MOVING APART: POLITICAL STRATEGIES ADOPTED BY

UNIONS AND THE ALP TO MANAGE THEIR DIMINISHED

RELATIONSHIP

Trevor Cook
Department of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney
City Road, Chippendale, Australia
trevor.cook@gmail.com

INTRODUCTION

In Western democracies during the twentieth century the nature of the links between unions and
political parties of the left have helped to shape national politics. Valenzuela (1991) argued that
social democratic relationships encouraged corporatist political cultures and modest, incremental
approaches to economic and social reform. Valenzuela’s description of the social democratic
relationship centres on the creation of a single, national political party by a united, national union
movement, which allowed for the early emergence of a stable wage-bargaining process. With some
qualification, this description clearly covers Australia, as well as the UK and New Zealand. The
USA is the major example of Valenzuela’s pressure group model where there is no formal
affiliation and both the national union movement and the Democrat party value their independence
and is wary of the risks of a closer relationship.

In social democratic relationships, unions seek to influence outcomes predominantly through

internal party structures by playing a significant role in the selection of parliamentary candidates
and through party policy deliberations that are to some extent binding on MPs. Under the pressure
group model, there is a much greater emphasis on the use of public campaigning and lobbying
techniques to influence the party and encourage it to support agreed positions in parliament. In
addition, unions and parties put a much greater emphasis on their independence, and are much more
sensitive to the perceptions of that independence held by their core constituencies, members and
voters respectively.

Throughout its long history, the unions-ALP relationship has been marked by tensions and episodic
crises. Nevertheless, the formal, organisational relationship between unions and the ALP remains.
While there is no real prospect of these organisational links being severed in the immediate future,
there is evidence that the relationship is undergoing profound change. The successful Your Rights
at Work (YR@W) campaign, run by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) against the
Howard Government’s WorkChoices legislation, was a new political strategy for the Australian
trade union movement in terms of its scope, scale and impact. Never before had Australia’s unions
spent so much money over a protracted period (2005 to 2007) to directly influence political debate
and electoral outcomes, alongside the ALP but not through it. It is generally believed that unions
spent between $20 million and $30 million to ensure the election of an ALP Government in 2007
(Muir 2008), compared with just $17 million the ALP received in public funding for the 2004
election (Mayer 2006). YR@W can be seen as an expression of a newly emerging relationship that
has some similarities with the pressure group model.

The research discussed in this paper seeks to understand the dynamics of the changing relationship
from the perspectives of participants. Do they perceive a permanent change in the relationship?
What are the broader implications of that change, if any, for the political behaviour of unions and
the ALP?

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Qualitative interviews, with open-ended questions, were used because they allow interviewees to
emphasise and explore the aspects of the relationship most important to them, and thus provide
deeper and richer insights into a relationship that is rarely discussed frankly, and in a considered
way, on the public record. The limitation is that the sample size is inevitably small and makes
extrapolation from 24 participants to a relationship that includes thousands an exercise that must be
approached cautiously. Further research will augment these interviews with close examination of
the public record, participant biographies and policy formulation case studies.

Interviews were conducted with 24 senior participants in the unions-ALP relationship between
November 2009 and February 2010. All the interviewees have had lengthy experience in senior
roles in the unions-ALP relationship. I had pre-existing relationships, sometimes extending back
several decades, with about half the interviewees. The interviewees who participated provided a
good coverage of most of the usual divides in the labour movement: right / left, union / MP, state /
national, white collar / blue collar, ALP affiliated / non-affiliated.

Given the nature of the relationship, many interviewees had held senior roles in both unions and the
ALP. Eighteen interviewees are currently, or have been, senior elected union officials. Of these, 11
hold, or held, positions with ALP-affiliated unions, 4 with unions not affiliated with the ALP, and 3
with peak organisations (all of which had previously held positions with individual unions). Eleven
of the 18 union interviewees hold, or held, national union positions, while seven, hold or held, state,
but not national, positions. In addition, 12 of these 18 union interviewees have served on the ACTU
executive. Eight of the interviewees are, or were, parliamentarians (seven national and one state).
Two other interviewees have been unsuccessful parliamentary candidates. Ten of the interviewees
have held a range of other relevant political roles. Four of the ten have held senior positions with
the National ALP, three have held senior state ALP positions (but not national), two have been
senior Ministerial advisers federally and one has worked for several unions over a long period in
campaigning roles.

The sample does have some potentially important weaknesses. Union officials were far more
willing than MPs, particularly Ministers, to participate. This disparity may be due to different time
pressures and to a greater concern for confidentiality on the part of current politicians. Only 3 of the
24 interviewees were female. For resource reasons, three-quarters (18) of the interviews were
conducted in NSW (mostly Sydney). Two of these 18 were with Melbourne based union officials
when they were visiting Sydney. Three interviews were conducted in each of Melbourne and
Canberra (one with a WA MP).

A further important qualification is that the interviews were conducted at a particular moment in
time and may reflect those circumstances to an extent that can mask or distort underlying trends.
For instance, none of the interviewees anticipated anything other than a second term for Kevin
Rudd. Given recent political events, the tone and content of these interviews might be somewhat
different if re-conducted now.

All interviews were audio-recorded and subsequently transcribed. These transcriptions were
analysed to identify common themes. The analysis in this paper is built around some of those
themes. All interviews were conducted on the basis of confidentiality. Most interviews were
conducted in the interviewee’s office or an adjacent room. In order, to meet the requirements of the
interviewee, three interviews were conducted in a restaurant or café.
LITERATURE REVIEW

Scholars in Britain largely ignored the relationships between social democratic parties and unions
until the rise of New Labour (Ludlam, Bodah and Coates 2002). In one of the few major studies in
this area before the electoral triumph of New Labour in the UK in 1997, Lewis Minkin (1991:658),
argued: “this is a relationship which, contrary to much mythology, is becoming more not less
integrated”. In essence, Minkin argued that the relationship was resilient because both sides
continued to receive important benefits from it.

Globalisation and neo-liberal policies created a more hostile environment for unions (Peetz 1998,
Rachleff 2006: 458, Teicher et. al., 2007: 126), and led to a loss of membership and weakened wage
bargaining positions (Frege and Kelly 2003: 8). Scholars have also recognised that union decline
has varied greatly in its size, nature and impact across countries (Frege and Kelly 2003: 8), with the
impact of globalisation on unions being less severe in many Western European countries than in the
UK, USA, Australia and NZ. Accounts of these union setbacks usually include a perceived decline
in union influence on social democratic parties. Piazza (2001: 413) described as ‘conventional
wisdom’ the idea that globalisation has prompted de-linking of social democratic parties and
unions. Many other scholars have also argued that the links between political parties and unions in
Western Europe have been in decline over recent decades (Howell 2000: 201, Moschonas 2002:
319, Rueda 2007: 2).

Valenzuela (1992), a Chilean scholar, argued that the circumstances of their creation have an
enormous and lasting impact on the character of labour movements. He used a typology with five
forms: social democratic, pressure group, contestatory, confrontationist, and state-sponsored. The
contestatory category refers to countries where the labour movement is split along ideological,
religious, or other, lines. The confrontationist and state-sponsored categories are found in countries
where there are authoritarian regimes. The first two of these forms are, however, relevant to this
discussion; the social democratic form in which “unions link up to form basically one national
organisation that in turn connects itself with a single, relatively strong party” (1992:55) and the
pressure group form in which “unions link themselves with a pre-existing party or fragments of it”
(1992: 55). Pressure group links are much looser and less formal than they are in the social
democratic model.

Valenzuela argues that because unions in countries with social democratic type unions-party
relationships were able to achieve a high-level of consolidation early in their histories, through
direct employer negotiations, their leaders, and those of the parties they aligned with, adopted “a
moderate socialist viewpoint with an incremental and reformist style of political action” (1992: 69).
Valenzuela also argued that the close links between unions and parties in the social democratic
type, together with this moderate and reformist style, lends itself to the development of corporatism
in democratic societies (1992: 69).

Valenzuela’s pressure group type is based on the experience of the USA (1992: 77). Valenzuela
argued that during the 1960s the relationship between American unions and the Democratic Party
came to resemble the relationship between the British Labour Party and unions during the same
period. Nevertheless, he argues, the lack of a formal, organisational link remains an important and
distinguishing difference. American unions must always “exchange electoral support for individual
candidates for their promises of support for union causes at the legislative and governmental level”
(1992: 78). In Britain, Valenzuela argues, unions can pretty much take it for granted that Labour
members of parliament will vote for the option most favourable for unions amongst those options
under consideration (1992: 78). The organisational link, or its absence, therefore, is highly
significant in shaping the political behaviour of unions.

McIlroy (1998) argued that Valenzuela’s analysis (1992) pays little attention to the dynamics of
contemporary economic re-structuring and its impact on unions-party relationships (1998: 538).
Using Valenzuela’s typology, McIlroy (1998: 559) argued that the relationship between the British
Labour Party and British unions under Tony Blair and New Labour was pushed from social
democratic to pressure group, from “unique intimacy to arms-length organisational relationships”
(1998: 559). McIlroy argues that unions-party relationships can change type from social democratic
to pressure group without actually severing the institutional link.

Archer (2007) argued that American unionists at the end of the nineteenth century did not create a
labor party because they feared that partisan involvement in politics might lead to further dissension
in a movement already blighted by it (2007: 238-239). The American union leadership did not see
political independence as a negative; according to one leading advocate of the time: “voluntarism
rejects both attempts to control a major political party and efforts to establish an independent labor
party” (Zullo 2007: 225). American unions have had a long and deep-seated ambivalence about the
Democratic Party. This ambivalence reinforces voluntarism, which is perceived to offer protection
from the vicissitudes of internal party politics (Zullo 2007: 226).

While there maybe benefits in both models, scholars generally see a move from social democratic
to pressure group as a step backwards, particularly for unions. In Howell’s words, the links have
“without exception, weakened and soured”. Ludlam, Bodah and Coates (2002) argued that unions-
party linkages on both sides of the Atlantic are moving towards the “original impotence of the
external lobbying model characteristic of early labour movements” (2002).

Ludlam, Bodah and Coates (2002) built upon the work of Valenzuela (1992) and McIlroy (1998) to
compare unions-party linkages in the UK and USA and provide an explanation of the transitions to
New Labour and New Democrat in those countries. Ludlam, Bodah and Coates (2002) argue that
New Labour is a relationship form characterised by retained formal organisational links with
diminished policy influence. The research reported in this paper suggests that this formulation
accurately describes the contemporary unions-ALP relationship, but also suggests that participants
in the relationship are generally positive about the change.

INDEPENDENCE

“I think the key is that there is a mutual self-interest in maintaining ties but also a mutual self-
interest in downplaying those ties publicly” – Union interviewee

A key outcome of these interviews is evidence of a tension in the relationship between a continuing,
substantial dependence and the growing need of both sides to create and sustain public perceptions
of independence. Many interviewees saw the need for independence as a pragmatic reality of
modern politics and recognised that being in ‘each others’ pockets’ was bad for both sides.

Overall, 19 interviewees commented on the growing independence of the two sides and the reasons
for it. Three made no comment and two saw it as no more than business as usual. The comments
made about the causes of greater independence are summarised below:
• Requirement for unions to focus on the interests of their members, and to be seen to be
doing so, which overlap with but are not the same as the ALP’s concerns
• Requirement for unions to be able to deal with both sides of politics (notably by non-
affiliated unions), and the reality that many union memberships have voting patterns that are
similar to those of the broader community
• ALP’s belief that being seen to be too close to unions is harmful for its image
 • ALP perceptions that unions are no more relevant, in a policy sense, than other pressure (or
advocacy) groups

Despite a generally pragmatic approach, union interviewees often spoke critically of the ALP’s
desire to downplay links with the unions in public, describing it as ‘expediency’ and contrasting it
with a greater effusiveness in private about the significant contributions of the union movement to
the ALP’s electoral success in 2007. Several interviewees noted that Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard
rarely use the word ‘union’ in public and, despite the highly resourced YR@W campaign; Rudd did
not thank the union movement in his victory speech on election night in November 2007. Kathie
Muir (2008) has pointed out that the ALP National Secretary, Tim Gartrell, in his post-election
address to the National Press Club was also less than fulsome in his recognition of union support.
Rudd did, however, thank delegates at the ACTU Congress in June 2009 for their efforts, which he
said had been the key to Labor’s return to office (Davis 2009-2).

The effort to balance dependence and independence can be considered highly problematic and is
likely to push the relationship further in the direction of the pressure group model.

FORMAL LINKS

Despite complexities and tensions, a large majority of interviewees saw no likelihood of a

permanent severing of the formal, organisational links between unions and the ALP. Two
interviewees spoke of a ‘pathway to separation’ and ‘further separation’, but this was very much a
minority view. The ability to get outcomes favourable to unionism from the ALP, and only from the
ALP, was seen by interviewees as the most important reason for unions continuing to provide
significant resources to help the ALP electorally. The sheer weight of the resources that the union
movement can contribute provides the most potent reason for the ALP maintaining its formal
relationship with unions. A recent estimate of these resources put them at two million members,
2,000 full-time officials and 100,000 workplace delegates (Davis 2009-2). Quite a few interviewees
argued that human resources, particularly union officials and employees to staff marginal seat
campaigns, were more significant than financial contributions. The capacity to draw on the union
movement’s large contingent of seasoned community and political organisers was viewed as a
significant advantage that the contemporary ALP has over its conservative opponents.

Nevertheless, the relationship continues to be seen as more than a simple swapping of benefits.
Some participants in this study lauded the ‘Australian model’ as unique and made a case for its
superiority to similar relationships in other countries. One senior federal MP said: “there are no
other labour movements that have evolved to our level of internal
sophistication”. One senior affiliated union interviewee argued that: “unions
provide the stability in Australia to have serious party reform. In the UK, the unions are the block to
that (modernisation)”. Hearn (2010) has suggested recently that the AWU, for instance, has played
this role throughout its history, bringing a ‘cautiously pragmatic’ influence to bear on ALP policy.
Half (12) interviewees, including both union officials and MPs, argued that union affiliation still
gives Labor its distinctive nature; it helps to maintain important linkages with working people and
their concerns; and, it helps with political management of the party and unions. One interviewee,
for instance, pointed to the way patronage, in the form of pre-selections and other appointments, is
routinely used by the party to manage the behaviour of union officials. Several senior union
interviewees, with close involvement in the ALP, were strongly of the view that the ALP would
hardly be a viable political party without the union base. Unions were seen by these interviewees to
be far more in touch with traditional Labor values and the broader electorate than the ALP’s
‘hollowed-out’ branch membership. The branch membership was typically derided by some union
interviewees as ‘mad’ or ‘maddies’, and focused on ‘trendy left’ issues. Another 5 interviewees
expressed views supportive of the idea that the unions-ALP relationship can still be seen as a social
movement with unions and the ALP sharing broad objectives and values. The remaining 8
interviewees were neutral or negative about this dimension of the relationship.

ALP affiliation makes a real difference. Interviewees for this study generally argued that affiliation
brings with it better access to, and more credibility with, senior ALP decision-makers. On the other
hand, interviewees from non-affiliated unions generally saw affiliation as limiting the capacity of
unions to represent their members effectively because of party expectations about loyalty, and a
responsibility to protect the ALP from electoral damage. Conversely, interviewees from affiliated
unions and from the federal caucus were frequently critical of a perceived lack of political maturity
on behalf of non-affiliated unions. Political maturity was defined by one interviewee from an
affiliated union as a willingness to accept defeat on a policy debate at the hands of the ALP without
making the party look bad. These perceptions and criticisms reflect the fact that affiliated unions
tend to rely much more on the ‘insider game’, as one interviewee dubbed it, than do non-affiliated
unions which must maintain good relations with the ALP, but feel much less responsibility for its
electoral fortunes.

Only about half of Australia’s union members are in organisations that are affiliated with the ALP.
Unions affiliate at the state level, so that a federal union can be affiliated with the ALP in some
states but not others. This is the case with unions as diverse as the Construction, Forestry, Mining
and Energy Union (CFMEU) and the Financial Services Union (FSU). Peak union organisations,
the ACTU and its state-based equivalents, negotiate with the ALP, especially when it is in
government, on behalf of their affiliated unions, whether or not they are also affiliated to the ALP.

A look at affiliation trends also suggests that there is considerable stability, or inertia, in union
attitudes to the benefits of links with the ALP. In recent years, two white-collar unions have
affiliated – FSU and Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) – and one has disaffiliated
(Victorian Electrical Trades Union, ETU). Major non-affiliated unions, National Tertiary
Education Union (NTEU), Australian Education Union (AEU), Australian Nursing Federation
(ANF), are unlikely to seek ALP affiliation. The federal ALP under the leadership of Simon Crean,
a former ACTU president, sought and achieved a reduction in formal union influence within the
ALP. Several interviewees commented on this move, suggesting that it was a political mistake that
had weakened Crean’s leadership (2001 -2003) and it was unlikely to be repeated anytime soon.

CLOSENESS AND POLICY INFLUENCE

Beyond the existence of formal links, a useful proxy for the difference between social democratic
and pressure group models is ‘closeness’. Interviewees were asked about their attitudes to the
closeness of the current relationship and whether it matters if the relationship is not as close under
Rudd as it was under Hawke?

The attitudes of interviewees to the relationship overall can be grouped around three broad
characterisations: positive but different (11 interviewees); negative and moving apart (7); and,
current tensions are normal (6). Interviewees in the first category acknowledged that the
relationship was different to the Accord years, and either thought that the change was inevitable
(‘evolving’ to meet the demands of a different world), positive (‘not too close’), or improving (‘a
work in progress’). Interviewees in the second group tended to see the Accord period as a
highpoint and the relationship between the Rudd Government and trade unions as a disappointment
and a sign of a more permanent devaluing of the relationship by the ALP. Interviewees in the
second group were more likely to believe that the ALP would prefer not to have formal links with
unions because they perceived the links as being either neutral or negative in electoral terms. One
interviewee, for instance, said that the ALP takes a ‘damage control’ approach to its links with
unions. Several interviewees in this category also believed that unions were not making a
significant contribution in policy terms and tended to be seen by the ALP as narrowly focused
advocates for their members as employees. The third group of interviewees recognised that there
were considerable tensions in the relationship, but tended to see these in an historical context of a
relationship that has always had tensions. Interviewees in this group used phrases like ‘ebb and
flow’ and ‘ups and downs’ to stress the normalcy of tension. Some of these interviewees also saw
the tensions as contributing to a healthy relationship. Interviewees in this group also tended to stress
the role of personality in the relationship as an, at least partial, explanation of these ups and downs.
One interviewee in this group said that the unions-party relationship was more distant now than at
anytime in the past 25 years, but did not see this as a long-term problem for the relationship.

These rough groupings are significant in the context of the theoretical discussion in the literature
review section above. The third group of interviewees fits Minkin’s (1991) description of a
relationship that is robust despite recurring tensions, while the second group fits the alternative view
of a relationship in decline and being ‘pushed’ towards a pressure group model. The first, most
numerous, group consists of interviewees who are positive, evenly strongly positive, about the
relationship and its capacity to deliver benefits for both sides. They hold this view even though,
sometimes because, they acknowledge that the formal side of the relationship has declined and been
replaced with greater emphasis on personal relationships, and that the broader policy role of unions
when the ALP is in government has also declined. The existence of this group might also suggest
that many participants in the relationship accept, even welcome, a limited move away from a social
democratic to a pressure group model.

Overall, however, the interviews for this study suggest that unions continue to see the status of their
relationship with the ALP as superior to that enjoyed by pressure groups. They are keen to retain
that greater status because it is seen to convey greater benefits in terms of access and influence. For
some interviewees, unions will always be more than pressure groups because of their close
involvement with the ALP’s internal organisational structure.

When the interviews were conducted, Kevin Rudd was still Prime Minister with a record personal
popularity in published opinion polls. For example, Newspoll in early December 2009 scored Rudd
with a 26-point net positive satisfaction rating (58% positive, 32% negative). Interviewee
perceptions of relations between unions and the federal ALP Government were heavily influenced
by Rudd’s leadership style. Interviewees did not think that Rudd alone was the difference in the
relationship, compared to the Accord period. Nevertheless, interviewees tended to place a high
importance on the role of personalities and personal relationships in shaping the unions-party
relationship. Some interviewees suggested that the unions-party relationship would be different
under (former leader) Kim Beazley or under then deputy leader Julia Gillard. Two interviewees
were also doubtful of Gillard’s union credentials. These interviewees were influenced by Gillard’s
refusal to abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) which had drawn
protests and delegate hostility at the June 2009 ACTU Congress (Davis 2009-2). Both Beazley and
Gillard were seen as being more attuned and comfortable with unions and union political culture.
Nevertheless, Beazley also made efforts to not appear a captive of the unions (Davis 2009-1)

One current union interviewee pointed out that Mark Latham (Opposition Leader 2003 – 2005) was
much like Rudd in his perception of the appropriate relations between unions and the federal
parliamentary ALP and that Simon Crean (2001 – 2003) had reduced union influence in the ALP, at
least in a formal, numerical sense. Latham seems to have gone much further and questioned the
continuing relevance of unions as representative organizations for working people (Johnson
2004:537)

On the other hand, some interviewees recalled that, in Opposition, Rudd had been relentless in his
efforts to build relationships with some key affiliated unions, notably the Amalgamated
Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) and AWU. As leader, Rudd was a strong supporter of
industry policy, a stance seen by many commentators (Stutchbury 2010) as at odds with his claim to
be an economic conservative. Interestingly, industry policy is one of the few areas, beyond
industrial relations, where unions can be said to have influenced the Rudd Government. Despite
these overtures, according to one well-placed interviewee, Rudd won very little support from unions
for his successful bid to displace Kim Beazley as the ALP’s federal leader.

Union interviewees were divided in their perceptions of the Accord. Some lamented the loss of a
greater role in government policy-making that participation in the Accord gave unions, in particular
the ACTU leadership. One interviewee, for instance, said that Bill Kelty was virtually a Cabinet
member during the Hawke – Keating period. Other union interviewees, particularly those currently
holding leadership positions, were either dismissive (for instance, ‘that was another era’) or highly
critical of the negative impact on unions with their members, and potential members, of being seen
to be too close to an ALP government. One union interviewee argued that the Accord was good for
unions when the Hawke Government was popular in the period 1983 to 1991, but it dragged unions
down when the Keating Government’s popularity plunged during the recession of the early 1990s.

Moreover, interviewees in current union leadership roles saw Accord-style corporatism as an

unattainable luxury during an era of falling union membership and concerted business and political
attacks. The leadership group that emerged in the wake of the Accord has been focused on ensuring
that unions survive and rebuild some of their lost membership base. This reached mythical heights
with the circulation of the so-called ‘scary graph’ that extrapolated the decline in union membership
and showed that unions would soon cease to exist as viable organisations if membership declines
were not soon slowed and reversed (Davis 2009-1:191). This focus was also seen as better aligned
with what members actually want from their unions. That is, for the most part, better wages and
conditions and job security. The narrower focus, several interviewees suggested, had resulted in a
union movement that tended to be negative and oppositionist in its approach to policy formulation.
However understandable given the circumstances, they argued, this negative stance had contributed
to a reduced influence for the union movement under Rudd.

Some union respondents with Accord era experience lamented the reduced policy role of today’s
unions, but today’s union officials on the whole did not. They explicitly recognised that
parliamentarians had a broader role than union officials, often this was expressed as a rationale for
the different approaches some union officials take when they enter parliament, but it also explicitly
acknowledged the status of unions as advocates for fairly narrow sectional interests.

In terms of ‘closeness’, the contemporary unions-ALP relationship remains social democratic in its
organisational integration, but has moved towards the pressure group model when it comes to
policy influence. Interestingly, many union participants seem to have accepted this decline in a
broader policy influence and are far more concerned with ensuring that the ALP delivers on
legislation and public institutions that are favourable to unionism.

POLITICAL RESPONSES

Unions and the ALP have adopted strategies to assert their public independence in the face of
scepticism about the appropriateness and value of the unions-party relationship from their
respective constituencies. Unions have placed far greater emphasis on creating a favourable
political climate for their agendas and continue to try and recast themselves as campaigning
organisations. In government, the ALP has shown some desire to reduce its reliance on unions
through political donation reform (Millar 2010), as well as eschewing any return to an Accord-style
relationship. The ALP continues to reduce union policy influence by reducing the significance of
party forums and conferences. Most union interviewees recognised this change and emphasised the
need for unions to use campaigning and lobbying techniques to ensure ALP governments
implemented the party policies that unions had promoted in these forums and conferences.

The general perception of the interviewees was that unions had improved their campaigning and
lobbying capacities in recent years. About half of the interviewees commented that the
improvement had been dramatic or significant. For example, one interviewee commented that the
marginal seat campaign run by the unions in the 2007 election had a degree of sophistication that
was unimaginable 20 years ago. Only one interviewee, from the ALP federal caucus, was sharply
critical of union campaigning, particularly the use of US style techniques like T-shirts (T-shirts
were used at the 2009 ACTU Congress to highlight opposition to the Rudd Government’s decision
to retain the ABCC and by the anti-privatisation campaigners at the NSW ALP Conference in
2008). Two non-ALP affiliated union interviewees, commented that Federal and State ALP
Governments saw their unions’ use of the media to campaign against government decisions as an
act of betrayal. Nevertheless, many interviewees, both unions and ALP MPs, spoke favourably
about the concerted efforts of unions’ to lobby the federal Government. The Liquor, Hospitality and
Miscellaneous Union (LHMU) and the AEU were cited as being particularly active in Canberra.
Another remarked that senior union officials spend so much time lobbying in Canberra that it was
now convenient to hold ACTU National Executive meetings there.

In recent years, the union movement in Australia has studied the campaigning techniques used by
USA unions. The ACTU undertook a visit to the USA in 1993 that recommended a move to a
stronger organising approach in Australia (Peetz and Pocock 2009:629). About half of the
interviewees endorsed this focus, sometimes with reservations, while only a few were dismissive.
One union interviewee said that attitudes towards the organising model were a real dividing line in
today’s union movement. The focus of union movement attention on the USA is a remarkable
divergence from its interest in the corporatism of Germany and the Scandinavian countries during
the Accord period. This interest in European corporatism reached a peak with the mission that led to
the Australia Reconstructed document published in 1987 and discussed at length at the 1987 ACTU
Congress (Davis 1988). The appeal of the USA is the capacity of unions there to survive in a hostile
environment particularly through the use of campaigning, lobbying and member recruiting
techniques. A key contribution of the YR@W marginal seat campaign, according to several
interviewees, was an effort to engage with members who were swinging voters in key seats. This
type of engagement was based on the USA organising model. ACTU analysis suggested that simply
getting more union members in key marginal seats to vote for the ALP would be enough to see it
win the election (Davis 2009-1).

None of the interviewees saw any advantages in moving towards the USA unions-party relationship
model. There are, however, some indications of more convergence between the USA and Australian
unions-party models. For instance, several interviewees spoke of the growing importance of
personal relationships between individual unions and particular caucus members in the wake of a
less formal relationship at the leadership level. Relationships between individual unions and
particular caucus members have been a feature of Australian politics since federation. Unions like
the AWU and the Shop, Distributive and Allied Union (SDA) have always been large enough to
deliver pre-selections to their favoured candidates. A decline in ALP membership may have
increased the capacity of individual unions to influence pre-selection outcomes. There might be a
further trend towards individual unions supporting the election, as well as the pre-selection, of
candidates that are seen as supportive of union agendas, several interviewees expect to see this sort
of development in the future.

Part of the on-going strength of union influence in the ALP is that it is a major source of candidates,
as well as campaign resources. As the industrial strength of the union movement declined in the
1990s, more of its senior leadership opted to enter federal Parliament. As one interviewee said:
“Bill Shorten (elected to parliament at the 2007 election) is probably the first federal secretary of
the Australian Workers Union (AWU) to think that moving into parliament was a step up”.
Previously, with some notable exceptions (particularly Bob Hawke), Parliament was seen as a
retirement job for union officials who had out-lived their usefulness, or welcome, in the union
movement. At the 2007 election, an unprecedented cohort of senior, mid-career, union officials left
the union movement for federal parliament. These included Greg Combet (widely regarded by
interviewees as one of the union movement’s best recent leaders, on a par with Bob Hawke and Bill
Kelty), Bill Shorten (Federal Secretary AWU), Doug Cameron (Assistant National Secretary
AMWU), Richard Marles (ACTU Assistant Secretary). Some interviewees regretted that the union
movement had become a stepping stone and felt unions were weakened by this loss of talent, but
most welcomed it as a way of ensuring strong (personal) links between unions and the ALP in the
modern era.

CONCLUSION

The contemporary unions-ALP relationship can be seen as being a mix of the social democratic and
pressure group models. There has been separation and this is a trend that might yet go further.
Unions have adopted, and adapted, many of the pressure group techniques used by American
unions to secure favourable political outcomes in an environment where unions are ambivalent
about the capacity and determination of ‘their’ party to deliver those outcomes. Nevertheless, there
is no evidence that the formal links will be severed in the years ahead. In addition, senior unionists
have moved into federal caucus in large numbers and this will bolster the personal links that have
become ever more important to unions. The ALP, for its part, is unlikely to want to forgo the union
campaign resources, which are widely believed to give it a significant advantage over the Coalition,
especially on the ground in tight contests.

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