The myth of social partnership

Tom Curphey (MUSAA)*

The capitalist class in this country continues to enjoy maximum 
profits while many workers are finding it very hard just to 
exist.

Figures reported in the Financial Review point to a record 
year for the majority of companies with an overall return on 
capital of 24 percent.

In the transport and storage industry gross operating profits 
were up 29% Mining profits were up 17.5 %.

During this period wage increases for workers in unions increased 
a mere 4.6% while non-unionists fared even worse.

Unemployment at a conservative estimate is around 5.6% with youth 
unemployment a lot more than that figure, and no immediate 
prospects in the future for those leaving school.

ACTU figures reveal that 28 percent of the workforce is either 
casual or part-time with over 600,000 part-timers looking for 
longer hours to try and make a living wage.

Those, including advocates of social democracy, who say that 
there is no class struggle are deluding themselves and still 
worse influencing other working people.

The ACTU adheres to the "trickle down" theory although not in so 
many words. If this is the prevailing view of the ACTU it will 
explain why they are reluctant to start a campaign to repeal the 
penal provisions in the various anti-worker acts. This theory 
relies on a tame cat union movement where the boss and the worker 
are in a "social partnership" where it is preached that the 
worker and the boss have common aims and the more the boss 
profits the more the benefits to the worker.

The objective reality is that there are two main classes in 
society, the capitalist class and the working class.

The capitalist class make their profit by exploiting the labour 
of the working class. The workers produce more values than they 
get paid for. This is the source of the boss's profit.

As we have already stated record profits are now the norm with a 
massive transfer of wealth from the working class to the 
capitalist class. Any talk of "social partnership" is a myth and 
seeks to obscure this reality, and divert the workers from the 
struggle for a better future.

How will this "social partnership" work when we have the stated 
aim of Prime Minister Howard for "flexible workplaces free of 
rigidity in the industrial relations system and unwanted union 
interference".

The neo-conservatives' future for workers is bleak indeed where 
industrial relations will be rolled back to conditions prevailing 
at the start of this century, to the days of the master and 
servant. This is some "social partnership"!

The workers have two alternatives before them — capitulation or 
struggle. This question will have to be confronted by the trade 
unions faced with the employers' agenda backed up by Howard's 
anti-worker legislation now before the Senate.

The problem will not go away but can be combatted by a unified 
union movement which rejects "social partnership" and has its own 
strategy and aims and is prepared to struggle to attain its 
objectives.

* * *

*Maritime Unionists Socialist Activities Association

Acknowledgement to MUSAA e-news