The style of one Union Leader

Vanguard November 2011 p. 8

A struggle between rival union leaders has put a spotlight on some features surrounding the finances of some union leaders in Australia.

The media has carried a stream of allegations about a few leaders in some branches of the Health Services Union (HSU) in NSW, Victoria and the national office, of money being paid by a contractor to union leaders, corrupt business dealings, and union money used to procure prostitutes.

Vanguard cannot provide particular insight about the stream of allegations other than to note such allegations are commonly floated in clashes among rivals over top union positions, let alone in parliamentary battles over government office. The media reports of allegations can’t be taken at face value.

However, characteristics of the situation of some leaders of the HSU are on the public record and provide some insight, and raise general questions about the actions and ideas of some union leaders in Australia. They flag some trends in the working class movement during a difficult period for the workers.

Health workers are in the gun sights of coalition governments in NSW and Victoria, facing vicious job cuts and wage cuts in the public sector. Weakening union organisation is important to capitalist government and business. Strong organisation is vital to these workers.

The financial reports of HSUeast confirm that the General-Secretary is a trustee of a government employee superannuation fund, director of a government agency “Sydney Water” and of a mutual employee credit union “State Government Employees CU”. These provide a substantial income. In addition, his HSU National President’s position has an honorarium of $20,000 a year.

The HSUeast General Secretary has also acknowledged in the union’s financial reports that he is a director of a couple of private companies, one of which allegedly has a million dollar a year contract with the union.

Until recently he was the National President of the Labor Party, member of the ALP Industrial Committee, and Vice-President of ALP NSW Branch. He is a Vice President of Unions NSW and an executive member of the ACTU. The various board positions and honorariums provide an income of $170,000 plus some bonuses that have been reported, but not confirmed.

The Secretary’s wage is not public. It is not reported to members. Media reported it to be around $350,000 a year. That may or may not be true. It is highly likely the wage is above that of a manager of a hospital service at $170,000 a year. That would put this union leader’s income at more than $340,000 a year plus car, phone and access to funds for entertainment, accommodation, etc.

An income of $300,000 or so a year is in the top one or two percent of full-time employee incomes. Such an extraordinary income puts the beneficiary in an extraordinary social position; free of financial pressures, houses in the country or up the coast, sending kids to top private schools, hob-knobbing with the captains of industry and commerce, living in the best suburbs.

Before becoming a union official, the General Secretary was an employer’s Human Resources officer in the Department of Health.

The majority of HSU members in NSW are government employees.

In the HSU the rules and practices of the union leadership have meant that none of the 50 plus HSU NSW branch elected positions has been contested in an election for more than a decade!

In NSW all decisions are centralised in an ‘elected’ union council, elected by union council and having never faced a ballot of members!

A highly structured annual convention is the sole time delegates from across the union meet, with delegates having only a couple of hours in which discussion takes place on motions submitted months beforehand. Delegates are site-based, and are not gathered for EBA or award meetings.

Active members rarely have opportunities to discuss workers’ interests across numerous sites, to organise the workers across the state, or to mobilise.

These issues in the Health Services Union are matters for their members, and they will have to resolve them.

Independent fighting unions

For workers to control unions, rather than having union leaders helping business and government to control workers, it is vital union leaders are independent of government and business patronage, having no financial inducement to look after the interests of the government and business bosses.

The best leaders share the lifestyles of their members, the hardships and difficulties as well as the comradeship which comes of struggles to overscome hardships workers invariably face in capitalism.

In a society and with governments so dominated by big multinational corporations, a vital necessity for capital is to control the workers. They search our opportunities to "capture" union leaders financially with positions and inducements, with bribes, direct and indirect, legal and illegal, to turn them into "labour lieutenants of the capitalist class, channels of reformism and chauvinism". In the struggle between the working class and capital, traitors to the working class are created using tiny scraps from the super-profits of multinational corporations at the centre of capital in Australia. To protect those gigantic profits, leaders are bought to sell out those who follow them.

Such characteristics, and suspicion of the same, disgusts and has alienated many workers. The tendency contributes to weaknesses in the trade union movement and the wider workers' movement.

Allegations about leaders of the HSU open a window to some issues of importance to workers in trade unions and raise the necessity for steps towards wider solutions of the problem in the workers' movement generally.

(For update, see: http://www.actu.org.au/Media/Mediareleases/ACTUExecutiveendorsesrecommendationtosuspendHealthServicesUnion.aspx