Blue singlets and broccoli: Culture in the service of union struggle

Labour History

Volumn , Issue 79, 2000, Pages 35-56

  Bailey, Janis ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 70349366929     PISSN: 00236942     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3828/27516728     Document Type: Article

References (110)

1. See J. Bailey and B. Horstman, '"Life is Full of Choices": Industrial Relations "Reform" in Western Australia since 1993', in J. Burgess and G. Strachan (eds), Research on Work, Employment and Industrial Relations 2000: Proceedings of the 14th A1RAANZ Conference, vol. 2, February 2000, Newcastle, pp.39-51.
2. The argument for the notion of a 'paradigm shift' in Australian industrial relations is put in D. Peetz, Unions in a Contrary World, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998.
3. This formulation is a simplification. See M. Rader, Marx's Interpretation of History, Oxford University Press, New York, 1979 for a discussion of what Marx actually said that goes beyond the base/superstructure formulation.
4. R. Williams, Marxism and Literature, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1977
5. R. Williams, 'Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory', in his Problems in Materialism and Culture, Verso, London, 1997 (originally published 1973).
6. See V. Larouche and M. Audet, Theorizing Industrial Relations: The Dominance of Logical Positivism and the Shift to Strategic Choice' and J. Godard, Theory and Method in Industrial Relations: Modernist and Postmodernist Alternatives', both in R. Adams and N. Meltz (eds), Industrial Relations Theory: Its Nature, Scope and Pedagogy, IMLR Press, Rutgers University and Scarecrow Press, New Jersey, 1993, pp.255-282 and pp.283-306
7. J. Kelly, Rethinking Industrial Relations: Mobilization, Collectivism and Long Waves, Routledge, London, 1998. Kelly in particular provides both a critique of functionalism and a path forward, arguing that 'the bulk of industrial relations research neither derives from nor contributes to either general or middle-range theory' (pp.20-21). He draws on the sociological literature on social movements and collective action to develop some theoretical directions to guide industrial relations research.
8. A number of Australian labour historians have heeded living's early call for labour historians to focus on culture and consciousness as well as institutions (T. Irving, 'What is Labour History?', Labour History, no. 12,1967, pp.77-81).
9. A. Curthoys, 'Labour History and Cultural Studies', Labour History, no. 67,1994, pp.12-22 and the studies referred to therein, various contributions in T. Irving (ed.), Challenges to Labour History, UNSW Press, Sydney, 1994
10. D. Kirby, Barmaids, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997. Feminist labour historians including Kirby, Rae Frances and Marilyn Lake have made particularly valuable contributions to the study of 'culture and consciousness'.
11. E.P.Thompson, Review of Raymond Williams's The Long Revolution', New Left Review, nos. 9/10, 1961.
12. As Muir shows in her analysis of the media's treatment of unions. See K. Muir, The Scent of Blood: Representing Unionism as Masculine Practice', Centre for Labour Studies, University of Adelaide, research paper series no. 8,1997, and K. Muir, 'Difference or Deficiency: Gender, Representation and Meaning in Unions', in B. Pocock (ed.), Strife: Sex and Politics in Labour Unions, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1997, pp.172-193.
13. E. Morawska and W. Spohn, '"Cultural Pluralism" in Historical Sociology: Recent Theoretical Directions', in D. Crane (ed.), The Sociology of Culture, Blackwell, Cambridge (Mass.), pp.45-90.
14. The documentation process is described in J. Bailey and D. McAtee, 'A People's History of the Third Wave Campaign', Labour History, no. 74,1998, pp.241-246.
15. An issue discussed in H. Beynon, 'Regulating Research: Politics and Decision Making in Industrial Organizations', in A. Bryman (ed.), Doing Research in Organizations, Routledge, London, pp.21-33
16. D. Waddington, 'Participant Observation', in C. Cassell, and G. Symon (eds), Qualitative Methods in Organizational Research: A Practical Guide, Sage, London, 1994, pp.107-122.
17. D. Smith, The Conceptual Practices of Power, Northeastern University Press, Boston, p.22.
18. A phrase from E. Guba and Y. Lincoln, 'Epistemological and Methodological Bases of Naturalistic Inquir/, Educational Communication and Technology Journal, vol. 30,1982, pp.233-252.
19. J. Bailey and D. McAtee (eds), Papers in Labour History, no. 20 (The Workers' Embassy Scrapbook'), August 1998.
20. A. Howkins, 'Labour and Culture: Mapping the Field', in J. Martin, and K. Taylor (eds), Culture and the Labour Movement, The Dunmore Press, Palmerston North, 1991, pp.15-32.
21. P.Routledge, 'A Spatiality of Resistances: Theory and Practice in Nepal's Revolution of 1990', in S. Pile and M. Keith (eds), Geographies of Resistance, Routledge, London, 1997, pp.68-86 at p.68.
22. The interviews (tapes and transcripts) are held in the Battye Library of Western Australian History, the visual material is available from the author (and some of it is published in Bailey and McAtee (eds), The Workers' Embassy Scrapbook, and the documentary material is held by the TLCWA and is available to researchers upon application. The documentary material will eventually be deposited in the Western Australian State Archives.
23. R. Williams, Keywords, (second ed.), Fontana, London, 1983.
24. R. Williams, Politics and Letters: Interviews with the New Left Review, New Left, London, 1979, p.154.
25. E.P.Thompson, Customs in Common: Studies in Traditional Popular Culture, Penguin, London, 1991.
26. G. Eley, 'What is Cultural History?', New German Critique, vol. 65 (Spring/Summer), 1995, pp.19-36.
27. Crane, The Sociology of Culture, p.2, discusses Smelser's Theory of Culture'.
28. R. Williams, 'Culture is Ordinary', in A. Gray and J. McGuigan (eds), Studying Culture: An Introductory Reader, (second ed.), Arnold, London and St Martin's Press, New York, pp.5-14.
29. R. Williams, The Long Revolution, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1965, p.61.
30. Williams/Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory', p.38.
31. A. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, International Publishers, New York, 1971, p.238.
32. D. Mills and unnamed co-Authors, Art and Working Life: Cultural Activities in the Australian Trade Union Movement, Australian Council of Trade Unions/Community Arts Board of the Australia Council, Sydney, 1983
33. S. Kirby, Artists and Unions: A Critical Tradition, Australia Council, Sydney, 1991 (which contains a brief 'cultural history' of Australian unions at pp.7-15)
34. The Australia Council, Industrial Issues: Cultural Tools, Papers and Proceedings of the second National Arts and Working Life Conference, October, 1990, Melbourne, 1991
35. K. Muir, Creative Alliances: Unions and the Arts, Union Media Services, Sydney, 1992
36. L. Taksa, Toil, Struggle and Repose: Oral History and the Exploration of Labour Culture in Australia', Labour History, vol. 76,1994, pp.110-127 at pp.116-120.
37. Muir, Creative Alliances, p.1.
38. Mills et al., Art and Working Life.
39. G. Hawkins, From Nimbin to Mardi Gras: Constructing Community Arts, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1993, p.98.
40. Ibid.
41. S. Garton, 'What have we Done?', in Irving, Challenges to Labour History, p.58.
42. L. Taksa, 'Rethinking Community: Social Capital and Citizenship at the Eveleigh Railway Workshops', in R. Hood and R. Markey (eds), Labour and Community: Proceedings of the Sixth National Conference of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, Wollongong, October 1999, pp.183-190
43. L. Taksa, 'Research Report: Technology, Work, Gender and Citizenship at the Eveleigh Railway Workshops Precinct: An Historical Interpretation of Landscape, Identity and Mobilisation', Labour History, no. 76,1999, pp.153-162.
44. Howkins, 'Labour and Culture'.
45. See Taksa, Toil, Struggle and Repose', and some of the references cited therein, and the contributions in Martin and Taylor, Culture and the Labour Movement, for exceptions that deal with the past. For an analysis of media representations of union culture (rather than union culture per se), see Muir, The Scent of Blood, and Muir, 'Difference or Deficiency'.
46. L. Layman and J. Goddard, Organise!, Trades and Labor Council of WA, Perth, 1988, pp.3-28. Indeed, this book is the only substantial monograph on the history of the Western Australian union movement.
47. The word 'reform' is used in the most ironic sense here; for a discussion of the discourse of 'reform' see S. Cawley, The Western Australian Experience', in M. Lee, and P.Sheldon (eds), Workplace Relations, Butterworths, Sydney, 1997, pp.91-105.
48. G. Kierath, 'Labour Relations Legislation Amendment Bill (The Third Wave)', Second Reading Speech, Hansard, Western Australia, Thirty-Fifth Parliament, First Session, 20 March 1997, at p.725.
49. B. Horstman, 'Decentralised and Deregulated Australian Industrial Relations: The Effects on HRM and IR in Small Enterprises', Employee Relations, vol. 21, no. 3,1999, pp.325-340. Note that the 'big bang' approach to industrial relations reform in Victoria in 1992 largely led to a flight to the Federal system.
50. R. Lambert, 'Regional Solidarity and Union Rights', International Union Rights, vol. 3, no. 2,1996, pp.6-7.
51. The relevant pieces of legislation are: First Wave: The Workplace Agreements Act 1993 (WA), the Minimum Conditions of Employment Act 1993 (WA), and changes to the Industrial Relations Act 1979 (WA); Second Wave: The Industrial Relations Legislation Amendment and Repeal Act 1995 (WA); Third Wave: The Labour Relations Legislation Amendment Act 1997 (WA).
52. Workplace agreements have, by and large, been targeted at vulnerable labour market areas such as hospitality, cleaning, security and retail, all with a preponderance of female, often young, workers. See Bailey and Horstman, 'Life is Full of Choices'.
53. Minister for Labour Relations, Media Statement, 9 May 1997.
54. For the unions' analysis of the possible effects of the Third Wave, see TLCWA, Speakers Notes: Third Wave Campaign, mimeo, 1997, and A. Drake-Brockman, Draft Preliminary Briefing Notes on the Labour Relations Legislation Amendment Bill 1997 ('The Bill'), mimeo, 1997.
55. Australian Bureau of Statistics, catalogue no. 6310.0.
56. See J. Bailey and D. McAtee, 'Sundials, Sandbags and Scarecrows: A Cultural Analysis of the 'Third Wave" Campaign', Papers in Labour History, no. 21,1999, pp.1-25, which gives a full description of the campaign.
57. Bailey and Horstman, 'Life is Full of Choices'.
58. Ibid., p.48.
59. See interview with S. Mayman (TLCWA Assistant Secretary) by J. Bailey, 22 October 1997, held in the Battye Library of Western Australian History, Perth, ('Battye'). (Battye OH2729-Mayman).
60. See interview with B. Carney (singer and songwriter) by D. McAtee, 1 September 1997 (Battye OH2729-Carney).
61. Taksa, Toil, Struggle and Repose'.
62. Interview with K. Peckham (TLCWA President and AMWU President) by J. Bailey, 17 September 1997 (Battye OH2729-Peckham).
63. K. Reynolds, 'A Rally to Remember' and I. Bolas, The Workers Embassy-a Personal View' in The W.A. Construction Worker, 1997, Winter, pp.5,23. 'Bullshit Castle' is a common Australian vernacular expression, applied for instance to administrative buildings on industrial worksites.
64. Mayman interview.
65. Ibid.
66. Interview with P.Stokes (CPSU organiser) by D. McAtee, 22 December 1997 (Battye OH2729-Stokes).
67. K. Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte', in C. Pierson (ed.), The Marx Reader, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1997, pp.156-176, at pp.156-157.
68. E. Hobsbawm, 'Introduction: Inventing Tradition', in E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition, Canto/Cambridge University Press, 1992 (originally published 1983), pp.1 14, at p.1.
69. Interview with H. Creed (TLCWA Vice-President and ALHMWU Secretary) by J. Bailey, 6 November 1997 (Battye OH2729-Creed).
70. Carney interview.
71. Creed interview.
72. Interview with C. Smyth (journalist and media adviser to TLCWA during campaign) by D. McAtee, 28 October 1997 (Battye OH2729-Smyth).
73. Mayman interview.
74. Interview with J. Pike (AWU Organiser) by J. Brown, 4 September 1997 (Battye OH2729-Pike).
75. Interview with T. Kucera (TLCWA Research Officer) by J. Bailey, 10 September 1997 (Battye OH2729-Kucera).
76. Interview with T. Cooke (TLCWA Secretary) by J. Bailey, 5 November 1999 (Battye OH2729-Cooke).
77. R. Martin, Bargaining Power, Clarendon, Oxford, 1992, p.2 and Kelly, Rethinking Industrial Relations, pp.9-13.
78. A phrase used by Anne Swidler; see A. Swidler, 'Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies', American Sociological Review, vol. 51,1986, pp.273-286.
79. Interview with J. Kobelke (MLA for Nollamara and Opposition Spokesperson on Industrial Relations) by J. Bailey, 7 November 1997 (Batye OH2729-Kobelke). The deadline date of 22 May was important because the government was to lose control of the Upper House on that day, due to an election that had been held in December 1996. A member of the Upper House, Ross Lightfoot, had been preselected by the Liberal Party to take up a vacant position in the Federal Parliament but this was deliberately not formalised until after the passage of the Bill. An editorial in The Australian stated that Lightfoot should have long been in Canberra 'if convention were followed', not remaining to boost numbers in the Upper House to ensure the passage of the Third Wave. See Union Boycott has Ideological Cost', The Australian, 28 April 1997, p.8
80. R. Rose, 'I'll Stay on for Bill: Lightfoot', The West Australian, 30 April 1997, p.9.
81. Muir, The Scent of Blood, and 'Difference or Deficiency'.
82. Only one directly associated with the campaign, when three rank and file unionists tried to prevent the Speaker from entering Parliament House. Another occurred when members of the construction unions split off from a march from the city to Parliament House (in June) and entered the offices of Worksafe as part of a protest about occupational health and safety issues not directly connected to the Third Wave campaign.
83. Bailey and McAtee, 'Sundials, Sandbags and Scarecrows'.
84. Bailey and Horstman, 'Life is Full of Choices'.
85. For example, D. Snow and R. Benford, 'Master Frames and Cycles of Protest', in A. Morris and C. Mueller (eds), Frontiers in Social Movement Theory, Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn., pp.133-155.
86. M. Zald, 'Culture, Ideology, and Strategic Framing', in D. McAdam, J. McCarthy and M. Zald (eds), Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1996, pp.261-274.
87. CEPU Third Wave Campaign handbill.
88. Interview with D. Archer (BLPPU member) by J. Bailey, 1 September 1997, (Battye OH2729-Archer).
89. Interview with P.King (CEPU industrial officer) by J. Bailey, 23 August 1997, (Battye OH2729-King).
90. See, for example, B. Klandermans, The Social Psychology of Protest, Blackwell, Oxford, 1997.
91. Kelly, Rethinking Industrial Relations, p.36.
92. D. McAdam, 'Micromobilization Contexts and Recruitment to Activism', International Social Movement Research, vol. 1,1988, pp.125-154, at p.134-135. See J. Bailey, The Shifting Sands of Solidarity', paper presented at The Future of Solidarity Conference, Flinders University, February 1999.
93. J. Brown, The Politics of Pleasure and the TLC, and C. Power, '"Storming Bullshit Castle": A Dialogic Analysis of the Third Wave Campaign', both in Bailey and McAtee, The Workers' Embassy Scrapbook, pp.100-107 and pp.85-99, respectively.
94. T. Eagleton, Walter Benjamin: Towards a Revolutionary Criticism, Verso, London, 1981.
95. J. Hagan, The History of the ACTU, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1981
96. R. Markey, The Making of the Labor Party in New South Wales 1880-1900, UNSW Press, Sydney, 1988.
97. See, for example, P.Beilharz, Transforming Labor: Labour Tradition and the Labor Decade in Australia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994 and Irving, Challenges to Labour History.
98. D. Palmer, R. Shanahan and M. Shanahan (eds), 'Introduction' in their Australian Labour History Reconsidered, Australian Humanities Press, Adelaide, 1999, pp.3-4.
99. M. Gardner and P.Ronfeldt, The Arbitral Model: What Remains?', in R. Fells and T. Todd (eds), Current Research in Industrial Relations: Proceedings of the 10th AIRAANZ Conference, Perth, February 1996, pp.157-166.
100. Interview with Leah Proud (CPSU member) by Jo Brown, 18 September 1997, (Battye OH2729-Proud).
101. J. Brown, The Workers' Embassy: Founded in Space, Lost in Place, Honours thesis, Murdoch University, Perth, 1999.
102. Reproduced in Bailey and McAtee, The Workers Embassy Scrapbook, p.71.
103. Hobsbawm, 'Introduction: Inventing Traditions', p.6
104. L. Hunt, Politics, Culture and Class in the French Revolution, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1984
105. P.Pickering, 'Class without Words: Symbolic Communication in the Chartist Movement', Past and Present, no. 112,1986.
106. J. Epstein, Understanding the Cap of Liberty, Past and Present, no. 122,1989, p.116.
107. See, for example, E. Yeo, 'Culture and Constraint in Working Class Movements, 1830-1855', in E. Yeo and S. Yeo (eds), Popular Culture and Class Conflict 1590-1914, Harvester, Sussex and Humanities Press, New Jersey, 1981
108. E. Yeo, 'Christianity and Chartist Struggle, 1832-1842', Radical History, 1981, vol. 91, pp.109-139
109. E. Yeo, 'Language and Contestation: The Case of 'the People', 1832 to the Present', in J. Belchem and N. Kirk (eds), Languages of Labour, Ashgate, Aldershot, 1997, pp.44-62.
110. Wright has examined this tendency with respect to the British trade union movement in the Thatcher years. See P.Wright, 'A Blue Plaque for the Labour Movement?', in his On Living in an Old Country, Verso, London, 1985.