By Jonathan Singer
In 1969, hundreds of thousands of Australian workers struck in opposition to the penal sanctions in laws against unions taking industrial action and in defence of Clarrie O'Shea, a union official fined and jailed under these laws. O'Shea was freed and those anti-union sanctions were never used again.
The O'Shea victory showed that industrial relations laws don't dictate what the unions can do. Workers and their unions have been able to win some battles despite harsher anti-union laws: the 1998 wharfies' stand against Patrick Stevedores under Peter Reith's 1996 Workplace Relations Act (WRA), for example.
However, industrial relations laws do suggest what the employers and their servants in government think they can get away with. The laws also back up their attempts to achieve this.
In 1999, Australian workers face the Coalition government's "second wave" of anti-union laws. These are designed to prevent industrial action even starting and to push the unions out of the workplace.
The process of reversing what was won 30 years ago is a story with five parts.
1969-1975
From 1969 to the mid-1970s, while the anti-Vietnam War marches reached their height and movements for women's liberation, gay and lesbian rights, Aboriginal land rights and the environment were launched, workers increasingly took industrial action. Strikes reached an all-time Australian high in 1974.
Wages rose in real terms (allowing for price increases). When inflation grew, unions won cost of living increases in awards to protect workers' buying power. Working conditions also improved, starting with two more weeks of annual leave.
Improvements in social security payments were also won, the introduction of a pension for sole parents, for example.
In the unions' campaigns and strikes, some of the old divisions among workers were broken down. Equal pay decisions for women were won in 1969 and 1972. Migrants from non-English speaking backgrounds began to lead strikes and unions.
Some unions became industrially active for the first time. Unions became involved in issues beyond their immediate concerns, such as the NSW builders labourers' "green bans" campaign.
Because of this activity, the emergence of mass unemployment for the first time since World War II did not reduce the density of union membership (the proportion of workers who are union members).
1976-1982
In late 1975, after the "coup" against the Labor government of Gough Whitlam, a Liberal government led by Malcolm Fraser (with John Howard as treasurer) was elected. The Fraser government introduced penalties for industrial action such as anti-secondary boycott provisions.
The unions were not defeated, however. Most did not accept the government's legitimacy and opposed its policies with actions like the strike against the dismantling of Medibank (the precursor to Medicare).
After wage "freezes" had forced real pay cuts, wage campaigns between 1979 and 1981 won back what had been lost. By 1982, a campaign for shorter working weeks had reduced normal work hours from 40 to 35-38 for most workers.
However, unions did not organise beyond their own ranks. Social security payments to the unemployed began to be reduced and restricted, especially for young people.
Union density, which was 51% in 1976, was still 49.5% in 1982. Employers found Fraser was not the solution to their problems.
For workers to make further gains from their industrial activity between 1969 and 1982, they needed a radical political alternative, based on their strength and a growing understanding of capitalism, that would give trade unionism a broader social agenda. But no new, significant workers' political organisation developed.
1983-1990
The Prices and Incomes Accord was signed between the ACTU and the ALP as part of the party's successful 1983 election push. It was strongly supported by the traditionally militant unions and presented by them as the answer to workers' political needs.
The Accord was supposed to improve the "social wage" for workers in return for restraint in wage claims and industrial action. In fact, both the pay and social wage benefits were gained only by the poorest parts of the working class.
Between 1983 and 1990, hourly award rates of pay (legally determined base pay rates covering nearly all workers) dropped by 15-30%. Average earnings did not drop this much, but only because over-award payments didn't drop. However, only a minority of workers receive over-award payments.
Spending on education and health care was cut, particularly through reducing funding to state governments. Free tertiary education was abolished. Restrictions on unemployment and pension payments were increased.
There was little resistance to all this from the unions. Industrial action decreased steadily. Unions that did openly fight back, like the Builders' Labourers Federation (BLF) and the pilots, were destroyed by the government, with the ACTU's compliance.
While the government passed a special law against the BLF, it did not introduce new general anti-union laws. It stood back, however, when businesses like the Mudginberri abattoir and Dollar Sweets sued unions for damages due to industrial action.
Even without any new general anti-union laws, the unions' inactivity started to cause union membership to decline. Union density in 1990 was 40.5%
1991-1995
With each version of the Accord in the 1980s, awards became less important. In 1991, the Labor government confirmed this by introducing enterprise bargaining with the support of the union leaderships. Bargaining at the enterprise level, it was claimed, would encourage on-the-job involvement by union members.
Under enterprise bargaining, workers had to trade off conditions for wage rises and agree to no further claims during the period of an agreement. They also lost flow-on and inflation indexation increases in awards and the chance for industry-wide pay rises or improvements in conditions.
Agreements were made in individual enterprises or even parts of them. ALP government laws passed in 1993 started "award simplification" and legalised industrial action (which the unions had got away with before), but only in enterprise bargaining periods.
Enterprise bargaining reduced the solidarity of union members across workplaces while demoralising them in their own workplace through trade-offs which amounted to paying for your own pay rise. Income inequalities among workers — for example, between men and women — increased further. Working hours began to increase again.
The government also set out to drive the unemployed and sole parents into increasing competition for jobs, even while official unemployment reached more than 1 million.
The unions did respond to the attacks by Liberal premiers Jeff Kennett in Victoria and Richard Court in WA, but the campaigns were not sustained and most of Kennett's and Court's measures were passed.
Overall, the unions' activity continued to decline. By now, most workers and even many unionists lacked experience of serious struggles for their rights as workers. Membership losses accelerated; by 1996, union density was just 31%.
1996-1999
In the Howard government's first year it introduced the WRA. This entrenched much of what the Labor government had done, but also advanced the idea that unions do not belong in the workplace at all.
Restrictions on the right to take industrial action were increased. Awards were "stripped" to basic pay and conditions.
The WRA also made getting day-to-day help from the union harder. Individual agreements (Australian Workplace Agreements) with employees were legalised.
The ACTU campaign against the WRA was half-hearted. At first, most union leaders opposed workers taking industrial action so they could gather to demonstrate their opposition. A national demonstration in Canberra was eventually organised, but the ACTU disowned this because angry workers, Aboriginal people and students, provoked by police obstruction and arrests, occupied the Parliament House forecourt and tried to enter the building.
The ACTU appealed to the Australian Democrats, but, with just a few amendments, the WRA was passed with the Democrats' support.
While wages have increased in the 1990s, this has been at the cost of working conditions. Casual employment and job insecurity is rife. Already, workers can be sacked by one employer and come back to the same job with another employer the next week, losing their leave entitlements and taking a wage cut in the process.
Work is more stressful and intense. Extra pay for overtime or evening, night and weekend work has been reduced or lost — if extra working time is paid for at all.
The unemployed face being forced into unsuitable jobs or, worse, being cut off the dole without a job as a result of "intensive assistance".
Today, only around 28% of workers are union members. However, every poll taken on this question finds that many more people want to be in the unions (and even more believe they are a useful part of society).
A major step towards unions being more able to re-organise Australian workers will be rolling back the anti-union laws. Better to fight back now than later, when the screws are turned harder.