Laurie Carmichael delivered a lecture to Organising Works Trainees (ACTU programme) in 1996 at the Clyde Cameron College probably in April, not long before the election of the Howard Liberal-National Party government.

This fragment of Carmichael’s notes for the OW lecture explains the critical importance he attached to learning what was happening in society in the broad scheme of things. He argued that union leadership would fail if it did not commit to and use such study.

The lecture was on Union Leadership and Strategy. He used a set of notes prepared beforehand and this fragment is one of the first pages in those notes.

“Without this understanding you are flying blind.” (Laurie Carmichael)

In this lecture Carmichael presented, including in this page, a thorough and distinctive summary of his learning about union leadership and strategy over his whole participation in the union and broader workers’ and peace movements.

Click here to read lecture notes

When elected to be the Secretary of the Melbourne District Committee of the AEU (a predecessor union of the AMWU), he took annual leave to spend time in the Mitchell Library reading everything he could find on strategy, preparing notes that would form the basis for his application of this to union leadership. (Personal communication to Don Sutherland.)

The video made of that OW lecture is still mislaid and will be posted here if it is ever found.

Extra commentary and links

As well as the video of that lecture, I typed up my handwritten notes of it.

In that lecture he used 3 case studies to show the application of his learning in real union campaigns. They were the campaign that defeated the penal powers, the Vietnam Moratorium Campaign that he led with Jim Cairns and Jean McLean, and the shorter hours campaign.

The distinctive features of the content that mark out how union leadership – at any level – is different from other forms of leadership (business, political party, military for example) included:

• Union strategy must enliven democratic member participation – command and control must be constrained and driven by that.
• Strategy proceeds over time in a trajectory from its start to its culmination.
• The purpose of strategy is to achieve a Vision or a policy or a demand in the face of concerted opposition from employers and their allies. The demand, claims, program, Vision is not the same as strategy. Strategy is the mobilisation of forces, usually against opposition, to achieve the demand, etc.
• The content of Vision, programme, policy and demands can be found in the actual activity of working-class organisations but then needs to be stitched together, polished and refined.
• Activity and tactics are all the different forms of action that the participants in the campaign are engaged in over the trajectory of the campaign.
• Every campaign will ebb and flow because of the actions of the opponents and the power they can wield, and because of the issues referred to in the fragment provided. Above all there is the society’s cycle of growth – recession- recovery.
• Union leaders must be flexible in guiding and pushing the strategy, activities and tactics. They can demand that certain things should be done but also be patient for the response.
• Planning a campaign should think of the trajectory of a campaign working through 5 phases each with paramount features. The sequence is a guide and not lockstep.
  • Preparation – the key concepts and tasks are: situation analysis – the balance of forces, allies (established and potential), “in betweens”, opposition: observation, research (action and academic): clarifying the vision and the first “draft” of the program and / or demands; planning the next and subsequent phase. Unity is not necessary in this or the next phase. However, specific actions that create growing solidarity are planned so that it constantly grows into determined unity.
  • Launch – making the campaign visible to its main drivers, union and potential union members, and seeking their democratic endorsement for the demands and the activities and actions they will take in the next phase.
  • Development and escalation – continuing research, discussion material (pamphlets etc) communication networks and associated union education, and the first workplace and community level actions swing into play. The aim is to build the workers’ power and self-confidence despite opposition to a point where the employers and other opponents move to defensive mode. Planning reviews are constant to take account of unpredicted obstacles, effective employer tactics, and splinters of union solidarity.
  • Culmination is that moment in the overall campaign when the workers and their unions’ power is so effective the negotiations with the opponents will be in their favour, even if not absolute.
  • Review and research to prepare for the next priority and its strategic period and then re-starting the cycle