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The Ebb Tide of Trade Unions

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The Ebb Tide of Trade Unions REVIEW ESSay THE EBB TIDE OF TRADE UNIONS Tom Bramble’s Marxism stands in the way of understanding the decline of trade unions, explains Michael Warby Trade Unionism in Australia: A History from Flood to Ebb Tide by Tom Bramble Cambridge University Press, 2008 $49.95, 314pp ISBN 9780521716123 s he says right upfront, Tom Bramble’s case of 1969, when union official Clarrie O’Shea was Trade Unionism in Australia: A History from briefly gaoled for breach of said provisions (his fine Flood to Ebb Tide is a Marxist analysis of was paid anonymously) and the rather stage-managed the history of trade unionism in Australia union protests against WorkChoices in 2007. Afrom World War II to the election of the Rudd Labor Bramble sees the former as genuine union militancy government. driving politicians to respond—the beginning of Apart from being clearly written (not always a the high point of union effectiveness; indeed, from feature of Marxist writings) the book is very much the start to the end of the book it is his template of full of facts. It has considerable value simply in how union activism should be done. For Bramble, its assembling of relevant statistics and presenting strikes are a positive indicator—particularly given them clearly. In contemporary academe, Marxist the evidence he cites for such action encouraging scholars can be a welcome relief from the somewhat union recruitment. fact-challenged products of more recent intellectual He sees the 2007 WorkChoices campaign as being trends. Bramble is an example of ‘there are facts and carefully managed to help one lot of politicians they matter’ Marxist scholarship. When the blurb against another, which left the union movement talks of Bramble’s ‘compelling rigour,’ this may be in the weakest position it has been—both within what it is alluding to. It is also a useful corrective to those who fail to think about the downsides—particularly for those Michael Warby has a wide range of who have to suffer under it—of management experience in public policy. He has been arrogance. That, over the long run, employers tend to a union workplace delegate, a board get the unions and workplace problems they deserve member of the H R Nicholls Society, and comes across quite clearly. is a principal of a business that puts on Bramble starts off with an amusing contrast between union militancy over the destruction of the Medieval and Ancient days for schools. penal provisions of arbitration law in the O’Shea 52 Vol. 25 No. 1 • Autumn 2009 • POLICY THE EBB TIDE OF TRADE UNIONS the ALP and more broadly—in the entire post-war Union-based challenge to Polish (and indirectly period. He notes how limited a roll-back of the Soviet) Communism—reduced ideological differences Howard Government’s WorkChoices the Rudd within the West, at least on economic issues, and government is committed to. To Bramble, the history moved political debate into managing capitalism. of Australian unionism is one of achieving a peak (After surging from about 1940 onwards, use of of militant effectiveness in the late 1960s and early the terms ‘Marxist’ and ‘Marxism’ in the JSTOR 1970s— that peak coming to a halt in the economic academic journal database peaked in 1988, then went crisis of the mid-1970s, a period of marking time into continuing sharp decline.) while resisting the Fraser government, and then a long Bramble’s Marxism both drives, and seriously decline from the election of the Hawke government limits, his analysis: the facts are subordinated to onwards. his theoretical framework. Since, under the labour theory of value, the only human thing or action that The limits of Marxist analysis contributes to exchange value is labour, then wages All events are interpreted in terms of a struggle cannot be ‘too high’ if any profit share exists (Bramble between working class and capitalist ruling class, explicitly denigrates connecting unemployment ‘class’ being treated as an unproblematic concept. to wage levels: to the extent of endorsing shorter Electoral outcomes are interpreted relentlessly hours on full pay to ‘share the work around,’ there within that framework. So the near defeat of the is no notion that wages might be a price), all profit Howard government in 1998 is analysed as following is exploitation. So there is no legitimate role for on from the failure to break the MUA in the business, so business and its supporters can never waterfront dispute. The GST gets no mention, and have legitimate motives, cooperation with business the social reforms enacted by Federal governments— is always betrayal, there can be no commonality or wage rises generally—are talked about in terms of with exploiters and there is no legitimate sense in concessions by the capitalist class. which we are all in a common economy and society The rise of the Green movement fails to get any together. Hence any constraining of union militancy coverage (except in getting the Left vote up to due to concerns for democracy, the rule of law, or more than 50 percent in 2007). Yet, even in terms unemployment are betrayals. of Bramble’s own concerns, this is foolish analysis. There are also no returns to trade between labour Bramble laments the decline of militant networks and capital—it is all a zero-sum game. So the question within the union movement. That activists who, of complexity costs or waste of resources doesn’t in previous times, might have gone into the union arise—nor do issues of loss, bankruptcy or managing movement now flow into advocacy NGOs— risk figure in his analysis (that is all subsumed into rise particularly of a ‘green’ variety—surely has much to and falls in the profit-share of GDP or rates of profit). do with said decline of militant networks. Innovation or commercial creativity figures still less This pattern of leaving highly relevant things out (there is merely productivity) nor does the question runs through the book—to a sometimes laughable of whether capital accumulation—by making labour extent. So Bramble cites General Pinochet’s violent more scarce compared to capital—might prove to be 1973 overthrow of the Allende government in Chile an investment in higher returns to labour. as being in people’s minds as they responded to what Indeed, there are no problems of ownership Bramble calls the ‘Kerr Coup’ in dismissing the (particularly not providing any guarantees against Whitlam government. Yet that the Communist Party income variability). Nor are there any problems of of Australia dissolved in 1991 is noted without any information flows or incentives other than those that reference to what else dissolved that year. affect levels and effectiveness of militancy and union Again, in terms of Bramble’s own concerns, organisation. This is ‘economic’ analysis with most Michael Warby has a wide range of ignoring the global collapse of the socialist alternative of the actual economics left out. experience in public policy. He has been to capitalism is foolish analysis. Surely it is precisely Bramble is in the rich tradition of academics a union workplace delegate, a board that in 1969–74, there was still a sense of socialism as who live in capitalist societies, study and critique a viable alternative to capitalism that mattered in both member of the H R Nicholls Society, and (even obsess about) capitalism but, in certain crucial directing and firing up militant workplace activity. respects, do not understand it. is a principal of a business that puts on Socialism-as-genuine-alternative’s accelerating Bramble lauds the advance of women in the Medieval and Ancient days for schools. collapse—starting with China’s dramatic economic workplace but glides over union resistance to reforms from 1979 on and the 1980 Solidarity the same—the ACTU’s abandonment of the Vol. 25 No. 1 • Autumn 2009 • POLICY 53 THE EBB TIDE OF TRADE UNIONS family wage concept in 1977 is seen as worthy but smaller states: the diseconomies of scale were somehow comes without any attached history worth increased and any economies of scale largely avoided. mentioning. Bramble cites oppression of migrant That something more might be going on is, however, workers with little sense of why Australia so attracts suggested by the fact that union coverage fell in migrants. And he does not bring up the issue of many developed economies and that the only whether the combination of mass migration and other developed economy where it fell even more women entering the workforce might put downward precipitously was New Zealand. pressure on wages. (The push for equal pay may help Bramble sees the last as being a result of New Zealand obscure the larger effect.) Workforce changes that also being even more avid in adopting ‘neoliberal’ economic increased the difficulty of appealing to a common reforms. New Zealand was also the one other country union culture: the more diverse the background of workers due to varying cultural backgrounds and that had an arbitration system analogous to Australia’s. life experiences, the harder solidarity politics tends This meant that, like Australia, NZ unions had to become. developed as managers of legal complexity tied into a comparatively rigid structure of workplace regulations and legal privileges. The union movement was tied to a The worldwide move towards economic complex regulatory structure whose liberalisation was a response to the failure of socialism, the failure of highly centralised paths of implicit and explicit costs were increasing. development, and to stagflation. In the developed world, both the movement of women into the workforce and mass migration placed downward Not all the deleterious exclusions flow from pressure on wages, lessening the willingness to pay Bramble’s theoretical framework, his polemical for extra taxes, while increasing demand for jobs purposes also have an effect.
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