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INTERVIEWS
WITH ECONOMISTS
JENNIE
GEORGE
Jennie George trained as a Secondary Teacher at Sydney University
where she was awarded a BA, DipEd and taught at Bankstown Girls
High and Queanbeyan High. Elected as a full-time Union Official
with the NSW Teachers Federation in 1973, she subsequently held
the positions of General Secretary and President of the NSW Teachers
Federation. At the national level, she was Acting President and
Deputy President of the Australian Teachers Federation. Jennie
George was the first woman elected to the ACTU Executive in 1983
and to the position of Vice-President ACTU in 1987. In July 1989,
she took up the position of Assistant National Director of the
Australian Trade Union Training Authority (TUTA) and in March
1991 became the Acting National Director of TUTA. She was elected
to the full time position of Assistant Secretary of the ACTU in
September 1991, then elected to the position of President-Elect
of the ACTU in September 1995. In March 1996 she was elected to
the position of President of the ACTU, which she still holds.
Industrial relations have experienced significant changes in recent
years. What do you consider to be the major changes that have
impacted on the ACTU and workers in general?
The pace of economic and social change over the past quarter century
has been profound. It is these changes – in technology especially,
but also in the economic climate, in community attitudes and in
business organisation – which have caused the greatest changes
at work over recent years.
The information age is now well and truly with us. Women’s
participation in paid employment has increased steadily over the
past 20 years (though less so since the mid-1990s), and the Year
12 retention rate has doubled. ‘Outsourcing’ has become
commonplace. These changes – across the industrialised world
– have profoundly affected workers and challenged unions
to respond to the demands of a new era.
In Australia, the union movement has overhauled its own policies
and structures. The union amalgamation process (though not without
difficulties) has secured the organisational base required for
unions to retain a constructive and relevant presence to represent
and advance the interests of working Australians. This is essential
as we confront issues of job insecurity and low pay, of training
and skills formation, of fairness at work, and of maintaining
an effective safety net of minimum wages and conditions of employment
through the award system.
The need for a highly centralised system of wage fixing has ebbed
significantly in the 1990s, with very low inflation sustained
throughout the decade.
More recently, the legislative changes enacted by the federal
coalition government – including award stripping — have
made it harder for unions to discharge their legitimate role in
our mixed market economy, but the legislation has not fundamentally
altered what it is that unions do.
How have the operations of the ACTU changed to reflect current
circumstances?
Unions are once more at the forefront in negotiating issues at
workplace level, with the role of the ACTU more focused on Living
Wage and related issues at the national level, and in coordinating
union activities, sharing information and assisting affiliated
unions as requested.
The challenge for unions is primarily one of organising workers
in the new economy. The ACTU Organising Works program provides
systematic training for new organisers across the union movement.
Is the basic rationale for the existence and operation of unions
the same today as it was 50 years ago?
Yes, and little different from the basic rationale of 100 years
ago. There is a huge imbalance of bargaining power between individual
workers and their employers. ‘Fair exchange is no robbery’
is a maxim that has some relevance where both parties to the exchange
have equal standing, but none otherwise. What chance is there
of mutually beneficial outcomes where (to paraphrase Justice Higgins)
‘individual freedom to contract’ is the basis for relations
between the wolf and the lamb? Without the scope for collective
negotiations which unions bring to the workplace, all power effectively
rests with the employer — and as our recent waterfront history
[the Patrick's dispute] shows, some employers will stop at nothing
in seeking to gain at their employees’ expense.
What is the future for the ACTU and unionism in general?
Essentially, the future for unions is what we make of it. Job
insecurity and low pay is the dark face of labour market flexibility.
Workers have families and live in communities and pursue interests
in life outside the workplace. Unions will always have a role
in assisting workers to achieve the goals of fair wages and career
progression and in ensuring unscrupulous employers do not gain
unfair advantage against their competitors by undercutting fair
standards in the workplace and exploiting vulnerable workers.
There is a ‘meaning of life’ issue at the heart of unionism.
We work in order that we may provide the wherewithal for ourselves
and our families to live better lives. Despite what some employers
appear to think, it is not the other way round – normal people
simply do not live in order to work ever harder and longer until
they drop.
Australia’s standards for annual leave, long service leave,
minimum wages, safe and healthy workplaces, and all the other
standards which apply in our workplaces today, were not achieved
through the benevolence of employers in a perfect world but by
the organised actions of workers through their unions. The situation
will be no different in tomorrow’s Australia.
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