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Under Pressure: The Whitlam Labor Opposition and Class Struggle, 1967–72
Ashley Lavelle*
In periods of opposition, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) can be exposed to the influence of radical activists and movements. This article argues that a clear case in point is the ALP's response to the intensification of class struggle in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Not only did Labor Members of Parliament (MPs) endorse strikes, they defended such actions as the most effective method of improving wages and conditions. The escalation of industrial conflict also empowered the unions to press the ALP for key policy concessions, such as the withdrawal of strike penalties from the party's policy program in 1971. Yet, Labor's sympathetic response to the upsurge in militancy was not simply a case of tapping into a radical mood for electoral purposes, but was also designed to contain the discontent within mainstream political channels.
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| A major rise in industrial disputes occurred in Australia between the late 1960s and the mid-1970s. Focusing on the period of Labor Opposition from 1967–72, this article argues that one of the most visible effects of the biggest upsurge in trade union unrest since World War I was the militant, class-conscious rhetoric of many Labor Members of Parliament (MPs). The effects were not, however, simply rhetorical: in the aftermath of the Clarrie O'Shea strikes in 1969, Labor adopted a firmer policy on the abolition of penal clauses; also, as a direct result of union pressure, the party leadership was forced spectacularly in 1971 to remove strike penalties from its policy program. More generally, the opposition's formulation of an industrial relations policy dominated by collective bargaining is intelligible only in the context of growing disenchantment with arbitration and greater enthusiasm for direct action. |
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Parliamentarist politics did not appear to be a barrier to endorsing strikes – an action which social democratic parties such as the ALP would normally shy away from as part of their general desire for class peace and mediation. It is argued, however, that the overtures to the union movement were borne of self-interest for Labor which sought not only to benefit electorally from the upheaval, but also to contain working-class discontent by promising legislative changes to quell the unrest. Through its ties to organised labour, the ALP was able to position itself as the party best equipped to negotiate industrial harmony. |
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The article concludes by positing a number of factors that might have shaped union capacity to influence the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party (FPLP) during this period, including union density, the labour movement's level of confidence and independence in a period of economic buoyancy, and the broader political climate. |
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The ALP, the Whitlam Opposition and Rising Class Struggle | |
| Being in opposition can expose the ALP to more radical influences from unions and extra-parliamentary bodies whose impact when the party is in power – and more subject to the conservative pressures of commercial interests, the media and the public service – is likely to be considerably less.1 The Whitlam Labor Government's more abrasive relationship with unions thus stands in considerable contrast to that of the Whitlam Opposition.2 For this reason alone, the FPLP's response to the growing workplace unrest between 1967–72 provides an interesting case study, and it also challenges the revisionist history of the Whitlam Opposition, much of which is sanitised of class and radical politics.3 |
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