The left, the trade unions and the Labor rank and file between Rudd
and a hard place

By Bob Gould

There's overwhelming sentiment throughout the workers' movement,
except among a small coterie of cranks, that the pressing question of
the moment is the removal of the Howard Government and its replacement
by a Labor government led by Kevin Rudd.

Many on the left hope this will be accompanied by a strengthening of
the Greens in parliament.

Alongside this lies the difficult circumstance that Kevin Rudd clearly
sees himself as an innovating conservative figure, and wishes to move
the general policy and practice of the Labor Party to the right.
Recent parliamentary leadership actions, such as declaring policies on
IR that weren't clearly decided on at the recent Labor federal
conference, clearly indicate that he wishes to establish his right to
decide policy rather than accept the policies decided by the
structures of the Labor Party, such as federal and state conferences.

Rudd has also, in recent weeks, clearly indicated a desire to
marginalise union influence in the Labor Party, if that is at all
possible.

What part of all this represents his own aspirations and what part is
an electoralist response to the relentless pressure of the media and
the ruling class is not entirely clear.

It's possible that Rudd and Gillard are telling the unions that this
is necessary for the elections, but the reality after the election
will be more pro-union than the current rhetoric.

Rudd and Gillard in these matters are Bonapartists, in the sense that
they balance between the different forces and the pressures exerted on
them. All this puts the trade unions and the Labor rank and file, both
left and right, in a difficult position.

The desire of the left half of Australian society to get rid of Howard
and elect Rudd is palpably apparent to anyone with even half a brain.
Eccentric voices on the left, such as the man called Raven on the GLW
list, who talk recklessly about driving a wedge between the unions and
Labor are objectively playing into the hands of the reactionary forces
in Australian society.

The overwhelming majority of the left half of Australian society,
including the most active people, of whom there are many tens of
thousands, recognise that it's necessary to work hard to defeat Howard
and elect a Labor government. It's not possible, however, to evade the
issues that have been served up to us by recent events. The ranks of
the movement, both left and right, and the ranks of the trade unions,
must unite to defeat the pressure coming in the final analysis from
both the ruling class and the media, to marginalise the unions in the
Labor Party. That's the political imperative of the moment, along with
the other political imperative of electing a Rudd Labor government.

The opposite argument, that it would be a good thing if the unions
were pushed out of the Labor Party, is political poison from the point
of view of the future of the workers' movement. The result of such a
development wouldn't be any growth of a leftist alternative, it would
be the further demoralisation and retreat of the socialist forces and
the class-struggle militants in Australian society.

If Howard gets in again, it is unlikely to lead to a radicalisation,
it's much more likely to lead to further demoralisation and retreat of
the left.

The major current project of the ruling class, that of driving the
unions out of the Labor Party (even if Rudd is making major
concessions to that pressure) is much easier said than done,
thankfully from the socialist point of view. Left and right factions
of the Labor Party, both federally and in all six states and
territories, are factions in which union interests are very powerful
and often dominant.

It's clear that some Labor politicians both left and right would like
to get rid of this "incubus" of trade union influence, as they see it,
but it's not in the nature of the unions, either left or right, and in
this instance their leaderships, to easily give up their long-held
prerogatives. Even most leaders of the trade union bureaucracy who in
the final analysis make their living out of the unions and to their
credit are emotionally committed to the institutions in which they've
spent most of their lives, understand that the union movement is
fighting for its life.

It flows from this conjuncture of contradictory circumstances that the
leadership of important militant unions, both left and right, ought to
take the initiative for the formation in every state of something like
the Pledge Group of unions that existed in Victoria for a number of years.

A national Pledge should focus on a kind of minimum program, which
should involve a "thus far and no further" kind of approach.

The first plank should be the election of a Rudd government. The
second plank should be total defence of trade union affiliations,
interests and prerogatives in the Labor Party. The third plank should
be the insistence that the incoming Labor government adopt an
industrial relations policy acceptable to the overwhelming majority of
unions on key matters.

The fourth plank should be vigorous opposition to further
privatisation. The immediate cutting edge to that battle is the latest
push for electricity privatisation in NSW.

A fifth plank should be opposition to so-call public-private
partnerships, which usually mean that the public shoulders the burden
of debt and the private sector pockets any profits.

The whole of the labour movement should be mobilised to fight around
this kind of minimum program. In the real world of politics, it's
obvious that the main momentum for such a mass Pledge-style movement
will come after the election, rather than before. However, with the
instructive experience of the past few weeks in front of us it seems
to me the preliminary work on such a movement should begin now, and it
has been forced on the unions and the ranks of the workers' movement
by the speed of events.

PS. A very important aspect of the coming electoral battle will be the
question of the necessary comprehensive national exchange of
preferences between Labor and the Greens. Feral Greens in a few places
should be vigorously persuaded to accept a preference deal with Labor
for the general good.

It is necessary, by negotiation, to remove any possible basis for the
kind of thoughtless actions by the Labor leadership in Victoria at the
last federal election, which led to the election of the Family First
senator instead of a Green, and contributed to Howard's (one hopes)
temporary grip on the Senate. It would be a tragedy if sectarianism on
the part of either Labor or the Greens damaged the chance of wresting
control of the Senate from Howard, given the importance of a
progressive majority in the Senate to make easier the necessary
campaign for progressive policies from a new Labor government.