Fair Employer is the latest campaign of Unions NSW to reward those employers who do not use Australian Workplace Agreements. This campaign was supported unanimously within Unions NSW and has the support of Labor, the Greens and the Stalinists. The ACTU and other Labor Councils support the campaign in principle but have minor differences
. Since the reactionary �Workchoices� legislation has been on the political agenda, our noble union leaders have bent over backwards to show that they are reasonable people defending a reasonable and fair system (the previous one) and not extremists. Debra Conway has the honour of being the first person in living memory to have sung Advance Australia Fair at a union, radical or left wing meeting. The ACTU were keen to show the Australian public their patriotic zeal. In some ways they have succeeded with their flash advertising highlighting blatant injustice. A lot of the Australian public are now fearful concerning losing their rights at work and indeed their job. when Workchoices is fully implemented.. The problem is that Workchoices will only be defeated by force and this they consistently oppose.
The Fair Employer campaign is an all time low in terms of class collaboration. For decades the union bureaucracy has preached open class collaboration with the government, co-operating with business by refusing to fight for wage rises or defending jobs. The Fair Employer campaign they offer to actively promote some bosses as �fair� if they meet their broad criteria. This label will mean free advertising from unions who will encourage members to purchase their products.
Unions NSW define a boss as �fair� if they satisfy the following criteria .Bosses have to 1) to maintain fair employment conditions 2) abide by employment related laws 3) NOT introduce Australian Workplace Agreement�s (AWA�s) 4) respect the rights of workers to be members of the union 5) not convert employees into independent contractors 6) endeavour to treat employees fairly. The employer concerned will the be deemed �community friendly�. Unions NSW assure us that any endorsement will be withdrawn if the bosses do not behave this way in practice.
All this doesn�t amount to much. All that is really being demanded is that they act in the way they carried out industrial relations, prior to Workchoices. Bosses are not even asked to actively endorse the unions� campaign against Workchoices or donate money. There is no demand that they support improvements in pay or conditions. In fact theoretically, a boss could be recognised as �fair� but still even support Workchoices. She or he would argue that AWA�s might be appropriate for other industries but the best way to improve productivity in theirs is to co-operate with a right wing union. BHP Newcastle had a very comfortable relationship with their local branch of the Federated Ironworkers Association led by Laurie Short. Wages were kept low for decades. But BHP Newcastle might have been eligible for Unions NSW endorsement as a �Fair Employer� had such an endorsement existed. But BHP was a reactionary company.
Bosses pursue different strategies. But they all have one common interest � their profitability. Workchoices is not introduced because there are some bad bosses and a bad Howard government who want to be unfair. It is introduced because it is in the interests of the capitalist class as a whole to maximise profit. This requires the physical destruction of the union movement. Whilst some bosses may have differences in tactics and strategy, their fundamental objective is the same. Unions NSW like the whole of the trade union bureaucracy, don�t want workers to learn any revolutionary lessons from the campaign against the ruling class. So they spread the message that some bosses might be �fair� They are also promoting the bosses, giving them free advertising for virtually nothing.
There would be a conflict of interest if unions were doing their job. �Fair� employers lay off workers. �Fair� bosses oppose wage rises and a shorter working week for their employees. �Fair bosses have resisted improvements in conditions� We could go on. So whilst unions are promoting bosses as �community friendly� they would be fighting them against the attacks they consistently carry out! No doubt many unions will resolve this contradiction by simply not doing their job!
Employers may also be community unfriendly in other ways such as polluting the environment, developing infrastructure which grossly inconveniences working class residents (roads for container trucks).
Never before have unions been so blatantly on their knees before the ruling class, begging the bosses to treat them nicely! This groos class collaboration is a reflection of the total degeneration of both reformism and Stalinism. It is a matter of urgency that communist leadership be built to replace the current lot of reformists, Greens and Stalinists � on their knees to the ruling class and selling us out! . .