by the fact that the AMWU and other large unions are affiliated to the Labour Party. Both the party and the union are factionalised into right and left wings. The AMWU is intending to run a "marginal seat campaign" at the elections, and advertise on TV in support of manufacturing and on the importance of manufacturing. "Some politicians have not been vocal enough, so we have to put pressure on them."
FREE TRADE AND LABOUR STANDARDS
The biggest difference between the AMWU and the Labour Party is about Labour's commitment to free trade. It does not accept that it should be linked to core labour standards, human rights and child labour standards. Labour argues that trade is separate from labour standards and human rights. The trade unions don't agree.
What would change then if there were a Labour government after the elections? "The problem we have is that Labour is not prepared to accept a more sophisticated European model of Social Democracy. They are still driven by the market, much more so than some of the European Labour Parties. But there will be changes in the labour laws. The system will not change back to a national pay award-based system, but the pay awards will be strengthened. Bargaining at local level will still be a major focus for the Labour Party." He says that there is still a great deal of cynicism about the Labour Party amongst trade union members. "There is a huge undecided group, who cannot distinguish between Labour and the Liberals."
"The challenge for the trade unions is to convince the Labour politicians that they have to intervene in the economy," says Cameron. "There is going to be a struggle, a struggle that we welcome and relish. We will debate that with them. We have to take up the challenge in a strong and critical manner to ensure that a Labour government does not behave like a Liberal-Conservative government."
A RICH COUNTRY
Australia is still one of the richest 12 to 15 countries in the world, and the disparity in incomes is less than in the majority of comparable countries. An industrial worker typically earns A$600 (US$310) a week. The differences are increasing however, and the welfare system has been downgraded. A trade unionist tells of how proud he was when he visited Canada in 1976 and was able to boast that there simply were no beggars at all in Australia. There are now 20,000 homeless in Victoria, where the industrial city Melbourne is located. One of his colleagues, a former social worker, gives this answer to the question on whether Australia is a welfare state: "Compared to Europe, no. Compared to America and Asia, yes."
Politically, Australia is dominated by the mining lobby, with very powerful corporations like BHP (Broken Hill Proprietary Company) and Rio Tinto pushing their agendas on the government.
Is it still the "lucky country"? Doug Cameron: "We have massive natural resources and to some extent those resources mean that we are the lucky country in one sense. But when the price of natural resources, when the export value of your minerals and agricultural products declines and when you neglect to build a strong manufacturing industry, in that sense we are not the lucky country. But we can be again."
Mary Stilly from Sunbeam and a different trade union, CEPU, agrees. "Australia was the 'lucky country'. And it still is. But not for the many manufacturing workers who have lost their jobs."