“We must maintain our current market share of 54% publicly owned generating capacity when we transition to renewable assets” – Peter Ong, ETU Qld/NT Secretary about the Queensand government’s energy plan.
There was a time when 100% of Queensland generating capacity was publicly owned. This makes sense because electricity is an essential service for the maintenance and quality of human life.
The rot set in when governments started privatizing energy production. Dick Williams (former ALP President and ETU secretary) and Bob Hendricks (former ETU Qld Secretary and National President) speak about the 1985 SEQEB dispute when contract labour was introduced. This spelt a path toward privatisation of the electricity industry and a lowering of maintenance of the grid.
Bob Hendricks told Queensland Speaks “to some extent to the ETU’s shame, because we didn’t play that good a role in it; as we had a touch of arrogance at the start”. They had called on a blue without thinking through the reaction of the Qld government. Minister Lester, the clown head of Employment and Industrial Affairs, under orders from Joh, sacked the entire workforce. They wanted to cheapen electricity to businesses.
BOB HENDRICKS (former Qld ETU Secretary and National President of ETU speaks on SEQEB dispute:
Contract Labour
The 1985 SEQEB dispute in Queensland was the first major industrial dispute over contract labour in Australia. During that period in the 1980s, the Hawke/Keating Labour government sacked the pilots; de-registered the Builders Labourers Federation (BLF); left meatworkers high and dry at Mudginberri by not repealing secondary boycott legislation in the Trade Practices Act; allowed workers to lose their jobs in the Dollar Sweets dispute in Victoria. These tragic industrial events led to other defeats for workers and their unions. Later 1998 the MUA faced the Cobar option exercised by Chris Corrigan and were sacked across the board. Even though they won in the High Court, half the jobs were lost and important conditions and wages were taken from workers.
Read what two union bosses had to say about their role in it.
Bob Hendricks on SEQEB (transcript)
In the 80s, the ETU was involved, not just involved, it was at the center of the SEQEB dispute as it became known and which is, to some extent to the ETU’s shame, because we didn’t play that good a role in it; as we had a touch of arrogance at the start, as did the premier of Queensland at that time, a little more than a touch I’d suggest in his case; but some people felt that we could take him on. And I felt at that time that that was a rather foolish, that would have been better keeping our powder dry.
Nevertheless, I was the assistant secretary of the Union, and I was heavily involved and did my utmost for those people. But it took its toll on the union, it took its toll on union membership, it took its toll on the labour movement, that dispute … it was a very bad dispute. And the true history of it will probably never be written. Because the books that have been written so far aren’t, I don’t think close to the truth at all.
But all I I’d say … because I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone, either, whose might be dead. Now, that doesn’t matter. I still, I’ll take it to the grave with me if people are good people and they might have … could have done a bit differently. But I believe that our dispute was for the very correct reasons. It was all right. It was it was very sound, but it was just the wrong time. And there’s both sides were, I think, just as guilty … to some extent.
Having said that, we moved on from that and that I am obviously a company director these days, and I understand that you cannot trade insolvent, but the union was trading insolvent, we’re in really deep financial trouble. I hesitate to use that word, but I have to because I was the only sort of bastard around at that time that they needed, who would be hard enough with the other officials, and to do the things that were necessary that is to drive both sides of the balance sheet to make sure that the union would become viable again.
I’m very proud that I was only the fourth secretary of the union in Queensland and I was in fact the first national president of the Union to come from Queensland. But though … my time was spent it was a very hard time and we didn’t make a lot of ground industrially because we had to recover so much ground and what I did achieve was to get the union well and truly back into the black (Sue Yarrow: which would have been a real challenge). And to this day, it that still paying off for the union because I had some great investments that I got going and got a good return out of them.
Ironically, one of the best investment decisions ever made was to put a lot of the union’s money into a Victorian government bond. And Jeff Kennett (Liberal Premier of Victoria) used to send me money every six months to run the union.
Interview with Dick Williams by Howard Guille and Ross Gwyther
The SEQEB dispute was about the use of contractors. A SEQEB document fell off the back of a truck and clearly stated that they were going to contract out all new line work. The dispute started just before Christmas 1984. We declared a truce over Christmas, and then the moment the action started again in January, it was on for young and old and we were in and out of the Industrial Commission. Anybody who lived through it knows how chaotic the State was — the place was shut down. The other unions were supporting us magnificently, particularly initially after the 1,002 were sacked.
The Transport Unions had blockades on the state, the Telecommunications Unions, the Postal Unions had blockades on all Government telephones and mail and we had the power wound down in the power stations to critical levels. There was power rationing for weeks on end, all of that was happening, but equally, at the same time, there was a raft of legislation rolled out that was probably the first taste of real anti-union legislation in Australia’s history.
The Continuity of Supply Act made it illegal for us to be on strike or any worker in the electricity industry to be o strike. It made it illegal to picket — it had fines and jail terms for all of that. Union officials could be fined and potentially jailed for inciting people to take industrial action. It was the first wave of legislation that allowed scab unions to be set up. The Queensland Power Workers Association, which was a scab union set up to do over the ETU and the other electricity unions, was sponsored solely and wholly by SEQEB, at the taxpayers’ expense. Supported by one of the registered unions by the way, but that’s another story.
All of the things that Howard did in 2007, and then some, were done in 1985 in Queensland. People don’t understand that today, especially the younger people.
What lessons do you draw from the SEQEB dispute?
This is where the political side of things is so important, you can fight as much as you like industrially for wages and conditions, but unless you’ve got real political power, you can never deliver what we deserve and what workers really deserve. That’s certainly my philosophy. I saw it first hand with the SEQEB dispute. We got belted. The union and the members of the ETU who were in the middle of that dispute, were absolutely belted by a government who was hell bent on destroying the union and they almost succeeded.
What was the political response?
Neal Kane (ETU boss) and the ETU had placed people into parliament who were good trade unionists and never forgot where they came from. Kenny Vaughan and Nev Warburton in particular, were both ex-Assistant Secretaries of the ETU and became Ministers in the first Goss Labor Government in 1989. Now as luck would have it, Kenny Vaughan turned up as Minister for Mines and Energy and Nev Warburton turned up as Minister for Industrial Relations.
So, within a matter of weeks, days in some respects, some of SEQEB outcomes were redressed. With the redrafting of the industrial legislation, we were brought back into the mainstream. The sacked SEQEB workers had their superannuation entitlements reinstated — though some people were never found; those that wanted to go back to SEQEB, could go back to SEQEB though not many of them took them up on that. The writs hanging over the heads of power station operators were cancelled.
None of this was perfect. In the minds of the ETU officials of the time and in the minds of the sacked people, it has never been resolved. We are still at war as far as we’re concerned. We never got it all back, and, to my mind and to the mind, I think of every other organiser or official in the ETU who went through that dispute, it is still not over. That’s how raw that nerve is within some of us.
Even so, because we were able to change a government, we could redress some of the excessive force and coercion used to crush a bunch of workers in an industrial dispute. It taught me a great political and industrial lesson. It taught me, on the industrial side, that if you’re gonna take on a government, you’ve got to be prepared to fight to the death. It’s as simple as that. And the chances of beating governments if a government is really, really, really determined to do you over, are pretty negligible. On the other hand, it also taught me that to deliver what workers are entitled to in our society; we need to have governments that support the working class, not governments that are just supportive of the employers and the like.
How did the ETU change after SEQEB?
Prior to the SEQEB dispute, the ETU had a bit over 8,000 financial members in Queensland. We had roughly a $1 million in the bank or thereabouts, sorry tell a lie, we didn’t have a $1 million in the bank, we had bought a floor of the Trades Hall that was worth about a $1 million, and we had several hundred thousand dollars in cash. When we finished the SEQEB dispute, or when some people called it over in late ’85 – early ’86, the union was about $2 million in debt and our membership had slipped to about 6,250.
Bob Hendricks was Secretary from ’87 to 2001. He built us back up to where we had significant funds in the bank. I think around $2 or $3 million when I became the Secretary. Our membership peaked at 8,500 to 9,000 just prior to Howard’s election win in ’96. We were on a downhill slide like all other unions from ’96 to 2001. From 2001 to 2009, our membership went from, I’ll never forget this number, 7,771 on the day I took over and it was 11,868 when I went out the door in 2009.
I wouldn’t say the ETU was gun shy from ’87 to 2001 but we used to pick our disputes judiciously and we were not a campaigning union, I’ll say it that way. We changed from 96-97 when Howard was elected. This really kicked in from 2000 onwards. We became a proper campaigning union and set out to do a number of things. One was to lift the wages and conditions of electrical workers in Queensland especially pay which had fallen against electricians across the country and against other trades within Queensland particularly in the Building and Construction area.
Over the four bargaining campaigns from 2001 to 2007, we increased wages by about 40%. Now timing’s everything in life; we were helped because there was a lot of work on; Lang Park was being done and that was where we got the 36-hour week.
Interview with Dick Williams by Howard Guille and Ross Gwyther (full text)
Ian Curr
14 Oct 2022