Australia’s Labor Movement Has Abandoned Unemployed Workers

Last March, the Australian union movement hosted a forum in Melbourne on climate-industry policy. Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) president Michele O’Neil set the tone in her opening address. Pointing to the “twin challenges” of the climate crisis and growing inequality, O’Neil declared, “It’s time for a bold new approach, one that puts workers and communities at the heart of transition by embracing a strong role for government.” The “macroeconomic meekness” of successive federal governments, she said, must end. “Our purpose,” she continued, “is to reach net zero by 2050, establish Australia as a world leading exporter of embodied decarbonization, and create one million new secure, safe union jobs in the process.”

It might sound impressive. But this impression vanishes once you take into account the fact that the ACTU’s position is to the right of the business-led Energy Efficiency Council, which last year called for the creation of two million new jobs by 2050 to support a clean economy. And compared to the number of people looking for work, O’Neil’s goal falls dramatically short. According to government figures, there are 3.3 million people either unemployed, underemployed, or part of the “hidden unemployed,” namely, those who want to work but have given up looking.

The ACTU’s tepid economic vision is part of the unions’ broader accommodation to the Albanese Labor government’s austerity agenda. Labor’s last two federal budgets recorded surpluses of $22 billion and $9.3 billion respectively, and the former was the largest ever in money terms. Despite a historic cost-of-living crisis, they faced no meaningful opposition from within the union movement.

For Australia’s growing population…