Vale, Clyde Cameron. Your like shall not pass this way again.

Undoubtedly, older AWU officials and members around Australia will have noted the passing of one Clyde Robert Cameron.

Clyde was one of the AWU's more widely known identities - and a unique one. Another great AWU identity, the beloved Mick Young, used to tell of how, when he was an AWU organiser in South Australia, there used to be two union meetings: the one which he, as organiser, held with his members and the one, held by Clyde Cameron with the same group of members, immediately afterwards.

Clyde Cameron was not always the best-beloved of the right of the AWU: and certainly not of the Queensland Branch, the most powerful section of the AWU.

Miss Eagle recalls attending her first Queensland Delegates Meeting of the AWU. Delegates meeting is an interesting concept in recent times because, during Miss Eagle's period at the AWU, there was only one occasion when a rank and file delegate was at Delegates Meeting of the AWU. Delegates Meeting - as far as Miss Eagle could tell - was usually an historic and time honoured summer holiday for AWU officials from the bush to get an all expenses paid trip to Brisbane.

When Errol Hodder was State Secretary he was a modernising influence on the AWU. Miss Eagle's first Delegates Meeting was held at Kooralbyn. Besides the innovations of the venue, and the attendance of female officials for the first time, Errol had arranged for training to be done by trainers from the Trade Union Training Authority (TUTA). As well, as conducting training within individual trade unions and travelling to various locations for training sessions involving a wide cross-section of trade unionists, TUTA had established , in Albury-Wodonga, the Clyde Cameron College.

Errol explained to the unsuspecting TUTA trainer at Kooralbyn that the reason the AWU had taken so long to avail itself of TUTA's service was the unfortunate naming of their training college in Albury-Wodonga! Memories in the AWU run long and deep and both ways!

When you can do nothing else: bear witness.

Is the ACTU under pressure?

Miss Eagle was forced to ask the question above after reading this. The ACTU is, perhaps, flinching under the fruit of success. It's wonderful Your Rights At Work campaign was central to the Rudd Labor Government's ascent to the reins of power.

We all watched open-mouthed the me-too campaign run by Labor in the lead up to the election. We wondered if this is what really had to happen to come to power and if Rudd would change his public tune when he came to power. Rudd seems set on being a promise-keeper and appears determined not to follow John Howard down the dishonest path of core and non-core promises.

Rudd and Gillard prior to the election were intent on projecting an image that was business-friendly and business wanted what they had got out of Howard. But, as the union movement is set to remind Rud and Gillard, the Your Rights At Work campaign by the ACTU delivered government. People who had never voted Labor before changed their vote. John Howard's Work Choices were, for most people, a bridge too far. Business has to face that fact. After all, they do love the benefits of a democracy governed by the rule of law, don't they?

And why this magic year of 2010 before things can really begin to change - if at all? Rudd had said that this was because business had to make forward plans. But, really, Kevin. A business that does not factor in the "change of government" risk? A business that can't figure out that industrial relations might change with Labor in power?

People are - by year's end - going to want demonstrable workplace change. They really would like it sooner, like right now. But their patience may stretch to year's end. After that, Kevin and Julia, if there is no demonstrable and meaningful change you will be seen as someone who keeps your word - to business but not to ordinary working Australians.

The left unions are restless. The Socialist Alliance - not an organisation brim-full of burgeoning membership - had a State conference here in Melbourne. The Saturday afternoon panel was devoted to the industrial relations scene and the AMWU, Textile, Clothing & Footwear Union, and the CFMEU as well as the Geelong & Region Trades and Labour Council turned up and clearly expressed their points of view.

The contribution of these unions was indicative of what could be a groundswell from the Left. The AMWU with its strong foothold in a declining Victorian manufacturing base clearly wants a return to the previous way of operating including Pattern Bargaining. While the TCFU outlined lucidly the way in which flow-ons have operated in Australia, the AMWU's dream of pattern bargaining is a wish that Miss Eagle predicts will remain unfulfilled. Somewhere, though, between the traditional flow-on practices and the rigidity and targetting of pattern bargaining there could be an opportunity for some new and negotiated thinking.

Traditionally, there have been unions like the AMWU and the Construction Unions who have set the pace. They have used their clout to progress demands and those with less clout - particularly in industries whose workforce is populated by women and the young - have, in time, been able to apply for flow-ons into their own industrial instruments.

However, back in the 1980s the AMWU and the Construction Unions overlooked one very important factor: the service sector. There was a time back then when the service sector was the one area of the economy that displayed marked growth at the same time as manufacturing entered its decline and some areas of construction were in the doldrums.

The AMWU drove through enterprise bargaining. This was a disaster for workers in the service sector such as the retail and hospitality industries. Enterprise bargaining has potential in the tradeable goods area and in construction. The economies of these industries were the meat and milk of the old Industrial Relations Club. The IR Club knew the ins and outs intimately and its people on a first name basis. The service industries were foreign to them - even to the men who ran the trade unions who serviced these industries. No thought had been given to how they operated: their culture, their economic milieu. I'm not sure that this has occurred yet. Draw an AIRC Commissioner into conversation over a coldie and he (very few she-s) would admit his ignorance.

To put it simply, dear Reader, in Enterprise Bargaining one could negotiate efficiencies in this wise:
If the business was making 500 ball bearings per day but efficiencies were negotiated and work practices not currently facilitated by the industrial award were streamlined and 750 ball bearings per day could now be made, then workers could negotiate a share of the increased productivity. Dead easy.

Then you go to the service industries. A check-out operator has no control over the number of customers served; the room attendant has no control over the number of beds made and rooms cleaned; the bar attendant has no control over the number of customers nor beers pulled. And while, in this day and age, it is possible to measure anything. When people do not want to find quantifiable or qualitative data, that data will never be forthcoming - particularly in relation to the work of women. This is why, in the end, Enterprise Bargaining became associated in these industries not with improved productivity but being forced into giving up conditions and working horrible hours without penalty rates. Of course, the more this sort of Enterprise Bargaining became the norm in these industries the fewer people joined trade unions. Mmmmm.....!

So to-day we look at the linked article which seems to be attributed more to Jeff Lawrence (himself from a Left union, the LHMU) than to the Rudd Government. It is interesting that this has come within ten days of the union panel at the Socialist Alliance. Within ten days of the panel at the Socialist Alliance saying that the current position of the ACTU was quite confused; saying that if the ACTU was to mount any sort of campaign it would be months away.

But the revival of the Australian Labour Advisory Council will hardly be a sop to disgruntled unions. This would have been likely to occur anyway. Similarly, union business committees to consult on legislation - as has been advised by Miss E's AWU contacts. This process is always likely under a Labor Government.

What Australian trade unions don't take to kindly is having a Labor government giving business its wish list or giving business an upper hand to the disadvantage of trade unions and, particularly, trade union rights as spelt out in ILO conventions.

And, as you are aware Kevin and Julia, the CFMEU want the abolition of the draconian Office of the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner forthwith.

Fair Work Australia: a fair deal?

Eight days after Kevin Rudd appeared at the Press Club and gave Australians an idea of future directions in the ALP's policy on industrial relations, Julia Gillard has begun to flesh out the policy, has started to paint the picture, to show us the landscape of IR under Labor.

Last night on The 7.30 Report, Julia broke the news about Fair Work Australia. Fair Work Australia will take over from four agencies/institutions involved in setting the industrial law parameters that govern the working lives of a significant number of Australians: the Fair Pay Commission, the Office of the Employment Advocate and the Office of Workplace Services and the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC).

Rudd and Gillard say that the AIRC has served Australia for more than 100 years but it is a 20th-century institution that is too remote from the needs of modern Australian workplaces.

Miss Eagle suggests that making a disconnect between the old AIRC and establishing a whole new edifice might not be the best idea.

Miss Eagle has no longing for the old "industrial relations club" to be re-established. This was a long-standing boys club which did not keep pace with a changing economy. The club was a cosy one for construction and the tradeable goods sector (manufacturing) but it had no - and Miss Eagle means N.O. - understanding of the service sector which has been a burgeoning part of the economy over the last two decades.

In fact, some union and business leaders and Commissioners gave the impression that they knew all about the tourism and hospitality industry because they drank alcohol, ate at restaurants, and slept in hotel beds.

Another factor contributing to the lack of knowledge of the economics of the service sector has been that it tends to be dominated by women and young people. So we are talking about an entrenched form of discrimination. Women and young people were less likely to agitate and strike to improve their conditions so they were ignored. Some unions were happy to take their union dues but union attentions remained with the non-service sectors of the economy.

So, if there could be a more universal understanding of the sub-economies of this nation, it would be an improvement.

After that little vent, back to why a disconnect with the AIRC might not be the best idea.

Business is said to be angry about the prospect of a Fair Work Australia. One of the saddest things and one of the greatest hindrances to the well-being of this nation is the lack of consensus (as once there was) on major issues confronting Australia. The AIRC has delivered a great service to this nation since the earliest days of Federation.

While John Howard has gutted the AIRC, he did not abolish it.....at least not yet.

So if the ALP goes to the trouble of establishing Fair Work Australia, does this mean that it will be dead easy for a change of government to blow it out of the water?

Why not an AIRC for the sake of continuity and the possibility of some form of call to consensus?

Another thing that is not clear about Fair Work Australia is whether it will have a research function as the Fair Pay Commission does. Miss Eagle believes that this should be a function. If it is not be a function of this new one stop shop and shopfront, why not?

Miss Eagle likes the idea of the shopfront inspectorate function if it carries out its duties effectively and diligently. This will be a further challenge to union recruitment. In fact, it will be a challenge to those states which refuse to hand over their industrial relations powers to the Commonwealth.

Look to Queensland. Peter Beattie has said that Queensland will not hand over its powers which would result in the abolition of the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission. Beattie would not be game - Bill Ludwig and the AWU will see to that. The AWU would be the biggest loser if Queensland handed over its industrial powers. The AWU would be gutted.

Outside the south-east corner of Queensland, the AWU has coverage, under Queensland's industrial laws, across a range of industries which in other states are the province of other unions. Transfer of powers to the Commonwealth would see coverage in regional Queensland go to these unions. This would mean for instance the Shop Assistants Union would then cover all of Queensland. Award coverage in retailing is the largest union coverage in the AWU. A transfer of powers would see this coverage lost along with a massive slice of the AWU's income.

So, will the Beattie government be prepared to establish a shopfront role for its industrial inspectorate to compete?

Miss Eagle will be watching.....

Labor turmoil: a case of needed change and a defence of the past and its people

Now its on again, turmoil and all, as the so-called Dream Team of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard challenges Kim Beazley, the current Leader, for leadership of the ALP prior to a 2007 Federal election.

Miss Eagle wonders about the over-statement of the Rudd-Gillard, Right-Left partnership as a Dream Team. However, Miss Eagle recalls that, after years of corrupt National Party government in Queensland, a major factor undergirding the successful ALP campaign which resulted in the election of Wayne Goss as Premier of Queensland 17 years ago to this very day on 2 December, 1989, was the partnership of right and left with the Australian Workers Union (AWU) and the Australian Metal Workers Union (AMWU).

This partnership shocked people - not least those within the ALP - and spelled the beginning of the end for Peter Beattie in his role as State Secretary of the Queensland ALP and meant some wilderness years for Beattie on his way to the Queensland Parliament, years on the backbench because of his rivalry with Goss, and now his success story as Queensland Premier. On this pragmatic tide, Wayne Swan - currently, Kim Beazley's Shadow Treasurer - became Qld State Secretary of the ALP. This was another rung on the Qld ALP's ladder of success. Without this right-left pragmatism, it is unlikely that Goss would have got to government and, almost certainly, not with the landslide success delivered to him in 1989.

This is something that Big Bill Ludwig, AWU heavyweight and powerbroker-kingpin in Queensland, should remember. Bill should remember in calling his factional Federal MPs to heel that he was unable to successfully call time in 1991 when Keating defeated Bob Hawke. Ludwig stuck doggedly to Hawke when the time for change had clearly come. Bill and his son, Senator Joe Ludwig, ought to remember this. Ludwig Senior and his AWU shearer mates in western Queensland stuck doggedly to Old Guard Labor tickets when Peter Beattie was reforming the ALP in Queensland in the early '80s and issuing reform tickets. Bill's mentality has not altered. Dogged loyalty can be an admirable thing but not to include yourself as a force of change and progress is not.

Bill, let the hounds off the leash in Queensland so that they can make their own decisions.

You would serve the nation well in doing this.

Women can have balls

In the long, long ago when Miss Eagle was a union official at the Australian Workers Union (AWU) in North Queensland where she was one of only two female AWU officials in the whole of Australia - and, at one stage, the only one - I used to tell my boss (who was great, by the way) that, while the blokes in the AWU all had penises, I was the only one with balls. Working at the coal face of the working-class patriarchy, I had to have balls. How else could I have survived?

It seems that, as she writes about Julia Gillard, Kaz Cooke has come to a similar conclusion. Women - while being penis-less - can have balls. Whatever the blokes and Bill Ludwig thinks - Julia is leadership material. And she is acting like it. This week it was Australian Story. Of course the blokes of the ALP right (girls are not leadership material in the faction either) are not going to sit idly by and see the leadership of the ALP go to someone on the left - irrespective of gender. So Bill had to get nasty and personal - which he can do rather well. The master of the comb-over had a go at Julia about her hair. Well, what else could be expected? I have only known Bill to support one woman in her career and that had overtones.

Interesting this week was Bill Shorten's deft handling of Bill Ludwig's boots and all attitude to a single site agreement with Qantas moving some of its maintenance to Brisbane. Shorten managed to praise Ludwig, hose him down publicly, and shift criticism to Qantas in a short space of time. Is this why they refer to Bill Shorten as a future leader?