Solidarity

John Robertson is under fire for making the perfectly reasonable promise that the union movement would keep campaigning in workers’ interests even if Kevin Rudd wins the election. Dean Mighell was expelled from the ALP for using ETU members’ venacular when discussing the (legal) bargaining tactics he has used to win higher than expected pay rises.

Similar moves are being made against the CFMEU’s Joe McDonald, after a video was released showing him trying to organise a safety meeting on a Perth construction site. Even the Financial Review’s chief political correspondent (22 June 2007, p 91) thinks the footage was beaten up by politicians and other media outlets:

His [Rudd’s] argument yesterday was that McDonald had made an “implied threat”. It’s worth looking at the video yourself. He certainly makes a threat but, in a scene where all the workers in the room are insisting they want to hold a meeting to discuss safety concerns, the threat seems only to be a suggestion that the building watchdog will not be kept in place, not any threat of violence.

Another video of the same building site supposedly showed an assault on a site manager, but police viewed the video and disagreed. The CFMEU organisers were there to conduct a safety inspection and had valid right-of-entry permits to do so.

The business lobby, the Liberal Party and the media are jumping up and down railing against “union bosses”, but the electorate is scratching its head wondering what’s the big deal? A Galaxy poll released today (pdf) asked whether “the recent actions of some trade union officials” would make voters more or less inclined to vote for the ALP:

If the “union bosses” talking point is supposed to shake loose supposedly “soft” support for Labor, it has failed spectacularly. Most of those who said they were “less inclined” to vote Labor were already Coalition voters, and the unionists’ behaviour has in fact strengthened support for Labor.

What this shows is that voters are sick of union-bashing, and they aren’t falling for old-style “reds under the bed” campaigns against “union bosses”. They want to see union officials who stick up for ordinary working Australians, even if it gets the bosses’ noses out of joint. And this view is despite biased media coverage that portrays swearing on a construction site as “thuggery”.

Meanwhile, threats of physical violence made by bosses against union officials — proved in Court beyond a reasonable doubt — go virtually unreported. Jim Aitken is an elected Liberal councillor and an aspiring Liberal parliamentarian who took advantage of WorkChoices in his real estate business, but didn’t count on union support for his sacked staff. When he saw an NUW organiser at a community fair, Aitken unleashed “what Mark Ptolemy describes as about an hour of verbal abuse, during which Mr Aitken called him a paedophile, homosexual and a union thug.” Aitken assaulted Ptolemy and made a serious threat:

MARK PTOLEMY: He pushed me a couple of times and there was a threat made and he sort of was belligerent there for about an hour. I thought, well, this could escalate, so I contacted the police.

ASHLEY HALL: What was the nature of the threat?

MARK PTOLEMY: He said to me that he knew where I lived and he’d have someone break my legs. Which is a fairly serious thing to say.

An unbiased media would see this splashed on front pages and featured on current affairs programs for the next several days. I think we all know that’s not going to happen.