Outburst

Private provision is a public menace

2008-10-17T17:31:00.000-07:00

Ben Spies-Butcher presents a persuasive case that the increased weight of private provision of "superior goods" of health, education and retirement incomes, along with housing, is overall costly and damaging. More public provision in these areas is socially beneficial, and less costly as well as being better for low income people. His critique describes the government decisions that have driven this shift, and their effects, without looking at the reasons why governments have pursued a set of policies which can only be considered irrational on the basis of the evidence in the article. Ben S-B does however point out that this policy approach invariably favours the most well-off, both as consumers of the services in question, and in making profits out of their provision.

The issues that Ben S-B leaves me pondering are:
1. Since this policy shift has been so detrimental and irrational considering the interests of the majority in a democracy, why is there not a more coherent and vocal challenge to this policy?
2. Funding public provision - most of the revenue is raised federally, as are most of the tax rules, policies etc which favour private provision. Most of the responsibility for public provision (except for retirement incomes) is state. So even IF a state government wanted to return to favouring public provision over private, it could not reallocate the funding to enable this to happen. Just read the public hearing into NSW Education and Training estimates, and the savings that the NSW Government is demanding from teachers to get an idea of the budget challenges to public education.
3. How can the advocates of public provision come together with people who would most benefit from an increase in the weight of public provision, to develop demands to achieve it?
4. What are the reservations people have about public provision, and how can they be addressed? I think that one legitimate reservation is the difficulty of having complaints addressed and problems solved in a bureaucratic public system. Accountability is as important an issue as funding.
Now the "market" is clearly failing as a system for managing production, maybe now is a good time to get people thinking more about the ideas raised in Ben Spies Butcher's article - "restocking the economic toolkit".

Quality child care should not be a market risk

2008-10-07T02:05:00.000-07:00

Watching Insight on SBS - Holding the baby - there seems to be general agreement amongst the researchers that almost all parents would rather not have their babies in care at under 6 months, and amongst the child care workers present that a ratio of 1 carer to 3 children would be ideal up to the age of 2 years. Unfortunately I was interrupted before the end of the discussion on how to fund childcare - but I did hear one audience member advocating that all funding go to individual parents as cash for them to spend as they wished. I couldn't disagree more - this only fosters private provision for profit. Standards are better enforced if community based care is publicly funded to provide it and supervised by parents on democratic governing bodies. Then parents advocating improvements in centres are advocating on behalf of all children, rather than behaving as paying customers/consumers pursuing only their own interests - and only having the power of changing centres, disrupting their child even further if they are dissatisfied. Work based and family day care could also be funded, but cash to parents to spend in the market does not produce quality, in the most important aspect - reduced ratios. It would be a shame if the market had to be discredited by collapses and scandals in child care the way the financial market is currently being discredited. The market is too risky to care for our kids.

Who will do a better job than the bankers?

2008-10-06T03:46:00.000-07:00

How can we answer the question WHO will do a better job than the bankers and lenders who have caused the economic crisis? First I think we need to understand WHY does credit / capital get allocated where it does? Why do the prices of currencies, credit and real estate bounce around so much? Why should they send production into a spin, when the productive resources - labour, machinery, land, buildings, raw materials, etc are there just the same?

So WHO are these people deciding where to make production happen, what kind of production it should be? And why do THEY get to decide? If their decisions can be so bad for everyone else (and even themselves in some cases) - then who else could decide? And how? How more democratically?

If democratic economic decision making would take a lot of time - think - how many people are employed in finance, accounting and management to make those decisions? Share their hours around the workforce, and we could all be paid at least 1 day a week to take the time to participate in planning and deciding...

And if the loss makers are to be in effect nationalised, why not nationalise the lot - losers and profiteers? It would simplify and streamline the regulation of the financial system, and give a lot more flexibility to what voters could demand of governments (including tackling climate change, more public transport, renewable energy) and a lot less income to the excessively rich!

It's very frustrating to see these powerful people messing up, and even if a few of them get into trouble, really they are causing a lot more trouble and suffering for workers losing their homes, losing their jobs... people who just want to live their lives without having power over other people. But if we don't organise to take their power away and run things differently, then they'll just sort out the mess on their own terms, and rerun the show again...

Renewing Labor locally

2008-10-05T03:32:00.000-07:00

An excerpt from Darcy Byrne's inaugural address upon his election to Leichhardt Municipal Council.
"As a Councillor I am determined to contribute to the renewal of a Labor Party that
is grass roots in structure, radical in intent and unwavering in its commitment to
fighting for equality...

I am proud to have put forward positive policies during the campaign and I will be
working hard as a Councillor to implement that agenda.

We need a big increase in sporting fields for our kids, a new parking system for our
residents, to build new affordable housing for our workers and pensioners and to
find practical ways to strengthen our sense of community by bringing all our
residents together.

I will continue to get out into the community to put these ideas forward because the
only way to represent the community is to be part of the community and I look
forward to seeing you all along the way. "

Darcy's address silent on a couple of major points of local opposition to the NSW government - saving Callan Park from take over by Sydney Uni, and the planned construction of a $150million extra bridge over Iron Cove. What about light rail and public transport? If Darcy cannot bring himself to unequivocally oppose the unpopular policies of the state Labor government, then I don't think he will make much progress in renewing labour as a grass roots radical force. His concern with equality is however a refreshing and welcome one. Let's see.

It will take more than the Wall Street crash to end capitalism

2008-09-30T05:14:00.000-07:00

The Wall Street crash had to come, with the USA's extraordinary triple balloon of debt - household real estate debt (working class debt), government debt (in the trillions and rising to pay for the Iraq war) and the balance of trade deficit. There is a sudden wide opening for making the case for socialism, for democratic working class planning of the economy. This article explains it well.

"Capitalism is a system which works by way of periodic economic and social tsunamis that leave in their wake tremendous destruction in many millions of lives. A manic-depressive system which, like its equivalent in individual psychologies, plunges from crazy heights to destructive, paralysing depths.

'The Market' has been elevated to the place in the social and economic theology of the ruling class occupied in religion by God. It is a harsh and relentless, and sometimes a very cruel and destructive, God, to be sure; but also one who essentially looks out for human beings and continuously bestows a tremendous stream of gifts on us."...

"One of the great lessons of the 20th century is that there is no such thing as an insoluble crisis for capitalism. Given time, given the chance to hold on tight, given the lack of a politically coherent alternative to itself, it recovers. Economic devastations, immensely tragic for vast numbers of people and even for individual capitalists, can, paradoxically, clear the way for capitalist economic revival. The manic-depressive system climbs out of the trough and begins a rise to peaks from which it will again, in time, plunge down. The cycle goes on." Unless a socialist movement is built to stop it! There is another pressing consideration which socialists, anti-capitalists need to integrate into the critique of the crash, and that is the inability of the "market" to reduce carbon in the atmosphere.

So - now we look for the points at which working class people could see that collectively we could assert more rational, beneficial decisions for humanity if we had the power, and not the system that allows capital and traders of capital to gamble with our future.

Of which stories am I a part?

2008-09-19T22:34:00.001-07:00

I first came across this question posed in a book called Leadership for social change. Alan Johnson quoted A MacIntyre, who I have since discovered is a Scottish philosopher. Here is a paraphrase of this part of MacIntyre's view, which is consistent with the meaning Alan Johnson gave it - "So basically, to answer the question of what I as an individual should do, one must first know of which stories I am a part, and what my roles in those stories require. Hence, the conception of an individual's good is embedded in the histories in which the individual himself is embedded. The narrative unity of a life, then, is the unity of the narrative which is an individual life. MacIntyre writes: "To ask 'What is the good for me?' is to ask how best I might live out that unity and bring it to completion." Only this way can my life as a whole be intelligible, and only thus does it constitute a unity."

This seems to me a powerful help in understanding why not many people are choosing to be socialist activists in Australia right now, and why people who do begin to engage in left politics might decide on the path of careerism rather than democratic mobilisation. As less people live out a socialist tradition, a rank and file working class tradition, the story is less visible, the practices and values that comprise it are harder to learn, and harder to share. I just came across Teo-lohi's post here and explanation of MacIntyre adds depth to the original reference I read. Teo-lohi also explains the connection of the story with practice and values. MacIntyre may well not be writing about dissent, rebellion or revolution (feminists have criticised him for not recognsing the power behind certain practices) but I would argue that dissent, self-organisation against power are also practices, with values, and stories, a conception of history or at least historical possibilities. In fact this helps me to make more sense of what are referred to as internicine and sectarian differences on the left. These differences actually reflect different stories, about humanity, history, the path to liberation and the role that each group sees for itself in that history/ narrative, though these differences can be difficult to make explicit, transparent.

MacIntyre may hold completely different values from me, see himself in a different story, but he does see the individual as part of a collective story - a person in a human, social, collective context. To me that is an important clue - how as socialists can we bring to life the story that people could be part of, without clutching at horror stories as the Stalinists have, of USSR, China, Vietnam, fantasy stories Cuba, Venezuela etc, or being stuck in very old stories unlinked to any current continuing practice - Paris Commune, 1917, Barcelona, Hungary 1956, etc.

MacIntyre also throws another light on meaninglessness of post-modernism. How are people to see themselves as part of a story, if there is no more narrative / history to be part of, and to change?

Why not give a proxy for the NRMA AGM - CO2

2008-09-19T04:30:00.001-07:00

The NRMA makes an attractive offer "You will go into the draw for the chance to win one of 40 Caltex StarCash cards worth $500 each just by;

* appointing a proxy to attend and, if required, vote on your behalf if you are unable to attend the meeting, or
* by attending the 2008 AGM in person."

The more I think about it - the worse this seems, so I wrote to the NRMA...

"I want to appoint a proxy. I would appoint a proxy if I could find out other NRMA members apart from the Board Members who will be attending, and who are making a commitment to represent concerns that correspond to mine. The MyNRMA website is sufficiently advanced, with a member login system, to provide members an online forum for stating the concerns that they would raise at the AGM, and offering to represent members via their proxies, but I cannot find this on MyNRMA website. This would be the democratic way to promote a higher level of membership participation in the AGM. A possible petrol voucher to persuade me to give my proxy to a current Board member (it's pretty impractical for me to find anyone else with any clout to give my proxy to) on the other hand is not democratic - more a bribe with a tiny bit of largesse from those who already run the NRMA and control its resources.

And the concerns I would like to have raised? Although I am a motorist and NRMA member, I don't WANT to be a motorist to the extent that I am. I am rather a citizen who needs to travel, and who is concerned about many issues, especially the urgent matters of global warming, environmental sustainability and inequality. I would rather see the NRMA advocating better transport in general, including public transport and bicycle transport, and making the case for much, much more investment in public transport, instead of prioritising advocacy of measures to make it easier for the driver of the private vehicle to continue making more use of a private vehicle. Greener private vehicles yes, but public transport would make a much bigger difference to CO2 emissions.

Until I can find a suitable proxy, I will not be appointing one."

Policy before position would be ideal in local politics

2008-09-19T04:30:00.000-07:00

Last weekend’s local government election reminded me of the debacle of the previous Leichhardt Council mayoral appointment. I talked to Labor Councillor Robert Webb outside the Orange Grove booth on Saturday. I told Robert how outrageous I had found it when Labor kept the Greens out of the Mayor's position 4 years ago, by doing a deal with the Liberals (and Community Independents). Why didn't Labor share the Mayor with the Greens, I asked. Oh they were impossible to negotiate with, we tried, he said. At the Council meeting to elect the Mayor 4 years ago, I had also asked Green candidate for Mayor, Jamie Parker - what are you proposing to Labor? Why don't you stand up in Council and make a last open appeal? He didn't. I asked Robert - why were the terms of the negotiations not made open? It would help the voter, such as myself, to make sense of what was going on? He shrugged and said that the Liberal Mayor couldn't do anything that Labor didn't want in any case. I said that wasn't the point.

I left the conversation with Robert with a dawning realisation - the negotiations between the parties over Mayor had most likely been negotiations over position, not policy. Who would get the position for how much time? If the negotiations had been over policy - then it would have been easy to make them public. If the negotiations had been over policy - it would be a break from what appears to be current standard ALP practice. If the negotiations had been over policy, then voters would be able to make informed choices about who to support, on the basis of policy.

It looks as though the Greens may have the numbers to be Mayor this time, unless it gets drawn out of a hat against them. And it may be that they feel very keen to get pay back from last time. It may be redundant to be trying to work out how Greens and left Labor Councillors, such as Darcy Byrne, might work together on LMC this time round.

However - it is clear that Greens are winning supporters from amongst traditional Labor voters.

I think there are 3 reasons for this
- Labor Governments at both levels, are running policy agendas that are barely distinguishable from the Liberals, they do not stand up to capital and privilege for working class people, the social good, the greater good.
- the role of mobilised trade unions, and social movements, is weak and even more weakly reflected in the ALP as an independent force from Labor Governments (with the exception of the electricity privatisation issue in NSW, and an ambiguous Federal result from the anti-WorkChoices campaign, in that Labor was elected, but provisions of WorkChoices continue to be used, and Gillard’s new draft IR provisions are anti-union and anti-employee).
- the Greens are not beholden to justifying the unjustifiable acts of any serving governments or ministers.

I think the most productive pathway for left ALP members in relation to the Greens, is to engage in open policy dialogue, actually seeking to build local movements and activism in alliance with Greens, and to attempt to defuse competition among councillors for positions, and "bureaucratic level" (as it were) hostilities. What the ALP has in its favour over the Greens is that it has an organised working class social base - but this is being eroded on many fronts, and is an advantage that can only be preserved if that activist base is rebuilt, reengaged by leaders who stand for policy and principle. Competition for positions is a secondary concern to rank and filers who care about social progress, and is a central part of the turn off from politics by young people, in my opinion.

The Greens appeal because of their apparent policy commitments. The weaknesses in the Greens policies are many, especially on the economy, capital and class, in my opinion - but the weaknesses are not so obvious because the Greens are not in a position to enact policy, and because they are not engaged by anyone from the left, in policy debates that explore these weaknesses.

I think that the strengths of the Greens and the strengths of left Labor COULD combine to rebuild a progressive movement and a renewed left IF the movement of the rank and file, and policy and principle were the guiding motives, and issues of position, organisational and factional allegiance were subordinated. (Gary Moore's 15 Sept letter to the SMH expressed a similar caution). It would be hard work - it wouldn't be smooth - but it is a project that I could commit to if there were others also committed to it. I think that John Kaye's work in NSW Parliament on electricity privatisation, and the co-ordination between his efforts and Power to the People are the example of a positive way for left/rank and file Labor and Greens to relate. Where there are Greens who do not have John Kaye's instincts, then it should be possible to make open proposals to try to draw Greens in that direction so that Green supporters can see the limitations of some of their representatives.

Rights at work for construction workers

2008-09-17T04:48:00.000-07:00

Sign up for rights on site - http://www.rightsonsite.org.au/ . Not too many people have high expectations of the Rudd Government getting rid of anti-union laws. Construction workers fighting for their rights need our support. If there is a future for an active workers movement in Australia, that can buck Labor conservatism, then this campaign could be one of the catalysts.

It’s the socio-economic inequality stupid…

2008-09-12T15:22:00.000-07:00

In the first national assessment of literacy and numeracy (pdf) in Australia, results released Friday 12 September, the results were predictable.

The Northern Territory has highest proportion of indigenous students, in the lowest income bracket in the country, and NT has the lowest results. Whereas the ACT , where the population is uniformly better educated and comfortably off scored the highest overall results.

The stated aim of the tests are to identify schools in need of more funding and assistance to improve their results. Will this funding be additional $ in the education budget? Will it be provided by dismantling the system set up by Howard which rorts school funding in favour of many wealthy private schools? Or will $ be reallocated from high scoring public schools to low scoring public schools?

The new NSW Education Minister Verity Firth says how happy she is with NSW results - results achieved by NSW school teachers. Will the NSW Government stop undermining the staffing system which delivered these results?

And most importantly - what will be done to address the general social inequality underlying the unequal results across the country? It's not fair to place all the pressure on the education system to change problems created by the economic and political system.

How special does your school make you feel?

2008-09-10T04:50:00.000-07:00

This school yard is the main recreation space at this school. What do you think of it? Would your opinion be different knowing that this indoor pool belonged to the school across the road?

Would you feel special if your parents could afford to send you to the school with the pool?

NSW ALP Conference can call Labor Government to account

2008-09-08T04:45:00.000-07:00

When Michael Costa and Morris Iemma both left the NSW Government on Friday 5 September, it was the culmination of their failure to privatise NSW electricity generation in the face of a huge vote against taken by NSW ALP State Conference in May. No NSW Labor Government will be in a hurry to defy State Conference again. For the first time in living memory the NSW Premier and Deputy Premier were both from the "left" faction, although Nathan Rees formally declared himself "unaligned" in order to take up his new position as Premier. On Friday and over the weekend it seemed to be a good moment for supporters of public ownership, union rights and public services to press on and intensify all campaigns for improvements from NSW Labor. By Monday new Premier Nathan Rees was making it clear that he would 'not be raising taxes to fix the state's economic woes, but has labelled government departments "absolutely ripe for reform". Mr Rees's new cabinet team will tomorrow be briefed on the grim economic outlook that has put the state's triple-A credit rating at risk.' according to the Sydney Morning Herald. This is a critical moment for Unions NSW under the leadership of John Robertson. They can claim a lot of credit for the defeat of privatisation of electricity generation, and of the Howard Government at the last federal election. How will they react to Rees declaration of intent to cut the public sector and cap pay rises below the rate of inflation?

No education revolution

2008-09-08T03:52:00.000-07:00

What are all the forces pressing Labor governments to pursue education policies to further intensify inequality and competition at all levels from kindergarten to university? Ross Gittins calls the Rudd government's policy "change without change". Rudd won't redistribute from the rich schools, Gillard won't declare a quality public education system to be a common good. What are they left with for an education revolution but computers and increased competition accompanied by a good deal of union bashing?

And union bashing it is - Peter Hartcher, editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, cheers Rudd on in his article Pugilistic Prime Minister has picked a classy fight. Today on ABC radio I heard Heather Ridout of the Business Council lamenting that NSW is so far behind Victoria which has given power to hire and fire to school principals, and is making all TAFE funding contestable. These are all mechanisms that put more power in the hands of specific education managers, but it will be the power to manage a more constrained budget and respond to more scrutiny and external demands with insufficient resources, i.e. to pass on the costs of improvement to teachers and other support staff within their jurisdiction.

So now Verity Firth is the new NSW Education Minister. I might like to hope that she will pull back from Della Bosca and Coutts-Trotter's dismantling of the teacher transfer system, and at least return to the endorsement that new Deputy Premier Tebbutt made as Education Minister - that the transfer system guarantees staffing for hard to staff schools. But - even if Firth were to withdraw the changes to the transfer system - the direction of government policy is set. Look at the national picture too.

Hartcher does make some points which do reflect parent's experience of schools - that poor teachers hang on as teachers, and that many teachers find parent questions to be an unwelcome intrusion. Many Teachers Fed members are also parents and are also aware of this problem. What can we propose? We know that teacher education and qualifications are vital, and that other support schemes such as mentoring and reduced face to face loads early in a career all help. But there are also some immediate conflicts of interest between teachers, parents an students in the system. These are very hard to face up to directly, in an education system that makes parents and students into customers or consumers making market choices rather than citizens concerned for the common good. But it is teacher unions that are best placed to re-shape the relationship by looking for ways to engage parents and students as fellow citizens of the education system, even though this would require teachers collectively to sometimes support students and parents who may have complaints.

Back to public education as a public good - yes Back would be forwards!

The power and wealth of one - $13.39 million a year

2008-08-18T03:48:00.000-07:00

Telstra profits, executive pay and charges are all on the up, up, up - http://www.smh.com.au/news/biztech/charges-go-up-for-landlines/2008/08/15/1218911510562.html
"Sharemarket analysts estimate the $12 a year increase in home telephone access charges alone will boost Telstra's annual after-tax profit by about $20 million - based on an average monthly charge of about $27." A couple of days earlier The Australian reported "TELSTRA chief executive Sol Trujillo has increased his annual remuneration by 13.7 per cent to $13.39 million. Mr Trujillo's package totalled $13.39 million in 2007/08, up from $11.78 million in the previous year, statements released by the company today show." http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24174570-15306,00.html. And at the same time Telstra is reported by the Sydney Morning Herald to have a (no longer) secret plan to bust unions, picking on low union membership areas first. http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/telstra-to-bust-unions/2008/08/13/1218307006697.html.

The Communications Electrical and Plumbing Union is informing members of Telstras plot to break the union - http://cepuconnects.org/telecommunications/telstra-eba-2008/leak-reveals-real-hr-strategy/index.cfm

I'd like to find out more about how the union is drawing these 2 issues together, what it is saying about Telstra's balance sheet, profits and executive pay. And is the union making any connections with Telstra customers?

Surely Telstra workers and customers alike could be united against this rip-off.

Arctic summer sea ice melt

2008-08-04T03:44:00.000-07:00

Tipping point is screening on the ABC as I write. The climate change sceptics should watch it.

Flight attendants union working against members?

2007-04-21T00:58:00.000-07:00

Shenanigans in which former flight attendant union officials are now running labour hire outfits - http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/ welcome-aboard-flight-to-lower-pay-cheques/2007/04/15/1176575687668.html - illustrate the poison that can easily take hold in union officialdom. Scott Rochfort in the SMH of 21 April digs deeper still in an article in News Review entitled "A case of cabin fever strikes Qantas" - which so far I cannot locate online. On 16 April, the day of the earlier report, I emailed the Rights at Work campaign, and still haven't had a reply.

"Dear Rights at Work,

I am very disturbed to read this story in today's SMH, disgusted to read that Maurice Alexander is a former union official. The article also says that "the [flight attendants's] union shares office space with Mr Alexander's labour hire firm. The union's domestic secretary Jo-Ann Davidson declined to comment."

I hope to hear that there are serious errors in this SMH report, and that whatever connection Alexander may have had with the union movement, they do not continue. I support Rights at Work. Alexander is (according to this story) profiting from running a scheme that attacks rights at work.

Please let me know the ACTU/Rights at Work response to these allegations.

In soldarity"

It's not easy to promote trade unionism if this is what union officials can get away with, undenounced, uncensured.

Rudd makes farce of Rights@Work at ALP Conference

2007-04-18T06:19:00.000-07:00

The Rights at Work website is running an email campaign to Federal Labor prior to ALP National conference.

They have a form letter that can be edited. I sent this version in response to Rudd’s pre-emptive announcement the a Labor government will retain major provisions of WorkChoices http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/back-to-fair-and-flexible-for-boss-and-worker/2007/04/17/1176696834741.html. It could say a lot more about the right to strike and organise. Someone else might like to write that message.

Dear Mr Rudd, Ms Gillard, and the Labor party team,

The ALP was supposed to be deciding its priorities for the next election at the ALP National Conference this month.

As a Rights at Work supporter, I am writing to express my outrage that you have made pre-emptive annoucements about industrial relations policy.

I am convinced that your policies are going to continue the weakening of the union movement, and thus of the ALP as a party capable of representing workers. Australian Industry Group chief Heather Ridout is quoted in today's SMH "The retention of laws which ban industrial action in pursuit of industry-wide agreements, ban industrial action during the term of agreements and require a secret ballot before industrial action can be taken, appear to be a response to ... industry concerns"

Why give in to "industry concerns" ahead of rank and file ALP concerns, and the considerations that will be brought to ALP Conference? Are you trying to convert the ALP to a US style Democratic Party that requires millions of dollars for campaigning? Are you trying to gut the ALP as a party where working people can organise democratically to express their opinions and have a chance of carrying the day with policies they campaign for? Do you not understand the decay of democracy in general that you are contributing to by flouting the remnants of democratic process inside the ALP in order to behave as the powerful leader who gets his way?

A serious mistake that will demoralise trade unionists and Labor voters.

Working too hard to produce toxic junk

2007-04-10T15:56:00.000-07:00

Many of us with jobs spend too many hours at work to maintain what is currently called "work-life balance". Several commentators say we have only ourselves to blame for being greedy consumers (Clive Hamilton, Ross Gittins). Then there is the global warming perspective - too much consumption of energy.
What about putting these 2 issues together and looking at solutions differently? Why should we all be trapped in a way of life based on decisions to produce goods and services, decisions that are made by a minority. Why should production of everything (transport, housing, food, health, entertainment, communication, clothing, everything) be decided by the people who own the means to produce them, being allowed to make guess what the rest of us can be enticed to spend our money on and make them a profit?
So - what if transport facilities were to be decided not by car manufacturers, petrol companies, ad they had no access to lobby governments or departments of main roads? What if the criteria for developing transport services were reducing fuel consumption and environmental impact, reducing gross expenditure on transport, reducing the labour hours involved in providing transport, sharing available hours of work amongst all workers involved in vehicle production and transport services, reducing the time taken to get places? Then we might come up with policies such as - increased public transport routes based on a wider range of vehicles, and free public transport; vehicle manufacture shifting the balance from cars to energy efficient public transport; rail not roads for freight; car depots for occasional personal use; bicycle facilities; free deliveries of groceries. We might find policies to reduce the need to travel, more children at local schools, help people to live near work.
But we don't have a collective basis for making these decisions, because "the market" gets to decide, and government works with what resources it can put together after "the market" has its way. We decide to travel by car, because public transport doesn't go where we want to, when we want to. That's the market. We don't have a "market" mechanism that lets us choose between effective public transport and driving. Who is "the market"? Supposedly us, so we are to blame. But "the market" is what we can all be convinced to consume, to pay for, as individuals. It is the opposite of us being able to make sensible, considered decisions in the common interest.

We need to talk about Kevin (a novel)

2007-03-20T03:23:00.000-07:00

Eva Khatchadourian is the mother of a US high school mass murderer. She opens the story of her relationship with her son Kevin when he has been in juvenile detention for about 18 months, during the count of the US Presidential election of 2000. Her reflection takes the form of letters to her husband Franklin, Kevin’s father. She is examining why Kevin killed, looking for the roots of his actions beginning back before he was born, to the decision to have a child, and through his infancy, childhood and teenage years. Is she responsible for Kevin’s murderousness, she is asking.

Lionel Shriver, writing as Eva, probes into many dark moments of mother-child relationships, she identifies many typical childish or teenage behaviours, and imbues them with evil portent, that could arouse parental doubts about even the most loving and co-operative children. She also picks on the potential for a couple to be divided by their children. These are well-observed and fear if not through provoking incidents and patterns. The outing of the possibility that a parent, especially a mother, may not find it easy to love a child is the most discussed aspect of the book. The interview with Lionel Shriver suggests that in this aspect the book is an examination of her own fears of parenthood, which she has never take on.

However, the other aspect of Lionel Shriver’s inspiration seems to have achieved much less attention. High school massacres in the USA are a recent disturbing phenomenon. She is looking for possible explanations for the psyche of the high school mass murdereer as a type, personified by Kevin. Her picture of Kevin as perpetrator of a massacre does not seem to fit the profile shown in Bowling for Columbine - guns and the ready availability of bullets were the common thread there. Kevin does not use a gun. She builds a picture of Kevin as a nihilist. What is the source of Kevin’s nihilism?

A series of possibilities is suggested in the course of the story.

Kevin was born angry. His anger was a cover for sadness, for emptiness, but he refused mother love, certainly mother’s breast. He went on to either lack, or wilfully refuse to show, interest or desire for anything to do with his mother – no food, no toys, no activities. Eva attributed deliberate intent on the part of her baby, to deny her any satisfaction. He ate only when she wasn’t looking. He refused toilet training till the age of 6 when his mother gave violent expression to her anger and frustration. Eva saw Kevin as spiteful and secretive.

Kevin’s father always encouraged Kevin, looked for the best interpretation of his son’s actions, almost never, if ever defined and enforced any limits – typifying a style of parenting, which accepts a boys’ bad behaviour as a legitimate expression of “being a boy”, and so does not socialise them. Kevin actually scorned his father, and went along with Franklin’s rosy view all the better to prepare his crime. Franklin’s lack of comprehension of Kevin actually made Kevin feel more estranged and alienated and angry than his mother’s critical view of him, which at least made him feel partially understood and recognised for who he was and what he really felt. Eva never even asks if Franklin’s fathering of Kevin could have anything to do with Kevin’s criminality. Yet her telling of the story makes this a highy plausible factor. Perhaps the author is trying to illustrate that poor fathering is rarely considered a problem, and that mothers are typically blamed for the misdeeds of their children.

Eva is, or was before the terrible day, a Democrat and liberal (she no longer cares). She had loved travelling overseas, it had been her business. She hated red-necks, US militarism, US suburban life, and Republicanism. Strangely though, Franklin was an ardent Republican. Most strangely Eva gave up work altogether to look after Kevin, and Franklin continued an absolutely full-time job and took no share of domestic duties. This second aspect of her marriage seems highly improbable, if not necessarily in the earliest years, at least as it became apparent that Eva was struggling and did not enjoy Kevin, whereas Franklin thought Kevin was fantastic.

Kevin rejected the hypocrisy of his mother’s liberalism, and her anti-Americanism. He rejected her supposed liberal tolerance, yet her intolerance, constant criticism of US culture (and him). This shows another strange inconsistency. As a political liberal, Eva could be expected to be the parent to excuse childhood misdeeds, and fail to discipline, whereas the Republican father could be expected to be tougher on law and order outside and inside the home. Eva wants to hold Kevin responsibile for his criminality (or in hindsight, his predictive criminal tendencies) whereas it would more typically be the liberal (in US terms) who might seek to explain, if not justify and exonerate social deviance, on the grounds of nurture by a sick society. When Eva reflects on her own nurturing role, or lack thereof, and really can only see that for Kevin it was in his nature to be bad. So, the introduction of Democratic versus Republican into this novel seems off the mark.

Yet, in a way perhaps Democratic versus Republicans illustrates an aspect of Kevin’s nihilism. There is no real substance to that choice, or any other on offer to the comfortable for the well-off, middle-class of the USA. There is only meaningless repetition of meaningless routines. Kevin could not see any point, any purpose, felt no passion. He was actually very perceptive and intelligent, but found no worthwhile application for his capabilities, until he came to plan his crime.

Lack of love is the other possible explanation of Kevin. Eva made rare efforts to show and feel affection for Kevin, and apart from a few days when he was very sick in his later childhood, he always spurned her, as she saw it. Perhaps Kevin was not a very lovable or responsive infant, and we and Eva only have Eva’s recollection to go on. Eva seemed to feel that Franklin was acting out a fatherly role rather than genuinely connecting with Kevin, so there was not real love there either. Small signs emerge as the story matures, that Kevin felt a stronger bond with his mother than she might have realised, and her growing realisation of this bond is at the centre of the resolution of the book. Perhaps it is possible in some way to love your own child, even if he has done something very evil, and perhaps love is a kind of antidote.

I found the book gripping but gruelling. If it's meant to air the unspoken truth that mothers don't always love or like their children, this novel does so in a very scary way. I don't think it would help mothers who do not love their children, to be more prepared to discuss this and expect a supportive reaction. I think it is more likely to inhibit women who are unsure of their feelings about their children, and feel that as mothers they are a source of danger to their children.

Exporting democracy to Iraq: neo culpa

2007-02-07T23:00:00.000-08:00

A Vanity Fair article titled Neo Culpa by David Rose reports interviews with Neo Cons who had advocated the invasion of Iraq, now expressing their disappointment and pessimism. There is a little belated expression of the need for Iraqis to be their own liberators, which they think could have been incorporated into the US invasion plan. It would have been better, acording to the NeoCons if Iraqi battalions had liberated Baghdad and toppled the Saddam statue, if reconstruction contracts had been granted to Iraqi companies rather than US multi-nationals, if Iraqis had been sought for intelligence, and if an Iraqi had been selected prior to invasion for immediate appointed as the leader (Chalabi, or Allawi or Pachachi), rather than appointing Paul Bremer to be the governor of Iraq.

Since any of the 3 named would have been a US appointment, and since they've all participated in post invasion government, there is thin reason to believe that the last condition would have helped to bring a sense of self-liberation to Iraq.

What the article does highlight is that democracy cannot be imposed from outside or above.

A most telling point the article makes is that the US expected to find in Iraq the mechanisms of a secular government, ready made to be taken over by a post-Saddam administration. But these mechanisms had all been destroyed during the sanctions, when Saddam had distributed largesse to tribal leaders to bribe support and exchange of goods in the conditions of scarcity. UN sanctions, as demanded by the US, had done more damage to efficient administration than they had to the dictator.

If democracy and national self-determination is self-governance, then that requires local institutions, organisations, forms of co-operation and collective capability.

The Vanity Fair article does not touch on either the Provisional Government's attitude to democratic rights for Iraqi civil society or to communal politics. Democracy could not fbe created by the invasion because the USA undermined democratic possibilities for its own interests. The US appointed governor, Paul Bremer, maintained Saddam's anti-union laws. Even so hamstrung, Iraqi unions opposed privatisation of Iraqi industry and have stood for workers' rights and wages against the US and multi-nationals, Halliburton, etc, that were awarded so-called reconstruciton contracts. With legal rights to organise, the unions could have achieved a great deal more and been a force for democracy that would not have suited US interests or Islamists. The USA through Bremer in Iraq chose to negotiate for an Iraqi government with religious and communal leaders, not secular or Iraqi nationalist interest groups. This also cultivated a sectarian civil war, rather than a secular democracy.

It is Iraqi trade unions above all, along with other secular civil organisations that need international solidarity, just in order to survive, and keep alive the seeds of a future possible democratic secular Iraq.

Which school leavers deserve dull and dirty work?

2007-01-28T02:56:00.000-08:00

In NSW this year there are 75000 HSC applicants for university places, and just over 65000 places being offered. University graduates in paid employment or professional practice generally earn more than non-university graduates.

A further 225000 approximate school leavers in NSW at the end of 2006 have not applied for a university place.

Thousands of these will apply for TAFE courses, and a percentage will be turned away from TAFE, or not achieve their first preference. TAFE graduates in paid employment or running their own business generally earn more than adults without a qualification.

As these 17-19 year olds leave school, they are funnelled into the world of work where having a job, or being unemployed are defining features of their lives. Fantasies of fame and fortune are forced aside by real choices.

It looks fair enough, doesn't it? If you work hard and you are smart enough, you get your first choice. If you don't work so hard, or you are not so clever, then you must deserve a less desirable course or job, and you get on with it.

But it is parents, families, that make the biggest difference to students results. Parents who have spent more years in education, and who are better off than average, have children who do better in school. It's called merit, but it's really the luck of who your parents are, that means you will or won't be seen to have merit in the education system.

Lots of school leavers can expect to accept if not unemployment, then the kind of work that most people would rather not do if they felt they had a choice – cleaning up after other people, processing or preparing bulk food, assembling gadgets and clothes, taking and making phone calls, serving, serving. These jobs might be acceptable for a short time, and some people may be satisfied with jobs that require no further education. But most people would choose work that is more interesting and better paid if they felt they could. Yet at least some of this low-skilled or unpleasant work needs to be done.

How would we eat and enjoy a clean, odourless, convenient world, if schools didn't produce enough children and teenagers who would accept that dull or dirty work is their lot in life? (Immigration plugs some of the gaps but not all). In fact many of the students whose destiny is dull and dirty are those who are seen as problems at school. The might disrupt classes, or just not turn up.

They don’t expect to succeed in the competition for university places, TAFE places and better jobs. So why bother?

Education policy makers seem to be looking for ways to improve learning, behaviour, literacy and numeracy, and results for the least successful students in the system. But some students know, and some students come from families and communities who expect to be unable to compete against these kids from better schools, richer schools, richer and more educated families.

I think Australia should find a way to share the dull and dirty work fairly, and give everyone a go at spending some time working at something that is interesting to them, and reasonably paid. Then all school kids will have a reason to learn, without expecting to have to beat kids with an advantage of birth, for a place in the learning and earning lottery.

In 12 months time my oldest child will find out what she has drawn in the post-school education lottery.

Is marxism relevant to the labour movement today?

2006-05-18T05:11:00.001-07:00

This was the title of a forum held in Sydney on 16 May 2006, organised by Labor Tribune (http://www.labortribune.net/). Nearly 70 people attended to hear the views of Meredith Burgmann, Andrew West, Jack Mundey and Marcus Strom.

Here is a nutshell report of each speaker's case as I understood it, and questions arising from that particular case, that did not get canvassed on the night.

1. Meredith Burgmann, Labor MLC and President of the NSW Legislative Council put her case that marxist economic analysis is absolutley relevant, but marxism is not relevant to politics. Marxism is about materialism, and yes, money does matter. Women, for example, will never be equal with men, while they get less money than men. The idea that money doesn't make you happy only comes form rich people. People without enough money, who worry about how to pay their bills, do expect more money, up to a point, to make them happier.

Meredith was also proud to have been a member of one of the very few unions that voted against the Accord. Other speakers talked about pushing down the wall of capitalism to achieve socialism. Meredith said she has never been able to picture how that might happen.

I guess that as a longterm member of the NSW Labor Government, it would be very surprising to hear Meredith say that marxism is relevant to politics. Not many people would put the ideas of marxism and the NSW Labor Government together, and Meredith has not been in the news for running into serious bother with the ALP. However, more seriously - it is a worry that Meredith is so accepting of the separation between politics and economics that elected governments depend on in order to get away with bowing to the requirements of capital and the profit motive. Can a democratically elected government make decisions which would challenge profit-making, and so introduce an element of marxism to politics? I think so. For example state governments could decide to only invest public funds in publicly owned and operated services, such as transport, health, education, housing. State governments could set policies for environmental sustainability and improved health linked to providing positive alternatives, urban planning and regulations to reduce use of unhealthy products such as fast foods, tobacco, petrol. Political parties in government don't do these things either because they are in government explictly for the rich (the Liberals) or becasue they want the support of capital, and they either believe in or are frightened to oppose capital.

Questions for Meredith: What pressures are Labor governments, and the Labor Party under from capital? What are some decisions that you and fellow thinkers in the ALP and unions might like to see the Party make in government despite these pressures, and what might be the consequences of making those decisions?

2. Andrew West, journalist and Fabian argues that marxism is irrevocably tainted by Stalinism, and is of no current use. Instead 3 principles are needed for politics - fairness, community and sustainability.

Andrew sounds as though he's trying to modernise and popularise some older social-democractic ideals, and advocate them for an unknown political party. Popular opinion would get the supporting party elected, becasue the principles are so - well - fair and reasonable. This seems naive. It shows no recognition that there is more power outside of, than inside parliament, and that fair and reaonable ideas don't win the day in and of themselves. Business, capital, has extra-parliamentary power and the profit motive is not fair and reasonable.

Questions for Andrew West: Why do principles such as these strengthen or weaken at different times in history? What are the most powerful forces operating against these principles, and which social forces have the greatest potential and interest in advancing them? What are the likely actions of the powerful against attempts to assert these principles and how can they be answered?

3. Jack Mundey was a BLF leader during the Green Bans, and a former member of the former Communist Party of Australia.

Jack's case was that the best moments and achievements of 20th century history were inspired by Marxists, so despite errors committed in the name of Marxism, we need it. And especially we need unity against WorkChoices.

Although unionists, socialists, marxists are all against WorkChoices, there are differences over how to beat it. I think that an industrial campaign is needed, and can be prepared even if it is difficult ot launch immediately - because unions are out of practice at taking industrial action, because so few union leaders organise industrail campaigns, because they might fail due to lack of strength, becasue unions are out of practice at taking industrial action...etc, in a vicious downward spiral, that needs to be broken to realy defeat WorkChoices. High Court challenges, the possible defeat of the Coalition in a federal election, all might soften the blow a little, but none of them are going to restore union rights, the right to organise - without unions exercising those rights.

Questions for Jack Mundey: What is it most important to unite around? How do we deal with the contradiction that many union and Labor leaders do not do the best they can by their members? Does this mean for example that you think it is wrong to debate the best way to beat WorkChoices, and wrong to argue for an industrial campaign, against official ACTU or Labor Council policies that are ineffectual?

4. Marcus Strom, editor of Labor Tribune. Marxism is relevant with a much broader concept of class struggle, which should be about politics, democracy and a republic, rather than narrow economism. Strikes and elections are both tactical issues and not the essence of Marxism. Labor Tribune is for a democratic republic, which would obviously strengthen workers rights, and make it possible for workers to build a struggle for socialism.

I'm not at all sure who other than oganised labour Marcus would want to lead the struggle for a democratic republic. And if organised labour were to lead such a struggle, why Marcus would not also advocate that it be socialist? Marcus labelled concern for industrial politics and industrial action as narrow economism. The last time I remember hearing left-wingers warn of the need for something bigger and more political than narrow economism, it was when they were advocating - the Accord! Yes, this is a dfferent project than the Accord. But the argument is a false counter-position, which was used last time to argue not FOR a broader vision than industraial action alone, but as an alternative which required the forsakimg of industrial action. Marcus made valid criticisms of the central control of the Rights at work campaign, which made it so difficult to set up local and grass roots activist groups around Rights at Work. But he also was at best equivocal about the need for an industrail campaign.

Questions for Marcus Strom and LaborTribune: Can the labour movement make a mark on politics when it is industrially weak? Can the labour movement be strong if it does not have the capacity to take industrial action? How can the labour movement have the capacity to take industrial action when its leaders by and large see such action as dangerous, and the vast bulk of the membership has very limited if any experience or practice at it? In these conditions isn't the capacity to take industrial action something that has to deliberately built with the knowledge of the rank and file, rather an option at the fingertips of officials that can be pulled out swiftly and unannounced, as a "tactic" might be.

Conclusion
The meeting itself was rather inconclusive, not surprisingly, but there was general welcoming of the establishment of a forum for discussing the topic. Here is a contribution to that discussion. If by any chance any of hte speakers think that I have not done justice to their argument, I'd be very pleased to have a clearer explanation. The aim of this is not to present their argumetns weakly in order to knock them down, but to understand their arguments in order ot evaluate their usefulness. So - I should follow up with positive proposals. Another post soon.

Childcare - conflict of interests

2006-05-18T05:11:00.000-07:00

(originally published May 2006 in now defunct Livejournal blog)

ABC Early Learning is taking over community based child care and making big profits. It couldn't make the profits without government subsidies, which add up to $128 million in 2005, or without its anti-union practices which reduce the amount of its income it shares with its workers. Meanwhile fees for working parents are very difficult to afford. Can parents and childcare workers unite to reclaim childcare to be run to put children first, not profit-making?

The SMH of 11 March reported on this - http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/cradle-snatcher/2006/03/10/1141701698670.html.

Some points are worth highlighting.

"A spokesman for ABC - Groves declined five requests for an interview over five weeks - confirmed the company received 44 per cent of its income from government subsidies: $128 million of its $292 million revenue last year.

Messara's calculations give investors an even juicier insight. In the five years to 2008 he expects ABC to make net profits of $379 million. If that figure of 44 per cent remains constant, this will represent $167 million of taxpayers' money transferred directly into the pockets of Eddy and Le Neve Groves and their fellow shareholders - on top of the $400,000 salary packages the two receive."

"But there is also a dark side to ABC's operations that is little discussed, because the company is fiercely litigious towards competitors and critics alike.

After complaints in 2004 that ABC had been underpaying its staff and forcing them to clean toilets and buy their own uniforms, the Queensland branch of the union that represents child-care workers, the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union, handed parents pamphlets which Groves says portrayed him as "mean and greedy" and implied he was "trying to drive down low wages of child-care workers to line his own pockets".

In an unprecedented action, Groves sued the union's Queensland secretary, Ron Monaghan, for defamation. This has had the extraordinary outcome that none of the union's officials contacted by the Herald would risk commenting on the pay or conditions of ABC staff.

The union's officer responsible for child-care workers in NSW, Jim Lloyd, said: "I am not able to comment on ABC at all." When asked whether this was connected with the litigation in Queensland, he said: "Good question."

So it has been left to MPs such as Labor's child-care spokeswoman, Tanya Plibersek, and Michael Danby, Labor's deputy whip in the House of Representatives, to take up the cudgels on behalf of ABC's workers. Speaking under parliamentary privilege in 2004, Danby said that to cut costs "ABC centres refuse to hire sufficient cleaners, refuse to pay staff a decent wage, and require staff to bring in their own music to play to children".

Even after the substantial rises granted this week, the minimum award rate for a child-care worker with one year's experience is $611 a week. However, ABC workers' pay cannot be independently verified because they are required to sign confidential agreements. Groves has pointed out that, in return, they are issued with 150 shares (currently worth $1200) as a signing bonus - and he says he has a low staff turnover rate of 8 per cent a year."

Experiments in the telling of history enriched by struggle to make history

2006-05-18T05:05:00.003-07:00

(originally published Feb 2006 in now abandoned LiveJournal blog)

Stephen Muecke challenged John Howard's demand for a more conservative approach to teaching history in schools.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/experimental-history-wont-change-the-battle-of-hastings/2006/01/30/1138590440563.html
(SMH January 31, 2006).

Howard is critical of "post modern relativism", and I am happy to read Stepehn Muecke declare postmodernism dead - although I am not convinced that he is right there. More later.

Stephen defends the usefulness of what Howard denigrates as "relativism" in history - there are many stories to be told, from many points of view. Howard's preference for the "absolute" in history is stifling of innovation.

I concur with Stephen Muecke when he writes "Innovative thinking asks the big 'what if' questions. The freedom to experiment with thought is a precious legacy, which is why we should not listen to Howard when he is trying to shut down thinking in this way...This thinking opens up new domains of facts. "What if there were such a thing as women's history," someone once asked - and a new subject was born. It is a question of adopting a new perspective, as Henry Reynolds said, as he, too, opened up the new field of Aboriginal history, making him one of the most influential public intellectuals of the last couple of decades."

These questions about women's history and aboriginal history did not emerge simply as experiments in the telling of history because there were innovative historians. These questions about history arose with particular force in Australia in the 1960s and 1970s because there were campaigns, movements, struggles by women and by aborigines for their rights, for liberation even, a term we hear rarely this decade. The experiments in the telling of history were demanded by those who had been oppressed, marginalised and omitted from history, because they were struggling to make history themselves.

Stephen places the era of intellectual postmoderism as the 1980s and the 1990s. I think its influence has been far wider than in the disciplines of literature and aesthetics, it permeated all the social science and humanities disciplines that I have come into contact with (as a librarian, I am acquainted with many). Indeed postmodernism is now less energetic and influential. It is not surprising that the postmodern decades followed the liberation decades - the women's movement made many achievements within the structures of Australian society, some recognition had been won by aborigines. But the post-war boom was over, and all over the OECD world, governments began to "manage the economy" with curtailment of union rights and other policies for restoration of profit growth, i.e. increasing the wealth of the wealthy. This weakened and set back all the liberation movements. What was to be salvaged from the liberation movements by many in the academy ... stories, perspectives, the telling.. all valid, all in parallel. But for the post-modernists this was no longer in service of actual movements to change history. Many identities could be accommodated in parallel, carving out their own spaces within the system.

But the curriculum in school still reflects this - I referred in an earlier post to the teaching of history in my daughter's school. She is frustrated that all the "stories" and all the points of view are treated as "valid" - rather than representations of different possibilities for society, to be examined and chosen between by a youthful citizenry which is anticipating its own future role in making history. But - Australian citizens are not expected to make history, just vote every few years, and that'll do. The telling of history from various perspectives helps to expand an appreciation of humanity, but unless students are also learning to be critical of perspectives and to adopt their own perspective on the past, and therefore on future possibilities, they are not really learning to make history themselves, only to be sceptical of how John Howard wants it to be told. The "history wars" of the conservatives make sense as a culmination of their war on unions, aborigines, migrants. The post-modern fantasy was that capitalism would have to accommodate multiple identities and this would be the best sort of human liberation we could hope for.

Actually, I'm with Karl Marx - "the history of all hitherto existing societies has been the history of class struggle" - it's no accident that the struggle to remake history for women and aborigines was set-back by the decline of unionism, and the ALP as forces for industrial, political and social change.

No school curriculum is going to teach our children to believe that they could make history themselves, unless there are grown-ups out there organising to challenge the status quo, whether it is the power of Howard and his supporters, or his successors. But I'd like to see a history curriculum that tells the bigger narratives of struggles to make history, as participated in by leaders, citizens and the marginalised.

Good by-products of WorkChoices?

2006-05-18T05:05:00.002-07:00

(originally published Feb 2006 in now defunct LiveJournal blog)
Could there be one good by-product of WorkChoices? - Apparently all the bullshit that goes into workplace documents that is supposed to make work sound all rewarding, cosy, secure and equal - can be considered to be part of a job contract. This is according to an article by Nick O'Mally Weasel words warning to bosses. http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2006/02/03/113895ses8911095.html. If it is part of job contract, then employers can be sued for breaking the contract if the job doesn't match up.

It's not the sueing that interests me - I wonder if it will sharpen up employee's perceptions of their relationship to their managers and bosses if companies cannot afford the legal risk of the sugar-coating on the pill?

Organising model and the attacks on union rights

2006-05-18T05:05:00.001-07:00

(originaly pubished October 2005 in now defunct Livejournal blog)

Michael Cosby in Workers Online discusses the IR changes.

Michael Cosby is an advocate of the "organising model" for unions. He says that unions could fall over in the next five years, as they did in New Zealand. "I don't want to be a doomsayer, but let's understand clearly what the Howard Government is doing. They are designing the worst legislation in the world for workers to have power. Their aim is to destroy the Australian union movement. To the extent to which legislation can do it, it will do it. Now, it doesn't mean that it happens. Our response is critical. If we respond correctly, if we change as we need to, then we will survive it."

What is Cosby's "correct response"? "The problem with the campaign is that it is not enough. No matter what we do - even if we win the next election on the back of this campaign, we will still have the world's worst industrial relations legislation. When that happens we have got to have unions that are capable of surviving in that environment. "

Cosby proposes some essentials for survival - "the capacity to win".. "activists everywhere you look. Members of the union have got to be absolutely engaged in every part of the union they are members of. And the union needs to have money."

But Cosby implies that the union movement now does not have the capacity to beat Howard or the "world's worst industrial relations legislation". The "capacity to win" seems to mean capacty of individual unions to win against employers, but not capacity for the union movement as a whole to win against a government. "Unions are about giving workers power at work. Well, we have got to describe to members exactly what kind of union will give them power. They don't want to pay cheap rates and lose! They are prepared to pay whatever it will take to change their lives, to get some power at work."

Even though union density and membership has declined, there are still a couple of milion unionised workers in Australia, with considerable industrial and political clout. The currently unionised do have the capacity to defend the union rights that will give workers more power at work and in politics. It is disappointing that Cosby who is advocating an agressive campaign to rebuild Australian unionism with the organising model, takes such a narrow and passive view of the union movement's capacity to force a backdown by Howard.

Who is making history now?

2006-05-18T05:05:00.000-07:00

I am interested in the history that has been made by organized workers, health and safety at work, limiting hours of work, green bans, equal pay for women, and aborigines, parental leave, minimum wages and opportunities at work, the right to stand up for oneself, pensions, Medicare, public education, solidarity with Indonesia, with East Timor etc. I cannot see any other force that will make history positive for humanity, that can be the force to challenge poverty, injustice, environmental destruction, repression and oppression.

But Howard is securing state powers that will make the remaking of history by workers all the harder, that could set it back by decades if he is not stopped.

My daughter learns history in high school. When I studied history in high school, I went home every night and saw history being made on TV, in the newspapers, by people, workers, students, women taking to the streets against the Vietnam war, for equal pay, for the right to choose whether or not to become a mother, in Defence of Government Schools, etc. In high school we studied the 19th & 20th century “isms” – nationalism, socialism, fascism, communism – and I learnt about people struggling to make history over a century earlier on the streets of Paris in 1848, and then on for the rest of the century and into the next. Very soon afterwards I joined those people on the streets to play my part in making history, and to taste the sense of freedom and excitement that comes from it. Now in high school history my daughter is taught that there are many different points of view at any point in history. So far so good. But, all these points of view are potentially of equal merit. A side need not be taken. I think that without learning to take a side in history, you cannot learn to be a maker of history. It's just a curiosity. History and progress are disconnected.

Are young workers without any sense of history with a part for them? How did the workplace and your way of life come to be the way it is? How did you get the freedoms you enjoy? Who stands to gain when you lose? Why don’t you have the opportunity, the time, the carefree outlook, the optimism to challenge authority and to struggle for and live your dreams about a better world for everyone?

Fit to muscle out Howard's IR laws

2006-05-18T04:54:00.001-07:00

(Originally published in now abandond Livejournal blog, Sept 2005)

I hate everything that John Howard is doing, and so do most people who I know.

What baffles everyone I speak to, is why do people have trust in Howard? In fact there is considerable opposition to what Howard is doing on both Telstra and industrial relations – but that opposition is not stopping him.

Enough people voted for him to win 3 elections. Why and who are they? I think that part of the answer is that when confronted with anxieties about their own way of life, many Australian workers can’t see anyone they trust more to protect what they do have.

And Howard is looking like a winner. He is a winner.

I like to think that the way to beat Howard is for unionized workers to take him on.

Over the last few months since the Rights@work campaign was launched, there have been mixed feelings. There is a sense of hope and strength, that Howard could really be going too far and that this attack on unions could be the reviving tonic that the labour movement needs. But many key union officials do not seem to have confidence that the membership has the will and the muscle to come out on top. Unless the unions do take him on before the legislation which amputates workers rights is passed, not only will their industrial muscles get weaker and more unfit, they will have severe legal disabilities that will make it even harder to enter the struggle for rights at work.

Union officials are talking about the need to be smart in dealing with Howard, not to be hot headed and rush to use the industrial muscle. Yes, there is a need to be smart, but it’s not very smart not to notice, that throughout history the victor is not the one who is polite and reasonable, but the one who gets the upper hand and uses it. Those of us who hate Howard, those of us who recognize that he is dangerous can only mobilise those who have previously placed their trust in Howard, by showing that we can beat Howard, that we have an alternative to Howard. The smart thing to do is to work out the best way to maximise our industrial muscle and to choose the best time to use it. And it would be smart if that were before the amputation of more legal rights.

Unions need to try to stop the legislation going through parliament, by giving all the wavering politicians plenty of reason to think that the laws would provoke too much unrest to be workable.

Unionists and ALP should oppose Scott Parkin's deportation.

2006-05-18T04:54:00.000-07:00

(Originally published in now abandond Livejournal blog, Sept 2005)
Anyone who wants to make history, especially anyone who wants to make Howard history, should be very, very nervous about the deportation of Scott Parkin. The community activist, teacher and airline employee is an expert on the power, wealth and greed of US Vice-President Dick Cheney’s favourite corporation Halliburton. Parkin was on a tourist visa in Australia giving workshops on non-violent methods of resistance. Howard had lied a few days earlier that no one opposing the war on Iraq need worry that the new police powers pushed through parliament would target them. They were only to prevent terrorism. It took less than a fortnight for the laws to be used against a person campaigning against the Iraq war.

In his cunning way Howard is testing the electorate, and softening Australians up. He tells Kim Beazley the secret intelligence, presumably gathered by an ASIO agent infiltrating Greenpeace or some other campaign. It will blow the ASIO agent’s cover if the "evidence" against Parkin is made public. Parkin may well have been explaining peaceful tactics for disrupting Halliburton. Beazley buys the deportation and the secrecy of the reasons for it according to Marian Wilkinson and David Marr in SMH of 18 Sept. . That is, Beazley accepts the violation of standard civil liberties, the very freedoms that “terrorism” is meant to threaten. He shows just how pathetic and useless the Federal Opposition is.

Union campaigns often need to disrupt commercial operations in some way to have any chance of winning. Parkin's deportation signals danger for the union movement and any one in it who discusses or proposes to take effective action against an employer.