(First published in The Dominion Post, October 30.)
By now Richard Wagstaff
should be settling into his new job as president of the Council of Trade
Unions.
He’ll be very conscious of
the legacy he’s inherited. His predecessors include Fintan Patrick Walsh, Sir
Tom Skinner, Jim Knox and Ken Douglas.
Walsh was the closest New
Zealand has come to an American-style labour boss, feared and
hated in equal measure.
Skinner was a moderate and a
shrewd pragmatist, regarded with suspicion by some of his union brethren for
doing deals with National cabinet ministers late at night over a bottle of
Scotch.
Knox was a gruff but likeable
old-style blue-collar battler, a veteran of the 1951 waterfront confrontation
who took over what was then the Federation of Labour at a turbulent time when
the ground was rapidly shifting under his feet – sometimes too rapidly for him
to keep up.
Douglas, who remains active
in public life as a Porirua city councillor, was an avowed Marxist who had the
misfortune to preside over a movement that was fracturing under the strain of
change, and who was accused – unfairly, I believe – of selling out in his
efforts to hold things together.
Each was a household name in
his day, and a power in the land. Wagstaff is neither, and has little chance of
becoming one unless things change radically.
He takes over the leadership
of a union movement greatly weakened by economic upheaval and labour law
reform, but in many ways also greatly improved.
In the days of compulsory
union membership, which ended under Jim Bolger’s National government in 1991,
New Zealand was one of the most highly unionised economies in the world.
But while the law guaranteed
massive membership, it meant that unions were under no pressure to prove their
worth. The result was a plethora of small, weak unions with lazy officials who
collected members’ fees but didn’t do much else.
Paradoxical though it may
seem, compulsory unionism wasn’t viewed favourably by hard-core, militant
unions such as the seamen’s, freezing workers’ and watersiders’ unions. They
saw the movement as being weakened by all those thousands of shop and office
workers with no commitment to working-class solidarity and no interest in
fighting the class war.
It’s a very different picture
now. Unions represent only about 17 per cent of the labour force, but give the
impression of being far more responsive to their members’ needs. They have to
be, or they won’t survive.
The odd little craft unions
that once occupied every dusty nook and cranny of the Wellington Trades Hall
vanished long ago as industries were restructured – or in some cases wiped out
– and unions merged.
Simultaneously, union power
has shifted from traditional blue-collar industries to the white-collar sector.
Deregulation, economic reform and technological upheaval have destroyed the
power bases of once-formidable unions in industries such as freezing works and
car assembly plants.
These days it’s public sector
unions such as the teachers’ and nurses’ organisations, mostly dominated by
women, that have the big numbers. It’s enough to make grizzled old wharfies and
boilermakers weep.
One thing hasn’t changed,
though, and that’s the need for well-organised, effective unions. If anything,
they have become more important since the reforms of the 90s tilted the industrial
balance of power back in favour of employers.
Workers can’t rely on the
state to protect their interests. That was demonstrated at Pike River and in
the forestry industry, where the CTU successfully prosecuted employers over
workplace deaths after Workplace New Zealand declined to take action. Taking
bad employers to court isn’t high on the government’s priority list.
Zero-hours contracts are
another example of vulnerable workers needing someone to stand up for them.
The big problem for the
unions is that people have long memories. Many of us vividly remember the 1970s
and early 80s, when the economy was constantly sabotaged by bloody-minded
industrial disruption. That ensured there was
precious little public sympathy for the unions when National stripped them of
their power.
But back to Wagstaff. He
seems personable, approachable and articulate, like his immediate predecessors
Helen Kelly and Ross Wilson.
That’s a good start. The
union leaders of earlier generations were often furtive
and hostile toward the media, whom they regarded as the tools of the ruling
class.
It’s different now. Public
relations is an essential part of the tool kit of the modern trade unionist as
the movement struggles to win back public respect.
It’s a work in progress, as
they say.
