The president of the ACTU, Martin Ferguson, drew a very long bow indeed in attempting to link the gross civil rights abuses against unionists in Indonesia with the fairly modest changes, on world standards, made to industrial law in Victoria and Western Australia. Victoria and Western Australia rated small mentions in the annual survey of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. The report said that following changes to the law many workers had migrated to the Federal system. This is hardly surprising given the Federal Government’s favourable treatment of the union movement. However, mere movement of a large number of unionists to a regime which positively discriminates in their favour is no indication that the regimes they migrated from were engaged in active repression and civil rights abuses or, indeed, were involved in anything untoward at all.
The changes in Western Australia and Victoria merely took away some of the quite over-bearing power of unions and union officials in those states. To make comparisons with deplorable violence and discrimination against unions in other countries does the union movement in Australia no credit.
When judging the position of the industrial-relations laws in Victoria and Western Australia, the important test is the position of individuals.
Is anyone being prevented from joining a union of their choice, by law or physical intimidation? Is any union prevented from representing those individuals who have freely joined it? These are the critical human-rights tests in the industrial-relations arena. They not appear to have been breached in the case of Victoria or Western Australia and it is silly to compare those states with other parts of the world where workers are fired for joining unions and union officials threatened with violence .
It may well be that the role of a union official is more difficult or less powerful in Victoria and Western Australia than in the Federal sphere. In Victoria and Western Australia and under the Federal Opposition’s model existing unions and their officials face competition from other unions; do not get statute-endorsed payroll deductions for subscriptions; and face the task of attracting members voluntarily; face the same legal liability for damages as anyone, but this is not evidence of breaches of human rights. To the contrary. The test is not the convenience or power of union officials but the rights of individuals to join industrial organisations and to have those organisations represent them (if the members freely wish it) in negotiations with employers.
It is equally a human right for an individual not to join a union, or to join the union of their choice, and to negotiate with an employer directly. There is good evidence that these latter rights are being breached in the federal sphere in Australia. It is equally the right of an employer to freely contract with individuals for the provision of labour without being forced to employ union members. This right is certainly impinged upon by both law and intimidatory action by unions.
Australian history has caused highly powerful unions in many walks of Australian life. Just because a couple of states have attempted to restore some equilibrium is no evidence of repression.