13 Years of Hard Labour

Lessons from the Accord Experience

Before the Australian Labor Party became the federal government in 1983 it developed a “Prices and Incomes Accord”, a social contract with the Australian Council of Trade Unions. Today it is clear that the Accord was a disaster for the working class and prepared the way for the reactionary Liberal-National government which replaced Labor in March 1996.

After Labor's defeat the national executive of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) became the first national union leadership to publicly admit that the Accord was a “major reason for the decline of the rank and file base of the trade union movement” and had “turned many workers away from, and against, organised labour”. But for 13 years, barely a word of criticism of the Accord was heard from the trade union leaders. Instead, at one ACTU congress after another there were standing ovations for ALP politicians who boasted of their successes with capitalist neoliberal restructuring.

Pat Brewer and Peter Boyle are leading members of the Democratic Socialist Party.