New Victorian Premier Ben Carroll is rewarding the conservative union that has backed his career by moving to shut down its more militant rival.
Carroll is in the Labor Right faction, dominated by the SDA shopworkers’ union.
Just weeks into his new role, he has introduced legislation that could wipe out the Retail and Fast Food Workers Union (RAFFWU), which has been a thorn in the side of the SDA.
It seems clear that this is the SDA’s reward for backing Carroll’s overthrow of the former Premier, Jacinta Allan.
The new law would bar a group with an “industrial relations purpose” from becoming or staying an incorporated association, which gives RAFFWU officials some legal protection.
It would probably spell the end for RAFFWU, which has operated since 2016. It’s a kick in the teeth for young retail workers who have tried to build active unionism.
Disgracefully, the Victorian Trades Hall Council responded to the legislation with a one-word statement, “Good”.
Red unions
Carroll launched the Bill saying, “These new laws will stop workers being scammed out of real union protection and stop hate groups from hiding behind community group status.”
Labor claims that its main reason for the Bill is to block far right groups from incorporating and to prevent the mis-named Red unions.
But the current law already allows for groups to be barred if they are illegal or against the public interest—like Nazis.
And the Red unions—set up primarily during the pandemic in revolt against vaccine mandates—are industrially irrelevant, with a combined national membership of just 26,000 across five sectors.
The Red teachers’ union claims a national membership of just 3243. By contrast, the Australian Education Union in Victoria recruited some 15,000 new members during its recent EBA campaign for a total of more than 50,000.
As Solidarity went to press, Labor’s Bill had progressed to the upper house, which next sits on 8 September. It may face defeat there, with the Greens opposing it from the left in defence of RAFFWU and the Liberals committing to voting it down in support of the scab Red unions.
But regardless of the vote, it is another example of the pro-business outlook of the Carroll government along with its announcement of a royal commission into the most militant union in the state, the construction workers’ CFMEU.
Short cuts
The Fair Work Act prevents RAFFWU from registering as a union as only one union is allowed per sector and the SDA “owns” retail.
RAFFWU members have organised some successful industrial campaigns, like at the Better Read Than Dead bookshop in Sydney and the Readings bookshops in Melbourne.
But RAFFWU’s main activity has been supporting legal action that has won gains and exposed shocking agreements negotiated by the SDA with employers like Woolworths and Coles. A recent win in a court case brought by a member over underpayment at Domino’s could see thousands getting backpay.
While Carroll’s legislation must be opposed, there are limits to the RAFFWU model. An earlier attempt at a militant breakaway, the Shearers and Rural Workers Union, formed in Victoria in 1994 as an alternative to the do-nothing Australian Workers Union, sank without a trace.
By contrast, rank-and-file organising in the existing unions can make a difference.
Initial offer
Nurses in Victoria revolted against a sub-standard EBA and forced their union to fight for a much improved deal.
Teachers in Victoria organised successfully this year against Labor’s inadequate initial offer, in defiance of officials who wanted to wrap up the campaign.
It was rank-and-file organising that led to the second statewide strike and the threat of a third, forcing the government to concede improvements on pay and on conditions for educational support staff.
Rank and File Action won the leadership of the university workers’ union, the NTEU, at the University of Sydney and led unprecedented strike action in 2023 that won sick pay for casuals.
Rank-and-file reform tickets have kicked out lacklustre leaders in the public service unions in Victoria and South Australia and now among allied health workers in Victoria. A militant ticket came close to taking the national leadership of the United Workers Union.
In 1988, a left reform ticket won control of the Federated Clerks Union (now ASU Private), beating an entrenched bureaucracy run by Groupers (fiercely anti-Communist ALP members) with similar politics to the SDA today.
Militants can’t dodge their conservative leaderships—that simply abandons the mass of members to their do-nothing officials. RAFFWU has made small gains in retail but systematic organising among the SDA rank and file is needed to tackle the union’s conservative leadership.
It’s not glamorous work but building rank-and-file networks that pressure the officials and organise independently to fight is key to rebuilding militant unionism.
By David Glanz
RAFFWU has called a rally outside Victorian Labor’s offices at 438 Docklands Drive, Docklands, at 1pm on Saturday 5 September.
