This short piece by Laurie Carmichael highlights the dissatisfaction among the metal industry unions with Hawke Labor government’s efforts on industry development as required by The Accord in 1983.

Note the emphasis in this Forward on the role of the members of the unions in tackling the problem presented to them by the Labor government.

The Forward is a good example of Carmichael’s conceptual framework for a workers’ “intervention strategy”.

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The centre piece of the Hawke Labor government’s election in 1983 was the Accord, and agreement between the ALP and the union movement on economic management issues. It was not just a prices and incomes agreement. It covered a range of major issues, although not all. One of the issues set out the agreed principle for the development not downgrading of manufacturing industry.

However, upon being elected, the government convened a tripartite National Economic Summit that drew employers, state governments and some other civil society organisations together to propose how the government should proceed. The Statement from the Summit enabled the government to dilute in its practice the agreement/Accord that had been worked out by the ALP and the unions.  

Led by Laurie Carmichael, the metal industry unions were determined not to allow this without a struggle, but at the same time avoid actions that might undermine the government to the advantage of the employers and the LNP opposition.

Thus, the metal industry unions through their national Award Negotiation Committee produced the most comprehensive report that laid out how manufacturing industry should be developed consistent with the text in the Accord.

In August 1984, the Metal Industry Unions presented its Report to its members, the government and the public its own comprehensive jobs-creating industry policy. The Report ran to 309 pages and was supported with supplementary leaflets, journal articles, media stories and pamphlets.

As National Secretary of the Metals Award Negotiation Committee, Laurie Carmichael laid out in the Foreword the independent and united union position for ongoing consultations with both the employers and the government.

The unions' research officers worked closely with a network of state and regional research centres that operated voluntarily, in the main, to develop the content.

These included the Transnational Cooperative (Sydney), Hunter Workers Research Centre, Labor Research Centre (Melbourne), Wollongong Workers Research Centre, and the Labor Education and Research Group (Adelaide). They, in turn, used the content to further develop their own local initiatives to defend and develop manufacturing industries against the downgrading of manufacturing.

For example, the Railway Workers Union, united several unions in its Rail Unions Intervention Project to counter the privatisation strategy for Australian National, driven along by the Labor Minister Peter Morris, the CEO of AN and the private road transport corporations.