VANGUARD - Expressing the viewpoint of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)
For National Independence and Socialism • www.cpaml.org
(Original image from www.freepik.com)
Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto writing about the class struggle of workers under capitalism said, "Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever-expanding union of the workers."
The expanding union of workers is influenced by the leadership of workers' mass organisations (unions) as well as other factors such as unemployment, and the relative strength of competing classes in particular industries or regions. In Australia, leaderships of Unions periodically have to answer to members as a whole.
Most Unions hold elections every four years or so when members vote for governing bodies of the respective Union concerned. There are variations from one Union to another on whether members vote for industry or occupation-wide candidates or whether they vote for candidates standing for a geographical region, similar to the parliamentary geographical electorates. Union elections are a voluntary voting system.
Some Unions are Federations which means the members of each State or Territory vote directly for their State or Territory governing body such as a State Council. They also vote directly for the State Officers of the Union such as State Secretary, Assistant Secretary and State Presidents and Vice President/s.
The elected State and Territory candidates may then vote on who becomes the National Executive and National Officers of the federated Union.
Some Unions are national in character and candidates elected to governing bodies such as a National Council are elected by members from clusters of industries or occupations covered by the Union. In National Unions, members may directly elect the National Executive and full time National Officers of the Union, or members only directly elect a large National Council who in turn elect the National Executive and the full time National Officers. The bodies such as National Councils usually have to meet on a regular basis during each year of each term of office and the Executives and full time Officers such as Secretaries are accountable to the elected National Councils.
Within both the Federated and National Unions it may or may not eventuate that there are rank and file members on the Executive for the National Officers.
Unions are mass organisations and came in to being to defend and extend the collective interests of workers, whether they are federated Unions or national Unions. The biggest challenge for Union members standing for any elected position in a Union is that capitalism in Australia has imposed an industrial system on workers that alienates them from one another and separates them from those in the leadership positions.
Site specific and company specific enterprise bargaining in place of industry-wide Awards as the method for workers acting collectively to improve wages and conditions, are coupled with industrial laws that make taking action on the job a highly risky business.
Workers nowadays who do join Unions have the opportunity to take significant collective action every three or four years if they have an enterprise agreement. If they are on an Award, they do not have any legal right to take industrial action in pursuit of better pay and conditions.
Transactional Relationship Between Union Member and Their Union Organisation
The restrictions placed on workers in the workplace by the system of capitalism as it operates today has resulted in many workers joining a Union firstly as an insurance policy if individually in trouble with the boss or needing information on their legal rights and entitlements.
This transactional relationship with the Union as an organisation as the primary relationship combined with the voluntary nature of internal Union elections has often seen candidates at Union election time appealing to members on the basis of what they will do for members rather than what they will do collectively with members to further the interests of workers as a whole.
Competing candidates or competing groups of candidates all "promise the world" to members and often "the world" they all promise is very similar.
When this is coupled with a voluntary voting system, candidates become desperate to find ways not only to win over hundreds or even thousands of members who they have never met to agree with what they offer, but also to ensure that those convinced members actually vote!
Recently a Union in England held the required Union election under English law and under 10% of members voted!
In Australia, Union elections are often conducted by the Electoral Commission who post the election ballot papers to residential letter boxes. This method of voting occurs in a social environment where more and more transactions are completed online, adding to the likelihood of low return rates of those who vote.
The limitations of Union elections facilitate unpredictable outcomes, irrespective of the sincerity of most candidates who stand for election and irrespective of the hopes of those who vote.
In Australia, there is the additional factor of affiliation of most Unions to the ALP. Union members may or may not know the political affiliation of candidates for a Union election. For some members the most important factor determining whether they vote or not, or who they vote for will have nothing to do with parliamentary political affiliations of the Union or a candidate. The decisive factor for them may be how the Union leadership which in their eyes may be their immediate Union rep or Organiser will represent them in the near future.
The upshot of all this is that outcomes of Union elections when there are highly contested groups of candidates are very hard to predict.