AWU, Packer and Working Class Media : Melbourne Indymedia

The Herald-Sun reported last Sunday that the right wing Australian Workers Union has entered into a business partnership with Australia's richest person, Kerry Packer, in order to produce a new glossy union publication to be called "The Australian Worker". The AWU is to invest a fair amount of money, that is members money, into the scheme. Of course, Kerry Packer is little interested in doing things for nothing. He will be looking for a profit. So, we have the interesting situation whereby the AWU is investing its members money into a scheme that will profit Australia's richest man. If we had an Australian Workers Union that was interested in putting "members first" it would be little interested in helping to line the pockets of the rich.

As the Herald-Sun pointed out many fear that this publication, which will be available at newsagencies for purchase by the public, will serve to promote the right wing agenda of the AWU leadership. Of course, it is to be expected that Kerry Packer will not invest his money in a publication that will be characterised by left wing commentary. It is interesting to observe just how close right wing ALP figures are to the capitalist class; Barry Unsworth, John Ducker, Stephen Loosley and so on are all into big business. Graham Richardson's dealings with Rene Rivkin has become a matter of public debate in recent times. The latest round of infighting in the Victorian ALP owed in large measure to the very close links forged by the former secretary, David Fenney, who is closely aligned with AWU secretary Bill Shorten, with the corporate sector. Even Richardson had hailed Fenney's ability to raise corporate funds, claiming that he is much better at the task than he was. The secretary of the right wing National Union of Workers (formely in the right faction but forming the core of a rival right sub-faction) felt that the Fenney-AWU forces were interested in running a campaign against his leadership of the NUW; right wing elements attempted to take over my own union, the LHMU in what the LHMU publication had characterised as a well financed, but ultimately pathetic, attempt to over turn the leadership elements.

Where is the money coming from? Is it possible that the close links being forged between the corporate sector and the AWU is meant to ultimately turn the union movement and the ALP into an even more, if it is not enough already, right wing direction? Could this be a reason for the new glossy AWU publication? One thing is for certain, the new publication will hardly have any content that will criticise the secretary, Bill Shorten.

What will happen when the printing division of the AMWU calls a strike at Packer controlled PBL publishing? Will "The Australian Worker" provide fair coverage of the strike, giving prominent space to striking workers? Will "The Australian Worker" fully detail why, under our tax system, "Australian workers" pay more tax as a percentage of income than Australia's richest man?

There exists, unfortunately, a rather nasty precedent behind all this. The AWU played a critical, but ultimately disastrous, role in producing the tabloid and helping to propel Keith Murdoch and Frank Packer into riches. Perhaps Kerry wants to repay the debt to the AWU after one of its number, "Red" Ted Theodore, helped to shaft the AWU in a deal with Frank Packer that launched the Packer empire. The AWU has tended at times to play a fairly destructive role in the Australian labour movement. For instance early last century Anarcho-Syndicalist ideas were quite popular with the Australian working class, as reflected by the IWW and the vocal and popular demand for "One Big Union".

Ross McMullin in his, officially sanctioned, history of the ALP "The Light on the Hill: The Australian Labor Party 1891-1991" writes, "by 1918 many radicals and unionists were convinced that the workers' salvation lay in the One Big Union (OBU) scheme. They welcomed the creation of a single all powerful giant union which would signal the demise of craft unionism, and were absorbed in agitating for its introduction. Conservatives eyed the OBU's IWW like rhetoric with a shudder. Boote hailed the scheme in the 'Australian Worker' as 'the greatest thing that had happened in the history of this country', but had to change his tune when his employer, the AWU, decided to throw its considerable weight against it. The AWU's decision, which most MPs supported as they considered the OBU too radical to be electorally popular, doomed the OBU scheme to failure and generated profound ill feeling".

The Australian working class, as a result of "neo-liberalism" and globalisation (the first major decisions towards which were the Whitlam Government's 25% across the board tariff cut and its last, Hayden, budget) has paid the price ever since; it is ironic that "neo-liberalism" should have been ushered, in part, by Murdoch and Packer empire propaganda. Union membership as a proportion of the labour force is in decline and the AWU is but a shadow of its former self.

However, in response to globalisation and the failures of the accord, which provided a break on the working class whilst ushering in a party for the rich (which workers had to pay for in the "recession we had to have"), there has been a growth in militant grass-roots unionism; from the election of "members first" in the Victorian AMWU, the increasing union-community activism of the CFMEU (including CFMEU support for such campaigns as the effort to save the Sunshine community local swimming pool from destruction at the hands of the "Labor" dominated Brimbank council in contrast to AWU elements which are increasing their political presence in the area for seemingly careerist reasons; the AWU supported local MP Andre Hearmeyer has been on record as supporting Bracks government plans to build maximum security prisons in the area, this is the reward the ALP is giving to people in areas where some booths report a 70-80% "Labor" vote), Western Australia has seen an explosion in labour disputes which the Gallop "Labor" government is trying to contain and so on.

Corporate managers are well aware of these facts and any publication such as the planned glossy right wing AWU publication that will rival the rise of militant unionism is of course welcomed by them. To be sure Anarcho-Syndicalism is not as popular as before, but beneath the surface it is not difficult to see that public opinion is characterised by these ideas (Bosses, Politicians and Union leaders like Shorten are amongst the most despised members of society), so that as militant unionism becomes revived so will the demand for "One Big Union".

A good step in the right direction would be the setting up of a rival publication to "The Australian Worker" by left unions such as the ETU, AMWU and CFMEU; a publication not straight jacketed by association with the Packer empire, that should have lively contribution and debate from members.

Australia needs participatory working class media; "The Australian Worker" will prove to be anything but.

http://www.econ.usyd.edu.au/wos/worksite/hawke.html

There have been reports recently of human rights abuses in China, particularly of labour activists protesting job losses. How should Australia manage its desire for trade and good relations with its regional neighbours while defending human rights?

I think that’s overstated. It is the case that China and other countries have practices that are not our practices. What gives me the shits in large lumps is to hear the Americans preaching to the Chinese about human rights. It’s only in recent times that they’ve given equal rights to blacks. Look how long it took them to industrialise, and they expect China to do in a twinkling of an eye what took them centuries. Look at what the [US] did in regard to regimes they saw as strategically good, like Chile, where they were responsible for the murder of a democratically elected president and the installation of a dictator. The right thing to do is to do what we did we talked to China, we expressed our concern about certain issues, and they will listen to you. The fact is that since 1978 and the opening up to a market economy China has become a more liberal society. The China of today is unrecognisably different from the China of 1978. If the Chinese have the belief that foundationally, Australia wants to be friend of China, help it in its development, understands its importance, if they understand that’s your basic position and you don’t share in anyway this concept that that is widespread in America that China is an enemy, that that’s no part of your thinking, then within that framework you are able to talk with them about any range of issues.

http://www.econ.usyd.edu.au/wos/worksite/hawke.html

can someone find any links to the story about the AMW union,via the last poster re: chinese coalminer ???

A SIMPLE QUESTION ???

thank marko.
most interesting and well researched article.
2 things interest me.
1. how is it that you think that left wing unions setting up a rival publication with assist in the creation of anarcho-synicalism? these unions are in anycase filled with rightwing factions and plenty of position jostling politics. wouldn't it be better to set up and autonomous union along the lines of the COBAS in italy of SUD in france?
2. how is the one big union different to the one big party? isn't this idea of unity (ir eveyone being in the same organisation) a bit outdated? why not the idea of networks rather than grande organisations?

good and interesting questions.

(1). I would not want to be too dramatic about the left unions for the reasons you mention. In principle it would be better to create an autonomous syndicalist union but we must be realistic; the workers are members of mainstream unions for all sorts of historical reasons.

The rival publications would assist in the promotion of syndicalist ideas to the extent that it would be participatory; there is little doubt that traditional unionism is on the nose with a lot of workers. For the rival publication to be successful it must be participatory; workers would read it because they can participate in writing articles, discussion, debate and so on. Such a publication would not have Packer's money; it would have to rely on participation from members.

This will lead to a revival in revolutionary unionism because when you have participatory working class media this would be a major topic of discussion. Union media today "manaufactures consent" , not at the same level, as the corporate media precisely because it is non participatory. So I think a left union rival publication to the AWU planned one is a positive step in the right direction; it wouldn't be perfect like you say but it would be an important "strategic reform".

(2). There is a big difference I think; Bolshevism was anything but about one big party; it was a small party of vanguardist revolutionaries that was supposed to lead the way to nirvana. The way I understand the OBU idea is that you would have a single union, no doubt run along the principles of non-hierachy and participatory democracy, that dramatically enhances the structural power of labour; this would under globalisation have to be a global union.

This would not have to be a monolith; I don't see that it is a necessary contradiction between this kind of idea and networks; the idea of the network still must contain the germ of the old OBU idea; that the working class is strongest vis a vis capital when it is united in solidarity. Globalisation demands this. I was just trying to get that idea across, it does not mean that all the solutions can be found in old ideas your quite right; lots of thinking has to go in trying to see how this would work in a truly democratic way.

...'chinese coalminer' wanted to draw attention to a recent intra union suspension over an outsourcing issue...maybe.

Also the betrayal's of the Alternative Liberal Party are all well known so to see stories like this and the most active unions being composed of screws, scabs, woodchippers and cops, well...

I must say Marko is being brave in bucking the prevailing organizationalist winds and so I wish him well.
If I might be so bold as to offer a couple of suggestions?

One tie any new 'dead tree' newsletter(s) in with websites.
Also push the OBU concept as (rich and inspiring) hirstory AND an INFORMAL OBU so as to better escape repression and also possibly avoid certain unfortunate 1936 type events re-occuring.

Just my 2c

Scabs don't have union's and that should read ANTI- organizational winds!

Me bad

one issue i have is with this statement
"the workers are members of mainstream unions for all sorts of historical reasons."
who are these workers? from my understanding they are a declining bunch. i'm not sure of the statistics, you might know them, i vaguely remember a figure of around 18-20% of people being unionised.
there is a whole gamet of work that has no collective organising around it at all becuase the unions have been incapable of dealing with post-fordism (which was invented in many ways to route their organising capacities).
so the union sectors that remain strong are still those involved in fordist type work (manufacturing, construction. "jo worker" "blue collar" types jobs).
the union movement has been an absolute failure at dealing with the new forms of work which are mostly forms of immaterial labour, hospitality, communications such as call centres or just secretaries, office work. it has especially been unable to deal with the shift to part-time, casual, unemployed and precarious work, merely citing demands such as jobs jobs jobs!! hoping to return to an era of full time and full employment where the odds were in its favour.
those days are long gone and the union movement has been routed not becuase it lacked anarcho-syndicalist ideas (though they might have helped a bit but for me "AS" still glorifies work and the worker), but because they have been completly unable to furnish themselves with an analysis of capital that works, tending to stick to the ideas of mao, stalin, lenin and trotsky or just plain beauracracy and reformism. at the moment the unions just seem to want to keep afloat. for me their analysis hasn't made it past 1973, they have completly failed to comprehend post-fordism, and where they think they have they just want to return to the past.
we could look at the development of part-time/casual work etc not just as capitals demand for flexibility but to look at it in reverse, from the side of the workers.
ie their resistance not just in the form of unionism but to work itself, absenteeism, sickies, slacking off.
etc, the flexibility of part-time and casual work is also something young people want (i do atleast). I don't want to work full time and neither do a hell of a lot of people. a lot of people don't lament the fact that "in my day when you got a job you had it for the rest of your life".
i don't think it's what people want anymore.
so a revolutionary workers movement must include a movement against work itself and conceptualise the new forms of sociality and culture that have developed that make giant union structures a thing of the past and diffuse, decentralised and networked resistance a thing of the future.

I agree with oj, unions have little to offer most workers. The only active unions I've encountered in workplaces (public sector) focus on protecting the rights & benefits of permanent staff & union members & sod most everybody else.

Was reading a history of (mostly womens) cooperative societies in the UK recently & their example is sorely missed. Starting as savings clubs for food & clothing among the very poorest, they expanded to have thousands of coop stores & hundreds of thousands of members, driving womens sufferage, supporting many (mens) union struggles and feeding, educating and expanding the horizons of so many.
Their initial success was founded on unpaid labour - women recruiting their neighbours and working together to drag themselves from Englands hereditary poverty/class system.
But I guess union bosses are only slightly less likely to doorknock the burbs than the fitzroy mafia (of which i may be a member.. are there any perks?).

it is true that unions represent ~20% of the workforce, for all sorts of reasons, many of which you mention; however that makes a popular social movement with ~2 million members. Name another popular social movement in Australia with 2 million members...in fact name another one with 10,000 members.

Also, I fail to understand why a union is not a "network". If by "network" you mean the sort of stuff presented by Hardt and Negri then I am afraid I am at a loss; Hardt and Negri talk poly-syllabic gibberish which goes down well in the cafes in Chapel and Lygon street, no doubt, but is mostly useless i.e. "multitude of singularities".

If we accept the following two propositions
(a) we should be interested in replacing not reforming capitalism and corporations
(b) that this should be a process of working class self emancipation

it thereby follows that capitalism can only be replaced, if we are adherents of (b), by working class action at the point of production and that means revolutionary unionism. Because (b) involves self emancipation we are lead naturally to anarcho-syndicalism.

The assertion that AS leads to stalinism and maoism is not even worth commenting upon on.

ok, so a small punctuation mistake led you to think that i asserted that " AS leads to stalinism and maoism", which i do not believe in the slightest. i was saying that the radical section of the union movement is unfortunatly still dominated by these ideas and that a bit of AS might even be good for them.

you wrote:

"it is true that unions represent ~20% of the workforce, for all sorts of reasons, many of which you mention; however that makes a popular social movement with ~2 million members."

20% of the working population which probably makes it closer to 1 million once you take out the elderly, young and unemployed.

"Name another popular social movement in Australia with 2 million members...in fact name another one with 10,000 members."

I don't think that just because people are in unions it makes them part of a movement. as you say there are right wing unions, there is a police union, the guards who brutalise asylum seekers in detention centres are often unionised. i think the varied interests are too wide to call it a movement.

what i was trying to suggest in anycase is that it might be more worthwhile to focus on those areas the uniins have left behind; service workers, hospitality and communications workers, unemployed and casual workers, and build different types of organisation rather than trying to intervene into beauracratic union structures with all their politiking and power games. build a much different form of relationship.

"Also, I fail to understand why a union is not a "network". If by "network" you mean the sort of stuff presented by Hardt and Negri then I am afraid I am at a loss; Hardt and Negri talk poly-syllabic gibberish which goes down well in the cafes in Chapel and Lygon street, no doubt, but is mostly useless i.e. "multitude of singularities". "

becuase most unions do not allow for much diversity, they are authoritarian and hierarchical. networks work horizontally, atleast the ones i am interested in, and on the basis of voluntary association and across nation boundries. most unions work as busineses or mafias.
as to the assertation that hardt and negri only going down well in the cafes of brunswick and lygon i suggest you read some history. Negri (who i by no means support unconditionally) was a major theorist of a combatent class movement in italy in the 60s and 70s. A radical proletarian movement that is still the largest in recent times in a western context. the movement of autonomia, which involved millions of workers and students, feminists and unemployed, cannot be dismissed as cafe talk. Infact many anarcho-sydicalists would do well to have a look at the ideas and practice and the way they went beyond (but not contrary to) previous forms of theory and politics, including AS (which is still stuck in the 20s like the trots for my liking).
negri is a major fan of the work done by the IWW in the US in the early 20th century so there is no point creating a divide where there isn't one. the movement of autonomy merely went beyond the limits of the IWW and AS and authoritarian marxism, we now need to go beyond its limits, of which there are many.

"If we accept the following two propositions
(a) we should be interested in replacing not reforming capitalism and corporations
(b) that this should be a process of working class self emancipation

it thereby follows that capitalism can only be replaced, if we are adherents of (b), by working class action at the point of production and that means revolutionary unionism. Because (b) involves self emancipation we are lead naturally to anarcho-syndicalism."

i don't follow yr conclusions though i agree with yr propositions. i don't think revolutionary unions are the soleway of overthrowing capitalism and i don't think that that form of unionism in anycase needs to be AS. why do we have to only take from one political heritage? lets take the good ideas of AS and drop the baggage, take other ideas that can also serve us.

I think that is a much healthier and much more likely to be succesful.

Mate, you are a dead set wanker? Have you ever seen what people read out there in the real world? Reality ios four out of five don't.

Most 'left' magazines are boring as batshit - even if what they are banging on about is worthwhile. The vast majority of people would rather chew their left leg off than write an article.

Doing it your way would result in something embarrasingly amateur or come across with unreadable wank that makes you look like a nutter.

The Herald Sun might be bullshit, but at least it's interesting bullshit

Probably not what AS Hardt & Negri reading types want to hear, but the only left newspaper that has any readership among workers, particularly rank anf file unionists is Green Left Weekly. Obviously it doesn't have the resources to compete with the Herald-Sun but a grass-roots, all volunteer publication with a weekly hard copy readership which generally fluctuates between 3 and 5 thousand isn't bad (this doesn't include internet hits, of course). Sales go higher than this when there are large mobilisations. At the November 15 mobilisations over 1000 Green Lefts were sold in Melbourne alone.

I'm not pointing this out just to gloat. The achievements of Green Left are still modest. However, its ironic to read the usual sectarian characterisations of "authoritarian Leninists" etc, from people using élitist language which suggests an unwillingness to test ideas in the real world. Unfortunately a large proporton of people posting on this site seem to never come out from behind computers or at least not move from insular, inner city social circles where everyone has a similar outlook to themselves.

Selling newspapers on street corners, at suburban railway stations, in workplaces, at rallies and meetings, etc, is something much sneered at by anarchists on MIM. However, trying to relate to humanity outside your own niche provides a good test for ideas. And the ideas in GLW do get a hearing in the real world.

http://www.greenleft.org.au