For about forty years I have often been attacked because I argue that unions should not be affiliated to any political party. Recent union/ALP scandals in Victoria only reinforce that view.

Having spent my whole working life as a union and political activist, first as a shop steward, then thirty years as a fulltime official at the AMWU and the ACTU, I have plenty of experience to draw on.

The traditionalists argue that because the unions formed the ALP in 1891, nothing should ever change. This ignores the tremendous social, technical, and work changes in one hundred and thirty-five years.

In my younger days when I was a member of the Communist Party, we saw unions in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China, controlled by their Communist Parties, thus becoming an arm of the state, doing virtually nothing for their members, who had no say. These unions were dubbed “Yellow Unions”, because they repressed workers, rather than liberated them, and still do in China and elsewhere. This was a bad example of unions linked to a political party.

Australian unions today represent about 14% of workers. Only about half the unions are affiliated to the ALP, meaning they represent about 7 or 8% of workers. Yet under ALP rules, unions must have 50% of seats on all ALP decision making bodies, hardly democratic.

Unions have very few of their members in the ALP, meaning that they are often hard pressed to have enough ALP members to fulfil their conference delegations. Also, a significant number of unionists now vote conservative. An ALP member is required to be in a union, but this tends to be symbolic, as many such members are not active in their union, but involved in other activities.

Affiliated unions are the platform for both Right and Left factions which dominate ALP decision making, so there is often not much left to decide. In Victoria, there has been no membership ballot for pre-selecting candidates in winnable seats, for over ten years. The factions secretly divide winnable seats between themselves, so other, usually non faction, candidates withdraw, because there is no hope of winning.

The factions require that their members vote as directed regarding policy issues etc., and require their members to show, or give, their ballot papers to the factional leader in the event of a secret ballot. So much for democracy.

The most likely candidates are those loyal to their faction, which is often more important than their competence, so the factional system undermines the competence of parliamentary members, and potential ministers. Once elected, the factions divide the leading positions between them so caucus has little say except to endorse what the factions present. 

The recent ALP national conference was a bad example of repressing debate, with many commenting it was perhaps the most stage managed, and quiet, national conference ever. The unelected factional warlords secretly worked out most policy decisions, making sure that divisive debate did not occur, but left some less important issues for debate, giving the impression of democratic dialogue. In fact there is huge debate going on within branches against AUKUS, the weak gambling response, the environment, etc. but this was supressed. Given that my branch has twice voted something like low forties to about ten against AUKUS, and there have been similar votes in other branches against AUKUS, it is very likely that a majority of ALP members are opposed to AUKUS.

This is outrageous, as the international labour movement has always been renowned for its vigorous, public argument about policies, ideas and ideology, as a great strength.

In about nineteen ninety, the Swedish Social Democratic Party, and unions, amicably agreed, that unions would no longer be affiliated to the party. Also the party bans permanent factions. Members can coalesce around getting policies agreed, or a candidate elected, but they cannot operate permanently. Permanent factions mean a party within a party, as the faction comes first. A lot of labour and Social Democratic parties, do not allow permanent factions.

The unions also noted that when non Social Democratic parties are elected, unions have to deal with them, and this is best done independent of any parties.

The Nordic unions have thousands of their members as party members, meaning that the unions mobilise their members through the party democratic structures in order to have an impact. I have walked through large Nordic workplaces which have notice boards for the Labour or Social Democratic Club in that workplace, which one will never see here, because unions have too few of their members in the ALP.

The non affiliation of unions in Sweden, has not meant no union influence. The unions still campaign hard, and provide funds for the party. The last Social Democrat Prime Minister was originally leader of the trade union movement. In fact a couple of Swedes I know, believe it has improved the relationship between unions and party, because now they have to bargain about policies, so the unions are not taken for granted.

A good Australian example was the 1983 Accord, between the Hawke government and the unions. This was bargained with the ACTU six times during the period of that government, with the ACTU, representing all unions, and not just those affiliated to the ALP. This has continued with subsequent ALP governments, where the ACTU has bargained over many union and worker legislative gains, on behalf of all unions.

When unions are so integrated with the ALP as they are in Australia, then when scandals occur in the unions, such as is happening with the disgraceful corruption in the construction industry, it blows back badly on the ALP. If they are independent of one another, the ALP can truthfully state that they are not involved.

Although this will be an unpopular view among unions, we need to be cognisant of the fact that a significant minority of union members no longer vote Labor, but Coalition and One Nation, but some of their membership dues pay for ALP affiliation and election campaigning, which they can claim is undemocratic. This is not to suggest I support them, but to point out a problem from their perspective.

While I believe unions should always be independent of political parties, one way of improving the situation, is the British approach. Union members are asked if they want to pay a Labour Party fee above their normal membership fee. If they agree, (a lot more agreed than expected), that gives them some rights to participate in Labour Party policy and membership ballots. This has meant that unions have more genuine Party members, whom they can mobilise to pursue union objectives, in an appropriate democratic process. It also means that unions who don’t want to affiliate to a political party, such as some large unions here, can give their members some political influence.

The important objective is to have far more workers in the ALP, but also greater union/worker influence. No organisation is better placed to achieve that than unions, who have regular, almost daily contact with thousands of members, so we can move towards genuine worker/union democratic involvement, and no longer rely for influence on unelected factional warlords, secretly determining everything.

 Max Ogden, October 2027

Max Ogden is a lifelong trade union and ALP activist.  He has been a shop steward in the Amalgamated Engineering Union, (AMWU), their full time Victorian Education Officer, and later a national official with the special task of promoting industrial democracy and worker rights. From 2000-2008 he was the head of a small research unit in the Department of Management and IR at Melbourne University. He has been an ALP member since 1985.