The ACTU Congress of 1981

Abstract

The first biennial congress held since R. J. Hawke relinquished the ACTU presidency in September 1980 opened in Sydney on Monday, 7 September, under the chairmanship of the new president, C. O. Dolan. The delegates, numbering 827, held a total of 1,110 votes.1 It was a notably quiet congress which, as one delegate put it on the Friday, left 'no blood on the floor'?in stark contrast with Mr. Hawke's last con gress.2 This, however, is not to say that the 1981 congress was either uneventful or unimportant. Probably of greatest obvious significance for the future of the ACTU were three matters involving its constitution and rules?the incorpora tion of the Council of Australian Government Employee Organizations, which removes the last really serious qualification of the ACTU's claim to act as the peak organisation of Australian unions in general; the 'restructuring' of the interstate executive, which had the effect of giving the extreme right an executive representation they have not had for at least a generation; and a rise in the ACTU's affiliation fee which gives the ACTU leadership an administrative support structure that would have been inconceivable barely a decade ago. On the side of policy, pre-congress media interest had centred on what were expected to be (and were in fact) the two most controversial issues, wages and abortion; and there was also a notable, because innovative, executive recommendation on international affairs. But there was another, less obvious reason for attaching importance to the Wages Policy congress adopted. It opens the way for the ACTU leadership, especially in the light of its expanded administrative resources, to enter directly into collective bargaining at the industry and occupational level on a far wider scale than before. There is a similar significance attaching to the policy adopted on Trade Union Organisation, which holds out the possibility that the ACTU may at last be gaining some purchase in the area of the demarcation dispute. Viewed in the perspective of the ACTU's internal politics, the congress was a triumph for the moderate (in trade union terms) centre grouping, formerly led by Mr. Hawke. On the wings, the position of the extreme left was weakened, and, as already mentioned, that of the extreme right was strengthened. The 1981 congress also has the dis tinction of being the first to be addressed by a leader of the federal Labor opposition.