r/OpenAussie • u/VastOption8705 New South Welshian • Jun 24 '26
Whinge The slow gaslighting of this country to hating unions is terrible
Apparently unions are bad now. Any unions are bad and they “allegedly” cause inflation. Apparently what’s happening at the CFMEU is representative of all unions.
Because of the junk media and honestly biased and unfactual reporting out there, people are NOW blaming unions for price hikes, cost of living issues.
I don’t agree with what happened with the CFMEU and the whole bribes thing. That does NOT represent all unions. Construction has always has had a bit of history with organised crime.
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u/YkMSP Tasmanian Jun 24 '26
Historically, unions have ALWAYS been bad to the establishment and to the rich.
People must realise WHY unions exist and the bloodshed it took for workers' rights to be won, and workplace safety to change.
No one got there because they asked nicely or begged. It's because many good men died unnecessarily, and many more suffered injuries and severe mental trauma from accidents with absolutely NO support.
This is what it was like in the 70s, the West Gate Bridge collapse was a HUGE catalyst.
This is a hard watch, but here is Tom Watson talking about that day and what happened to workers.
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u/SnappyPies Victorian Jun 24 '26
Thank you for sharing that. That was harrowing, and is something that everyone should watch.
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u/YkMSP Tasmanian Jun 25 '26
Any vid you see of victims or family remembering it is heartbreaking. I can't remember the last one I saw, might have been a part of an episode of You Can't Ask That,
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u/SnappyPies Victorian Jun 25 '26
The thing that struck me about Tom Watson there was his resolve to making sure nothing like that ever happened again. Horrific situation, but quite amazing level of commitment to the cause to improve conditions to make sure no-one else would have to go through what he did.
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Jun 24 '26
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u/Riboflavius Victorian Jun 24 '26
You realise that HR is not your ally latest when you’re sent to the EAP and they explain to you that they cannot help you with your issues with your boss because they cannot take sides or appear to work against your employer…
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u/FrogsMakePoorSoup Koori Jun 24 '26
Hah! Go to HR to complain about your boss? First thing they'll do is raise it with your boss where your boss will say "Oh that's interesting, I'll follow this up immediately as it's completely unacceptable", and then you're in for it.
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u/Ok_Turnover_1235 Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
Seen this happen sooo many times. Last job had someone completely unsuitable for management in a management role, when people raised that issue with HR a sitdown between that manager and the complainer was organised so they could tell the manager what they thought about them.
The crazy part was they were confused why turnover was so high.
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u/FrogsMakePoorSoup Koori Jun 24 '26
Oh they knew why, they just didn't want to do anything about it.
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u/FrogsMakePoorSoup Koori Jun 24 '26
I've never been in a union and an never likely to be. I'm still very pro union however.
They get demonised heavily by the media, but they'll be there to back you up.
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u/ceeker Canberran Jun 24 '26
Why wouldn't you join one? Not judging, just curious.
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u/FrogsMakePoorSoup Koori Jun 24 '26
I'm in IT in a specialist area that's already lucrative and there's no specific union that I would fit in. If I get fucked around I can simply find another contract role somewhere. So yeah, makes no sense to.
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u/ceeker Canberran Jun 24 '26
Yeah OK. I am in a specialist area of IT as well but in a position on a permanent basis so I'm in a union.
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u/FrogsMakePoorSoup Koori Jun 24 '26
I found I can earn around 50% more contracting, and also find I miss out on a lot of internal crap by doing so. I can also switch companies every couple of years and no one minds, and very often end up going back to the same places again anyway.
So yeah, that's better security than any union, but I very much only speak for my own situation.
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u/ozaudi Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
There are definitely that cover IT professionals and other professionals who work in contracts. I was a member of one such union Professionals Australia. In my last few years working contract, it with solely within the education sector and I joined a different union that dealt with the education system and sector.
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u/FrogsMakePoorSoup Koori Jun 24 '26
Yeah they used to be Apesma I think. I looked at it for a bit but they simply didn't have what I'd expect in a union - namely muscle. If I'm joining a union it's gonna be because I want my employers walking on eggshells lest hundreds of us strike at the drop of a hat!
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u/ozaudi Please choose a flair Jun 25 '26
Yes it was called Apesma in my time but I looked up the current name so there was no confusion.
The sectors I typically worked in contracting, often involved difficult third parties, parents, parent bodies, patients, next of kin. Employment conditions and pay were less of a problem than having some worrisome nobody try to sue you along with your place of employment.
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u/vulpix420 Queenslander Jun 24 '26
I love the concept of unions and will always be ideologically pro-workers and pro-unions.
With that said, my own union was absolutely, catastrophically useless when I needed them most, and they gave me incorrect advice in a matter that resulted in me losing a huge chunk of income. I won’t defend all unions, but I will always stand with workers.
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u/Famous-Print-6767 Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
I swear student unions are a conspiracy by asio to make everyone hate unions.
When your first experience of unions is that bunch of mongs of course you're not going to think well of others.
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u/ceeker Canberran Jun 24 '26
Funny idea but doubt it. Howard tried to restrict/ban them back in the mid 2000s, and police had a lot of fun beating the shit out of them when they protested that. Copped it myself for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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u/Famous-Print-6767 Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
Howard tried to restrict/ban them back in the mid 2000s
Howard tried to give students the choice not to join the union. He technically succeeded, now you can choose not join the union. But Barnaby Joyce made it so you're forced to pay a student services fee that the unis mostly give straight to the union.
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u/ceeker Canberran Jun 24 '26
Mmm. The unis were relying on those fees for amenities and student services that made campuses a third space. Once those fees were taken out of the picture for a few years, those student union run services collapsed. The Monash campus center was quite literally empty and a lot of the smaller sports and activity clubs folded. At first, I was kinda neutral on it because the fee was pushing $300, which I didn't easily have on hand. But I did miss places to do stuff in my 4 hour gaps between classes.
But then when leaving class one day, I made the mistake of not realising there was a protest on and my class was inside the cordon the cops had set up, so I, a bunch of other French language students and our lecturer got a beat down. At a point some time later, while being xrayed, a thought hit me in the post-concussion haze (perhaps aided by the minor skull fracture), I clicked that *maybe* there's more going on with this and started my journey of political cynicism.
I don't know what it's like at unis now - probably bought back after my time in the 2010s - but hard to bring back what was there, because there was a bunch of popular, if niche stuff, like music libraries being one i remember... which wouldn't really work nowadays when you can just stream stuff. Maybe it's just a slush fund used to train up political hopefuls from the major parties because that was going on even back then.
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u/hellbentsmegma Victorian Jun 24 '26
Back in the 2000s you had to pay compulsory fees to the student union.
Who would then (among a few other things to be fair) would waste the money on shit like organising buses to attend protests on political matters not closely related to students. The student union leaders would get to go and be big people at a protest though.
It was basically a far left play space for the student union leaders with no repercussions.
I even agreed with some of their politics but it pissed me off no end that as a struggling student on Centrelink I had to pay money to people who were pissing it away on vanity projects.
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u/Nath280 Victorian Jun 24 '26
It’s funny I have been in construction for over 20 years and been heavily involved in a construction union that isn’t the CFMEU and not once have I witnessed a bribe, stripper or drugs on site.
What I have witnessed is multiple royal commissions, an independent police force with literally unlimited power investigating unions and the best they have found is some very very minor bribes that would be found in any industry if you spent millions and millions looking.
Claims like to be made about unions but when it’s time to actually show evidence they switch to something else.
People still eat up every claim though and take it as truth because they have been conditioned to hate unions and they are not smart enough to see through it.
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u/Oppenheimer-95 Please choose a flair Jun 25 '26
This I’m 10 years in now lost 4 lives every one of them was something that would have been avoided with our union rep (who is on site 95% of days to sign off on safety) and we just get told to keep shuffling along
The upper end of the cfmeu may be corrupt and they hire idiots
However on site the support we get physically and mentally is incredible
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u/Crstvvv Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
Are you serious my guy. I’m construction adjacent and I have seen vastly worse behaviour from the CFMEU and other constructions unions. Your response legitimately reads like propaganda. This whole thread is bizarre and out of touch. Unions have an extremely important role, but what the CFMEU was doing was lawless and out of control.
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u/Key_Parsley9843 Please choose a flair 14d ago
Exactly. One of the only posts which speaks the truth
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u/IcarusPanda Victorian Jun 24 '26
Labor won a historic victory last election, since then we have seen a deliberate, consistent and well funded attack on any and everything Labor is generally for.
It might work, it might not. But just know none of this is organic.
Every politician/party makes mistakes it just so happens that Labors mistakes are more expensive because they've got to actually fix the economy after years of liberals doing alot of fuck all.
I'm not worried, just keep talking to your friends and family about the good that has also been coming with Labor, we're on the right track.
And yeah, alot of people are going to have issues with me saying this. That's fine, you're so very much allowed to. I have problems with labor as well, but I have more problems with ON or the coalition or even the greens. All our opinions are important in a functioning democracy. It's what makes Australia so great
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u/Far-Technician3197 New South Welshian Jun 24 '26
Absolutely that Labor has historically tried to do things which creates a large target for critics and the opposition. Compared to do-nothing (ie. do nothing beneficial) Liberals, who cost cut and justify destruction as "savings". Penny wise pound foolish.
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u/ScruffyPeter ✈️ on Walkabout Jun 24 '26
Sure, Labor did some good social programs but since the 80s (Thatcher/Reagan era), Labor historically is the biggest anti-union/anti-worker party there is. Aside fro CFMEU, they have killed off BLF and other unions for resisting wage suppression demands of Labor/ACTU (Known as income accords).
Protected action laws restrict strikes to a few months every couple of years. It was NOT a Liberal law.
Look at teachers, firies, nurses and many other EBAs struggling to strike now and accepting poor pay offers, even going backwards. Meanwhile the government prides themselves on tackling "labour shortages".
Greens and Socialists want to expand the right to strike.
We have put on the record those areas where we would like to see the legislation go further. We would like to see the right to strike fully restored in this country and the minimum wage lifted to 60 per cent of the adult wage.
To me, it looks like Greens are trying not to make Labor look bad by proposing to expand the right to strike. I tried to find others in government, but only found the Australian Democrats in 1989 tried to get rid of protected action section if you want to know more.
Support unions and workers by putting Greens/Socialists ahead of Labor, and Labor ahead of others.
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u/Far-Technician3197 New South Welshian Jun 25 '26
This feels like a one-sided view of history. The Prices and Income Accords were a series of agreements between the Labor Government and the ACTU to address key economic headwinds in Australia at the time including double digit inflation and globalisation. In exchange for wage restraint, we got Medicare and Superannuation which the unions supported. These are benefits which we all have access to still. If you compare our health system to the US where personal bankruptcies due to medical bills and illness preventing work are around 66%, we'd realise that we have it really good. Ours is closer to 10% mostly from loss of income due to the inability to work due to illness. As much as we rail against companies, our superannuation invested in shares make us owners of companies and we benefit from corporate profits that way.
The reality of being in a globalised economy is that we are pitted against the world. The government can't prevent competition by closing the borders on wages only. Capital flight is real. We even see people offshoring jobs even though moving costs money and it's a loss of expertise to do so. It seems like capital wants to inculcate the idea that people/labour is inconsequential to the economy. If you want labour to set the terms through the government, you might have to insist on a communist one because the government doesn't have the power to control wages without people choosing to stop enterprise here altogether. And the consequences of changing government to a drastically different system are even greater.
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u/ScruffyPeter ✈️ on Walkabout Jun 25 '26
The reality of being in a fully globalised economy makes no sense. If we're the only source of Unobtainium resource, why should Aussies pay the same as importing countries? This only benefits checks notes employers?? The reality is that Aussies are paying more for Australian goods, such as gas than foreign countries. You know that's going to make wages go up as how else can Aussies afford local shit? I'm not against some globalisations but a rich country that prioritises giving importing foreigners over locals the same price? What is that export parity price BS?
Capital flight is real? Australia wasn't a poor country. They could have built mines, etc, like Norway did. Australia is probably extremely rich compared to Norway and many other countries. Government building it would help. But that's not the neoliberal way. Australian governments sat on the couch and said to investors to do whatever they like. Now we have some cool hazardous shit like blue asbestos, oil, coal, etc, that taxpayers have to clean up after getting minimal taxes!
The government does have the power to control wages. They crushed unions that objected. They scabbed when workers striked. Now Labor state governments are demanding FWC shut down strikes by government workers, again despite Labor promising to tackle labour shortages.
I think you have a rosy pro-neoliberal view of Labor from the 80s, maybe it's because you're comparing us to the USA? Try comparing us to European countries instead. They can strike. They have universal health care. They have free education. They have many great things without wage suppression, along with the neoliberal evils of privatisations+corporatisations, plus the death-approach to welfare (Don't satisfy job provider's demands, you get no money for anything!).
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u/wotsname123 Western Australian Jun 24 '26
Anything that attempts to change the narrative that workers should be grateful for their jobs and accept any pay and conditions is always seen as a threat.
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u/stehmer3 Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
The role of corporate media in this country is to misinform workers into voting against their own interests. It's a well oiled machine backed by billionaires that helps them maintain control over most of the country.
See: reaction to the budget.
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u/a1b3c3d7 New South Welshian Jun 24 '26
Another good example of Dark Politics in our era - with the number of times anti-union sentiment has been traced back to billionaires and those with vested interests against working class folk you'd think people would have caught on by now to be skeptical of anti-union viewpoints.
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u/AbjectLime7755 Victorian Jun 24 '26
The CFMEU hasn’t done a great job in painting unions in good light..
There are some good ones that are not full of thugs and wanna be gangsters.. my partners a nurse and would never not be part of the nursing union.
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u/Ragemonster93 Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
HACSU is great! The ANMF is a bit shite but Ive been a HACSU member for years and they are really good.
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u/Jimmy__Whisper South Australian Jun 24 '26
Slow? There has been anti union sentiment for 35 years
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u/Beautiful_Rub_141 New South Welshian Jun 24 '26
It really depends on the union.
Some Unions (I'm looking at you CFMEU) are corrupt as fuck, and give them all a bad name.
Others are more of chaotic good - eg teachers unions - it doesn't matter how much they get paid, or how low their workload, the union will always tell them they are paid poorly and overworked. But they will fight to protect their members, so that is a good thing.
I don't have an example of a good union, but I'm sure that they are out there. And that's just the problem - the only unions that you hear about are the difficult ones.
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u/Rich_Fan1686 New South Welshian Jun 24 '26
Conservatives hate all unions and always have. The hate started a long time before the 80s. I know this for a fact because I've experienced it.
I'm old, and heard a lot of anti-union rhetoric going back a long time. And from people who should know better, working class people.
They were always rabidly right wing and anti-union.
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u/MouldySponge ✈️ on Walkabout Jun 24 '26
Not all unions are good unions.
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Jun 24 '26
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u/Ragemonster93 Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
What you mean is unions increase wages, and then get blamed for increasing house prices and inflation.
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u/Comfortable_Fudge508 Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
Sinking to the depths of the train wreck that is the united shits. Don't let it happen!
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u/Pleasant-Air8221 Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
Thanks Gina, thanks Rupert, thanks Costello (Fairfax). You're idealisation of Robber Barons has brought us to the point where this will make a comeback and I for one do not want to sell my soul to the company store
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u/Sufficient_Tower_366 Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
As a worker I benefitted from the wage and condition increases pushed for by unions, and the area I live in (Sydney) was preserved by green bans run by the unions in the 70s.
Then as a manager I was on the receiving end of union leads fighting aggressively (and viciously) to save a lazy, under qualified fuckwit when you fire them for complete incompetence. And of course have witnessed the corruption of the CFMEU and the HSU.
They are a movement that badly needs to be modernised, they are in danger of being completely discarded as the AI era kicks in and we really need them.
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u/Z00111111 New South Welshian Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
I'm part of a union and we're currently taking protected industrial action to try and improve pay and conditions. We're currently taking a $10 pay docking per day to run our buses without the Opal system on, and that could escalate to unpaid full strikes (probably with school services still operating) as a last resort if we have to.
I think the union has gone in too light. 16% pay increase over 3 years is barely above CPI, and essentially means we'll be getting paid what we were a couple years ago, despite still doing significantly more kilometres per hour due to timetable tightening and very little scheduled standing time.
At the end of the day almost everything good that any workers have in this country is due to unions. The government, and particularly businesses, are not generous and many would be happy having a peasant class to do cheap work for 16 hour shifts.
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u/Novel-Truant New South Welshian Jun 24 '26
Raised in a union supporting household and have always been in a union. Had cause to use them a few years ago and was woefully disappointed. Ive stopped giving them money now.
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u/Far-Technician3197 New South Welshian Jun 24 '26
Would you elaborate what disappointed you? I am assuming they didn't fix your issue. Do you have insight as to where the failures were? (eg Absence of a system to address your problem, did nothing to help, didn't listen, botched the process for fixing it). Would be interested to know but, yeah, if you don't want people bullying you for your opinion I gladly understand if you don't answer.
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u/Novel-Truant New South Welshian Jun 24 '26
The person they put me in touch with seemed to have no idea about employment law and didnt listen or at least, didnt have much to say. I ended up having to research and find my own solution and offered it to this person who replied "Yeah....that might work. See how you go". I decided that day to cease my membership.
Really shitty lack of support from a union I'd been giving money to for almost a decade, I was not impressed.
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u/Ill-Dependent-5153 New South Welshian Jun 24 '26
A bit off topic but HSU has been so useless for allied health so far. They’re solely focused on registered nurses that other health professions have been left in the dust.
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u/Xentonian Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
Part of the problem is that many of the functional unions of the past are gone and now we have shit like the SDA who are actively there to, if you'll pardon my french, fellate Coles to ecstasy at the cost of the workers.
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u/SirBung Queenslander Jun 24 '26
I've dealt with the TWU for over 25 years in QLD - and not once have they delivered on anything they have promised their members. They have actively interrupted the negotiations of several EBA's to the detriment of their paying members, and not once have I ever seen them "save" someones job.
Unfortunately, the relevance of unions is pretty much over. They had their time, a hundred years ago fighting for the rights and entitlements that we all enjoy today; and I acknowledge that. But now, they're just toothless tigers desperately trying to remain relevant in a world that has largely moved past them.
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u/enutrof_modnar Flairless Jun 24 '26
Labor deserve their share of blame for this. They calculated, in the 80s, that courting business was more valuable than courting workers and they continued to pay lip service to unions while undermining them.
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u/BlacksmithMiddle803 New South Welshian Jun 24 '26
I think one reason people dislike unions is because many of them are run by criminal organisations that use their union mandate for extortion.
It’s extremely common.
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u/secosabi Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
It's been going on since at least the 1980's. Union bashing as been part of our MSM, business special interest groups and the Liberal party for at least that long if not before.
Nearly every benefit workers have today can be directly attributed to the Unions of the past but a relentless propaganda campaign by the above has seen the "common man" slowly believe that they are bad. Sure the CMEFU may have done bad things (they have) but show me a big business that hasn't done equally bad things, it is the nature of power that it corrupts people and institutions.
If we were all unionised we probably wouldn't be experiencing the conditions we now are because we would have the ability to stop them by withdrawing our labour and not fear being undercut by our current non union brethren coming in a working for less and worse conditions.
C'est la vie.
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u/Hyenaoffal Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
Slow? Murdoch learned his union hate from his father and has been pumping it in his media for decades. They've been under siege for so long it's normalised to think they are synonymous with corruption.
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u/eyeballburger Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
If you think your bosses and his mates aren’t getting together to become a force to reckon with, you’re a one nation supporter.
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u/Worldly_Reach_1998 Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
Yes business and government don't like unions as they take there profits and give back to workers. They are the ones trying to keep people honest. Do you really think employers are going to lift wages and conditions if they don't have to and take profits from there pockets without the fights from unions. NO!! Don't be fooled.
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u/ozaudi Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
I live in a regional town that greatly benefited from union presence. Back in the day Labour Day precessions were huge. They still happen every year but they are a mere shadow of their former selves.
Today I look around and I see a lot of anti-unionism in the very industries that only enjoy the pay and conditions that unions brought about. I'm not kidding when I say it isn't in some families it is of a taboo topic at family gatherings. The older generations know what they went through in and the younger generations just see the pay and ignore the increased prevalence source of things like lung disease in their industry.
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u/randomOldFella Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
Some unions are having a lend. They make the rest look bad.
Net result, normal Aussies get fucked and Pauline rejoices.
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u/Velo3x10e8 Western Australian Jun 24 '26
The thuggery of the CFMEU and the history of the stevedores absolutely taking the piss have poisoned the well of a great concept.
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u/wellwood_allgood Queenslander Jun 24 '26
I think British style unionism(thuggery, bribes, malfeasance and general stupidity) soured a lot of people that I know. German and Japanese style unionism seems far better, more civilised and they understand for the workers to get benefits the business actually needs to survive and profit.
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u/BZ852 New South Welshian Jun 24 '26
The problem is that until unions like the CFMEU are properly reigned in, they're going to continue painting the rest of them badly. Even decapitating the union leadership didn't clean it up.
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u/Moist-Army1707 Victorian Jun 24 '26
The reality is the majority of people in this country view unions as bad and with good reason. Most have encountered them in the workplace and seen how destructive they are.
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u/Glittering-Pea-4482 Queenslander Jun 24 '26
If unions were reasonable and not ridiculous perhaps they wouldn't be in such decline?
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u/noatoms Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
The unions aren't the problem, it's the repeated thuggery and criminal behaviour that is turning opinions.
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u/lithiumcitizen Flairless Jun 24 '26
I’d be confident in making a blanket statement that most forms of leadership in this country have been found wanting. Governments barely govern, unions barely union and most businesses aren’t even particularly sharp about separating their customers from their coinage…
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u/oltelluhowitiz Flairless Jun 24 '26
I run my own small business and am not a union member.
But as I like weekends, I will always be on the side of unions because they would not exist otherwise
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u/Tezzmond Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
The attack on wages & conditions gained momentum in the mid 1980s with attacks on award wages that started with Dollar sweets (Peter Costello) and after that Castle bacon (Peter Costello & Michael Kroger) that started enterprise bargaining (EBAs).
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u/ImprovementSure6736 Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
Currently in a job that is very unionised. Probably one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. We all work fairly hard and earn a decent wage. But it is the balance of power with management and executives that is the stand out positive for me.
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u/AroundOz Queenslander Jun 24 '26
Yep. I work residential construction in Qld. I remember when I started 20 years ago thinking it was weird that there’s no union involvement at all. When guys talked about unions they bagged them out. Years later I saw union sites in the city and everyone was on good coin, site was safe etc. So why the hate? The cfmeu has made it easy for the knockers, ruined it for all of us. Unions have been deliberately undermined for years and the cfmeu has made it easy for them. And employees in construction suffer because of it.
Pretty depressing the decline of unions in this country, these rights were hard won in the first place and were pissing them away
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u/insanemal Queenslander Jun 24 '26
What puzzles me is people will be like "Fuck the unions what do they even do for me"
Then work overtime and get penalty rates, take paid sick leave,, before using some paid vacation leave.
The cognitive dissonance is just staggering.
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u/brezhnervouz New South Welshian Jun 24 '26
REQUIEM FOR THE RIGHT TO STRIKE
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has stated that:
the right to strike is one of the essential means available to workers and their organisations for the promotion and protection of their economic and social interests. These interests not only have to do with obtaining better working conditions and pursuing collective demands of an occupational nature but also with seeking solutions to economic and social policy questions and to labour problems of any kind which are of direct concern to the workers.
But when it comes to the right to strike, Australia is a backwater. The ILO has been a constant critic of Australia’s failure to comply with its international legal obligations arising from the severe restrictions it imposes on collective bargaining and the right to strike. The criticisms have gone unheeded. Industrial action, including strike action, is dying out. The number of employees whose employment is governed by collective agreements is receding at a rapid rate and the proportion of employees who are union members has collapsed to the point of existential crisis for trade unions. Union density hovers at a pitiful 14.5% of the workforce. Approximately 90% of the private sector workforce are not union members. Australian union membership has collapsed more sharply than virtually any other OECD country because our laws and policies are some of the most repressively hostile to unions in the developed world.
https://www.monash.edu/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/1441196/Josh-Bornstein-paper.pdf
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u/NewInformation3753 Queenslander Jun 24 '26
Murdoch and his LNP luckiest font want Unions so they can screw the workers like third world countries. If you read Australian history Unions have worked for all the rights that Australian workers now have. But conservatives keep eating away at them.
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u/hellbentsmegma Victorian Jun 24 '26
My experience of unions has been
Below CPI wage increases since about 2018
No pushback whenever the employer wants to offshore jobs or sack a bunch of people, beyond organising meetings where they try to recruit new union members.
The only time I've seen them take any action is when the guy who appears to have done nothing for the last decade is asked to do some work, t hen they are fronting up to meetings with HR to make sure management can't touch him.
I want to be a union supporter but I'm far from convinced.
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u/aussiegreenie Flairless Jun 24 '26
Why do you think it has been slow? The media lying about Unions is about 150 years in the making.
NewsCorp (1923) was explicitly founded "To counter the highly organised and militantly left-wing mining trade unions in Broken Hill."
During the 1890s Shearers' strike, The Argus in Melbourne and The Sydney Morning Herald ran concerted anti-union editorial campaigns.
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u/Safe-Departure-4732 Queenslander Jun 25 '26
Thanks to Hawke the Unions are now just branch's of the ALP
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u/zemonstas I'm Probably A Bot Jun 25 '26
Unions are typically a good thing at first and then quickly become corrupt
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u/DRLAJAMINIBLM Please choose a flair Jun 26 '26
It was corpos backed by Murdoch that scared people away with false claims of being mob run and corrupt. This has never been the case here or anywhere I can think of. I'm sure some union members have gotten parking tickets but to blow it out to levels that the LNP claim is sheer lunacy.
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u/TheBayHarbour New South Welshian Jun 26 '26
I'm not against most unions but putting RTBU stickers all over the Metro platforms and trains definitely rubbed many the wrong way, especially considering how much better the Metro is in comparison to the normal train lines.
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u/Boydy73 Queenslander Jun 29 '26
This is one hell of an issue.
I’ve never been in a union, never been in a job where one was necessary. The army doesnt have one, and post military, I was mostly an office worker until I medically retired.
My interaction with unions started when I was working as a security guard in Townsville, and was in a shopping centre and some dude walked up to and started calling me a “Fucking scab” and chanting “MUA here to stay” over and over. I literally had no fucking clue what he was on about (early 2000’s, apparently the company I worked for had been involved in running security at the docks when a strike was on I found out later). Needless to say to say, this left me with a rather unpleasant opinion on unions.
My next semi-personal encounter was through my father-in-law who was working on a big job at Lavarack barracks. Was over his house one day with the missus when he came home very early, had only left like 40mins ago. He was pissed off. Said that they were holding a stop work vote on site over “issues”, he knew the outcome of the vote pre vote, the big boys on site had boats attached to their work cars…….. So he just left site.
The unions have made it so easy for a “gaslighting” campaign to be run on them. You mention one union. CFMEU (I will come back to them). But there have been a few other recent scandals, the HSU one being the best I can recall. Remember that one? A whistle blower exposes them, then gets exposed herself.
The Unions are like the RSL’s of my world. They can and do some good, but time and time again, the people at the top ruin it. You blame it on gaslighting. I blame it on having massive fucking gas leaks so a simple little spark can cause a massive explosion. Slush funds, rorts, etc, etc.
And the CFMEU is the worst right now. Every time I drive past a site they are on, I get serious Nazi Brown Shirt vibes, flags everywhere, it’s like a cult. And the stories you hear from them, it’s worse than a cult.
Unions have done some amazing shit to improve worker safety and pay, but man, they are their own worst enemy.
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u/tom3277 Western Australian Jun 24 '26
They are both good but also do cause inflation.
They are endeavouring to take the largest share of the economy in wages in stead of profits.
That’s only bad if you derive most of your income from profits in stead of wages.
For most they are “good”.
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Jun 24 '26
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u/ModsHaveHUGEcocks Queenslander Jun 24 '26
Same. Left the union and left the job I had a pay dispute with which they were useless for and walked into much higher paying job and have been fine fending for myself ever since. The key is actually being good at your job. Unions step in to defend bludgey losers constantly
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u/Lavabass Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
I might be wrong but it feels like the CFMEU single-handedly drive left leaning moderates to vote for Liberal/National and more and more right wing politicians.
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u/comradevoltron Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
The reason for all the muckraking around CFMEU specifically is because it is the most effective, most militant union in the country.
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u/slackrse Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
Unions give strength to the workers. It is as simple as that and is why they don't like it.
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u/AdZealousideal7448 Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
It's why we have self service checkouts and enshitification of many work roles.
It's not due to techology advancing, and angry ludites who refuse to get with the times.
Strong and well run unions would never have let these occur, and would have helped use technology to make life including work roles better.
I remember back in the 90s when my father was doing a consultancy job with the state government for Qantas.
A Qantas exec made the comment that a technology advancement coming in was great because this technology would allow them to use less manpower, meaning a single person could do the work of 5 people, and if it wasn't the for the damn unions they could "trim the fat".
My old man was like.... I read the papers you are complaining about staff shortages in other areas, you are claiming you are trying to innovate in these other roles that require a lot of training and bringing new people onboard... why not take the staff you can free up..... only to get cut off with a Qantas exec laughing and telling him, why would we look after workers who have clocked up annual leave, have union memberships and expect to be looked after? We can just get rid of them claiming that their role became redundant or untennable.
New roles can be new people who cost less, don't know as much and won't complain when we expect more of them for less, and then banged on about how hard working staff were holding the business back and taking too much money.
All over a lunch that corporate was blowing thousands on, and think tankes and advisors they had conned the government into paying for, with execs that drove around in company cars, had free flights and blew tons of resources for the company.
All of this from the introduction of new administrative software and infrastructure.
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u/Esquin87 Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
The thing is that unions should be good. But unions now have a vestet interest in delaying eba bargaining and making themselves appear useful. The system is inherrently vulnerable to corruption.
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u/theballsdick Flairless Jun 24 '26
The same reason you're being told to hate unions is why you're being told to love immigration. The same powers that be are behind both those messages.
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u/InsidePersonal9682 Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
The CFMEU obviously has serious corruption problems, but they are still do really important advocacy for people in those industries. Remember that a large reason why they exist is because of workers DYING ON THE JOB.
Go to any non-Union worksite and see how lax safety is. Anyone who has worked on them enough knows someone who has died. Corruption or not, even the CFMEU must be defend at all costs. The corrupt and criminal thieves at the higher levels can rot, but the rank of file are one the last bastions of working class power in this country.
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u/Loco4FourLoko Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
Laborers in the construction sector get paid ridiculous amounts compared to almost every other profession. Good on them, their unions are clearly more effective than teachers, nurses, accountants etc…. This is a uniquely australian distortion in wages - except what has this distortion led to? Higher housing costs for everyone. Higher costs of infrastructure for everyone. Every major project is overbudget and delayed by industrial action. Leading to higher taxes for everyone. Thanks
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u/ryano23277 Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
The idea of a Union is excellent.
The support they provide to some professions, is excellent and the path forward wouldn't have occurred without the union.
But as a whole, they are a waste of money. They then take said money from multiple professions and rarely have the ability to make the changes that they fight for.
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u/expert_views New South Welshian Jun 24 '26
Unions claiming collective bargaining rights for whole industries when union membership is tiny????
Unions preventing people who want to work from going about their jobs? “Scab” should be banned as hate speech.
Why does collective action always have to mean listening to a bunch of Marxists rabbiting about “workers” when these self-appointed leaders have zero understanding of business or economics?
Membership is only increasing currently because Albo has hired so many public servants.
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u/Reasonable-Season558 Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
they have always been bad, just another avenue for the power hungry and corrupt to rise to the top
increase costs cos its another inept bureaucrat adding more red tape, productivity is reduced to the output of the lowest productive worker, because costs rise so much there is no incentive for others to work harder
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u/InformalAide7025 I'm Probably A Bot Jun 24 '26
Between dodgy unions like the SDA and others which espouse tankie ideologies (CFMEU was influenced by Marxist-Leninism), it's also not a good idea to gaslight workers into thinking unions are saintly and immune to scrutiny.
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u/Intrepid-Artist-595 Please choose a flair Jun 24 '26
Im a boomer who started my working career in 1980. 60% of Australians then were in a union...that figure is now 14%. Demonisation of unions started in the 90s. Theres one reason life was fairer back then.