Teaching about unions

Trade unions are an important feature of Australian society. They are also a factor in the education system. Directly and indirectly, students come into contact with union related issues at school, work and home. ‘Enterprise education’ encourages a particular view of the world and particular values. ‘Union education’ can encourage alternative understandings of how people interact and how society can change.

These notes were used for a presentation at the ACT SOSE Summer School on 25 January 2000 at the University of Canberra.

Enterprise education on how to be an enterprising individual, ready to respond flexibly to the workplace, complements the hidden curriculum with its stress on competition, marks and individualism. Given the ‘challenges’ of the modern world it is useful for young people to be exposed to critical perspectives which do no simply accept the status quo and seek to slot them into it, but raise questions about whether things are organised in the best possible way, the existence of profound social conflicts, whether things could be different, how they could be changed and the possibilities of collective struggles for change.

Why teaching about unions may be useful:

• Unions are frequently in the news: most students will have heard of unions and have some notions about what they are (even if these are not always accurate). And the reporting of unions usually emphasises conflict. For the same reason conflict sells newspapers, it can arouse interest among students. Participating in it can also be a major solvent of accepted ideas.
• Unions are a significant feature of contemporary societies, a factor in politics and economics. Their existence points to some fundamental conflicts of interest in this kind of society.
• Unions have shaped the way most people in Australia (and in many other countries live), they have played an important role in Australian history and local union activity has been a significant feature of many geographical areas. Unions are a way into history, geography and social studies.
• Unions provide a way in which ordinary people can collectively shape their world, especially their world at work.
• The more people understand unions the more likely they are to join them. In stating this I am not arguing that we should present students with a single position. But I do think that, in helping them gain familiarity with a range of interpretations of institutions, events and processes, there is no way we can avoid ‘bias’. It is best to be up front about this so students can take it into account in assessing what we say and how we behave.

How I do it

• Exciting recent union issue (the waterfront dispute has been brilliant for the past two years, note that the issue need not be Australian, if it has been prominent enough in the news or has sufficient dramatic potential). Using newspapers, TV and other sources, students can identify the matters at stake and the course of the conflict over them. This can serve as an introduction to
• class with discussion of the different experiences of bosses and workers, at work and at home. Usefulness of recent epidemiological work by Marmot et al. on the importance of control at work for health: alienation.
• Why trade unions/theory

Unions take up represent take up the following sorts of issues

• wages (payment at the correct rate, penalty rates etc, wage rises)
• conditions (eg hours of work, breaks, shift times, workplace facilities)
• health and safety at work (more people die from work injuries than on the roads)
• job security
• discrimination and harassment
• unfair dismissal
• child care
• other issues that concern members eg international and local solidarity with oppressed people, women’s right to choose, social security etc.

Many students will be able to draw on their own or family experience in discussions about unions and relationships between workers and employers.

• Theories
• Anti-union
• Economic rationalism. Employment contracts are just like contracts for the sale of anything else: agreements between equals. Production is inherently harmonious. Conflict is in no-one’s interest and so has to be explained exogenously in terms of monopoly, outside agitators, poor human relations management, special pleading or pathological behaviour. The elimination of these can restore harmony.

Unions are dominated by union officials who simply pursue their selfish interests in cushy jobs by extracting monopoly rents for themselves (or themselves and their members) at the expense of non-unionists, especially those in other industries, who are deprived of work.

• Pro-union

Weakeness of individual workers in the face of the power of individual employers. The employment contract is different from contracts over the sale of other things, because of the unequalness of the resources of the boss and the worker. Only by organising together can workers even up this imbalance, to some extent.

• Social democratic. Conflict arises over the distribution of income between classes/different factors of production. Different groups may benefit in the struggle for income, but this struggle may reduce total income. It is therefore preferable to find non-conflictual means to resolve disputes. Unions have a legitimate role and generally represent the interests of their memberships.
• Radical. Conflict is inherent in capitalist society. Efforts to eliminate it are to the detriment of the working class, as collective struggle is its only means for responding to the power the capitalist class derives from its control of the means of production. Trade unions are vital to the defence of workers’ interests within the framework of capitalism.
• History
• Masters and Servants Act
• Eight hours day struggle (discovering Democracy)
• 1890s disputes
• the rise of arbitration
• anti conscription campaigns before (against ‘boy conscription’) and during World War I
• miners’, timber workers’ and wharfies’ disputes in the leadup and during the depression
• Wonthaggi coal miners’ dispute and the rebuilding of unions during the 1930s
• campaigns for equal pay
• the disputes of the late 1940s
• unions and the Indonesian independence struggle: Black Armada
• unions and the campaign against the Vietnam War
• 1969 Clarry O’Shea strike
• unions and the Accord
• Trade union bureaucracy. Can probably draw on many students’ experience with some unions. Union officials have distinct interests because of
• jobs that involve mediation between capital and labour and maintaining the credibility of both sides
• mobility: access to members in different workplaces. They can balances between militant and backward members, portraying their position as the golden mean.
• their expertise and access to information
• more interesting work, better wages and conditions than most of their members

Note in dealing with topic I have found it important to stress that it is not the same position as that of economic rationalists. For an elaboration of these arguments see Tom Bramble's chapter in Rick Kuhn and Tom O'Lincoln Class and class conflict in Australia Longman, Melbourne 1996.

• Where to for unions?
• declining trends in union density
• different explanations for them and prescriptions of what to do about them
• trade unions are outdated: if there ever were class differences they have now disappeared, so there is no justification for unions. The pro-union version of this position emphasises that unions need to recruit on the basis of new services (usually access to cheaper goods and services)
• trade unions have abused their power: unions are representatives of sectional interests.
• changes in sectoral distribution: expansion of industries with low levels of unionisation, contraction of the number employed in sectors with high union density.
• changes in the regulatory framework: particularly the decline in compulsory unionism as sanctioned by State and Federal laws and arbitration decisions.
• image: trade unions have not advertised their positive role sufficiently.
• atrophy of workplace organisation
• low levels of class struggle: unions have not demonstrated their value to members and potential members during a prolonged period of subdued industrial struggle.

• Resources

  • a talk from a union official or delegate about what they do (most schools will have an ATF or ITA rep)
  • A role play of a union meeting is the culmination of my course on political economy. But it role playing negotiations between managers and a workers’ delegation might be useful. It is important to clearly spell out the parameters of the game.
  • Union songs
  • Videos about unions: Harlen County USA, Strikebound, some episodes of Days of Hope, the Simpsons strike episode
  • Health Report Mastering the control factor parts 1 to 4, ABC Radion National broadcast on 9, 16, 23, 20 November 1998, available as tapes or transcripts on web
  • visit to a union meeting/conference or, if you are game and there is an opportunity, a picket line to talk to participants
  • Unions on the web includes links to many unions and labour movement sites
  • The ACTU’s worksite has useful material about experiences at work starts with the nature of work and introduces unions as a part of the work environment. Nb it is guided by the ‘philosophy that ‘There is much to learn about work that careers information does not provide. By combining with business, the ACTU can provide students with an invaluable insight into how work works.’ (http://worksite.actu.asn.au/teachers/secti.htm) It is also very nationalist.
  • The NSW Labor Council’s extensive Labornet includes time lines, why join a union and an uptodate newsletter about events in the labour movement
  • Victorian Trades Hall Council has useful material on union structures and women and unions
  • Curriculum Corporation 'People power' in Discovering democracy upper primary units, Melbourne 1998 pp.120-146 on the eight hour day and equal pay campaigns
  • Ian Turner In union is strength: a history of trade unions in Australia 1788-1978 Nelson, Melbourne 1978
  • Rick Kuhn and Tom O’Lincoln Class and class conflict in Australia Longman, Melbourne 1996
  • David Peetz Unions in a contrary world: the future of the Australian trade union movement Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1998

  A more substantial Lecture on unions from the ANU Political Science course, Introduction to Australian and International Political Economy course

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  Author Rick Kuhn. Last revised 28 Apr 2008 Feedback form
  Original URL:http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/unioned/unioned.htm