Union

BA history & Politics

Dip. Professional Writing & Editing

I'm a proud unionist and believe the union movement has an important place in any society. It is a highly organised, articulate voice of working people and it's the only effective voice we have in a political environment where the strong will always ride over the weak. Sadly, the grotesque imbalance of societies that include the rights of individuals to be super rich while living alongside the struggling poor is a fact of life. And while Liberalism argues that every individual should have the right to do what he or she chooses providing it doesn't hurt anyone else, greed so often cancels out the rights of that other person. The only way for most of us to defend our rights is to come together in collective strength and then behave with sensitivity, dignity and respect. In other words, set the example.

I’ve voted and it was an easy choice

I’d gone into this election happy with the way my union was being administered but open to honest and constructive criticism and the chance to choose a better alternative if there was one. If there were any undesirable elements to the way my union was being run I wanted to know about them and was prepared to hold the leadership to account with my vote. History has shown that ETU members will do that.

The shit-sheets started coming. I’d been looking forward to some decent satire but these just weren’t very good. Always looking for a laugh, I was disappointed with the illustrations; they just didn’t look like anybody I knew, and the vitriol you expect in a good shit-sheet had no cleverness about it; it was simply crude and unimaginative! The best they could do was to show me a picture of the union secretary’s bare arse! Mine’s better than his anyway. Not that I’m dropping my pants to prove it.

I wrote to John Ingram and Dave Meir, the leading challengers asking if they were the authors of the woeful shit-sheets. I also told them I was writing about the election on my website and wasn’t keeping my opinions to myself. I wanted to be up-front and tell them that I wasn’t just talking to my workmates about the election but all other members who read my website. I was giving John and Dave a chance to have a voice alongside mine. They ignored me.

I’ve drawn conclusions from that. As a member it didn’t seem that I was important enough to respond to, and neither were those other members who would read what I write.

The incumbents chose not to use shit-sheets; and only one flyer that bagged John and Dave, which they put their name to and so were prepared to stand by their claims. I thought that was a smart move.

I have to say while I opened my campaign mail looking for policy or a laugh, my most of my workmates said they just threw it out with all the other junk mail. In three weeks, I’d been swamped with nine pieces of campaign material from the incumbents and seventeen from the challengers.

I acknowledge that it was the challengers who had the hard task of saying how they would do better than the incumbents who were standing on their record; but the challengers didn’t seem to try.

As I hitched up my pants and pondered over my ballot sheet, I realized that throughout this campaign I’d learnt little about John Ingram and Dave Meir and how they would manage my union. All they had said was that they’d cut my union fees in half and make things better. They didn’t say where or how. It seemed to me that all their energies had been put into bagging Dean Mighell rather than telling me about themselves and why I should vote for them.

It was also clear on the ballot sheet that if I was to vote for John and Dave, I’d be placing control of my union in the hands of three blokes who had spent a lot of time and money making enemies of those they would be surrounded by. The vast majority of state councilors, organisers and other officials were on the incumbent ticket. How could John and Dave possibly run my union with so many officers likely to be against them?

And the shit-sheets kept coming. The satire never eventuated and the laughs didn’t come; but the desperation grew. By now I’d decided that the challengers were the authors of the shit-sheets, as I’d asked John and Dave to claim or condemn them, and they hadn’t. It would have been pretty simple to flick me an email saying; “Not us Ken!”, and that they too had better arses than Dean; but they didn’t and they most likely they haven’t.

By the time I came to put my crosses on the ballot sheets I’d decided the actions of the challengers, in my view, were scurrilous. They were not about improving the governance of my union but about settling scores. If John and Dave were ETU unionists with a genuine concern for the Victorian branch of the union they would have offered me a genuine alternative.

They didn’t!

The bottom line was this; I was able to put my crosses on the ballot sheets without hesitation and with a clear conscience. My union has never looked any better and, in my view, the challengers were more interested in doing damage than in doing it better.

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