Unions? - Please Explain: Grant Robertson subtitled his address to Labour's second "Future of Work" conference “Building Wealth from the Ground Up”. Any common sense reading of that title would predict a fulsome measure of worker participation in the exercise, which, to be effective, would have to involve the organisations dedicated to defining and articulating workers’ interests – the trade unions. Astonishingly, the term "trade union" did not appear anywhere in Robertson's 3,431-word speech.
WHAT SHOULD WE MAKE of the fact that Grant Robertson’s
speech to Labour’s second “Future of Work” conference contains no reference to
trade unions? Or that, in the entire 3,431-word text of the speech the word
“union” appears only once? In a list of the groups involved in the “Commission
External Reference Group” of Robertson’s Future of Work project. In addition to
business people, academics and community representatives, Robertson admits to
“union leaders” also being consulted.
That admission raises some pretty thorny problems of its
own. If “union leaders” have indeed been involved in this flagship Labour Party
exercise, then what do they make of Robertson’s very clear implication that
their organisations, Labour’s founding fathers, will have no role to play in
the future of work in New Zealand?
Robertson subtitled his speech “Building Wealth from the
Ground Up”. Any common sense reading of that title would predict a fulsome
measure of worker participation in the exercise, which, to be effective, would
have to involve the organisations dedicated to defining and articulating
workers’ interests – the trade unions.
But, if that is what Robertson and the union leaders
advising him intend, then the absence of the slightest reference to organised
labour helping to build New Zealand’s future wealth becomes even more puzzling.
Either, New Zealand’s leading unionists all anticipate being made redundant in
the near future; or, they do indeed see themselves playing a leading economic
role, but have agreed, along with the party, to say nothing about it until
Labour’s safely re-elected.
If it’s the latter, then the electorate will have every
right to feel duped. Major changes – and a programme entitled “Building Wealth
from the Ground Up” surely qualifies as such – should be signalled well in
advance of a general election. Without prior notification, along with the
discussion and debate such announcements inevitably provoke, political parties
cannot claim a legitimate mandate for change. Lacking an electoral mandate,
major policy reforms instantly become vulnerable to repeal by the Opposition.
Refusing to share your plans with the voters isn’t just bad form, it’s bad
politics.
So, why has Robertson been so careful to avoid referencing
his party’s core constituency: the 300,000 New Zealanders who still belong to a
trade union? The speech itself contains a number of hints.
The first of these is the warm welcome extended to David
Coats, one of the Conference’s keynote speakers. Coats comes with an impressive
CV, and is well-placed, as one of the UK’s leading commentators on trade union
affairs, to assist Robertson in speaking out forthrightly on what organised
labour must do to remain relevant to twenty-first century workers. Coats’
preference for a union movement that is focused on helping its members to “‘get
on’, rather than ‘get even’” dovetails neatly with Robertson’s own ideas about
employee aspiration. Sadly, any discussion of such matters appears to have
remained strictly in-house.
Another pointer towards why Robertson kept the trade unions
out of his speech was his reference to Jeremy Corbyn. In spite of the fact that
Corbyn now stands at the heart of an intense political struggle to determine
the future of the British Labour Party, and hence the future of work in the
United Kingdom, Robertson mentioned his name only in relation to what was
happening 18 months ago: “Jeremy Corbyn, UK Labour backbencher was preparing to
defy his party whip for the 489th time”.
The remark is vintage Robertson. In dismissing Corbyn as a
disloyal back-bench pest, the MP for Wellington Central reveals how little he
thinks of the British Labour leader’s left-wing ideas, and how much he values
strictly-enforced political discipline. One can only speculate as to what all
those “union leaders” allegedly involved in Robertson’s “Future of Work”
project made of the remark.
After all, Corbyn recently announced his determination to
re-arm the British Labour Movement by repealing the multitude of anti-union
laws which, between them, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair either added to, or
kept on, the UK statute books. With less than 10 percent of New Zealand’s
private sector workforce involved in a trade union, our own “union leaders”
must be hoping for something similar should Andrew Little win the 2017
election.
That’s unlikely. Especially when Robertson’s speech
describes only one personal encounter with a living, breathing worker:
“At a public meeting in Albany earlier in the year after my
presentation a man who had sat attentively at the front came forward and asked,
with tears in his eyes, if I could do anything to help him get a job.”
It
is difficult to imagine a more poignant depiction of the powerlessness of so
many unemployed and precariously employed New Zealanders. If Robertson can’t
make the case for empowering these workers and their unions now, relying upon
him to do so after the election seems foolhardy in the extreme.
This essay was originally published in The Press of Tuesday, 30 August 2016.
