Sources of the ACTU's Authority : a case study

Abstract

While the ACTU often occupies centre stage in Australian industrial J political and economic life, the ACTU's inodus operandi and the roles it performs are not uuell understood. The ACTU is an intermediary organisation: ACTU officers and other executive members mediate between the ACTU's affiliated unions and state branches., on the one hand, and significant outside actors like the Government, the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, employers and international organisations, such as the ILO, on the- other. Using a role oriented-model developed during the case study, relationships between the ACTU executive and the organisations named above are examined. This case study shows that the authority of trade union confederations like the ACTU is contingent on the exchange of concessions by the executive and its officers when they mediate between 'inside' and 'outside' organisations. When a confederation's executive has no further concessions to exchange between the parties, the mediation process breaks down. Mediation ceased in 1976 when the Government refused to give ground to the ACTU executive over the Government's MEDIBANK policy. The national 24-hour MEDIBANK strike was called by the ACTU executive primarily to restore its authority over affiliated unions that had already taken strike action and were determined to take further strike action with or without ACTU support. The future of the ALP-ACTU Prices, and Incomes Accord, and possibly of the Hawke Government, is dependent on the success of the ACTU's mediation between the Government and the unions.