The secretary of the ACTU, Bill Kelty, is quite right to assert that the battle at Comalco’s Weipa bauxite mine is a fundamental one. But the battle is not one between unionism in general and capital, but one between a particular form of unionism, as practised and preached by the ACTU.
That form of unionism is one of the closed shop and one of equal pay for equal categories of work across whole industries. It is not the form of unionism where those people who want to join a union can do so and where a union negotiates pay and conditions with individual employers.
At Comalco 600 individuals have forsaken the union and taken up individual contracts which have given workers substantial pay increases that the union could not get them. About 50 workers stayed with the union and are on much lower pay.
The union sees that as a form of bribe to workers to quit the union so that when union strength is sapped workers can be exploited later on. The company, however, sees the extra wages as a price worth paying for flexibility in the workplace and to give it the capacity to reward individuals who produce more.
In theory, it has been possible for any company to offer individual contracts and it has been possible for workers in any workplace to negotiate pay and conditions quite separately from what happens elsewhere in their industry. In practice, however, it is rare. When it happens, the centralised union body, the ACTU digs in. It sees its power base under direct threat.
Despite all the talk and window-dressing with changes in the Industrial Relations Act, centralised unionism of the ACTU type is still a powerful force in Australia. Federal union officials still negotiate for union members in virtual closed shops with an eye to flow-ons throughout the industry. A company’s capacity to pay is not considered. Productivity, even on a collective basis, let alone on an individual basis, is not a real factor.
The interesting point about Comalco is that when given a choice, many workers abandon the union. They are prepared to show their value as individuals and negotiate their own contracts.
In other industries, of course, the picture is different. Some employers will inevitably exploit workers who are not in a good bargaining position. In those cases the right to be represented by a union is important.
The Comalco battle is fundamental because the power of the old centralised union officialdom is at stake. If workers can negotiate for themselves, either as individuals or as genuine workplace units, the place for the centralised union bureaucracy will become almost superfluous. It will have to start convincing workers that membership is worthwhile. It will have to do that with some hard work at providing members benefits that are not extracted by sheer force of compulsory closed shops.zzzAustralian industry and workers should be the beneficiaries. Workers will regain the fundamental right of choosing whether or not to belong to a union. They will be able to be rewarded directly for more productive work and so will work more productively. And unions will be forced to service their members more effectively.