emerged in 2016<\/a> in opposition to the SDA. Without exaggerating, Hard Labour <\/i>appreciatively outlines the gains won by RAFFWU while also quoting the union\u2019s secretary, Josh Cullinan, extensively. This makes it clear that Schneiders is sympathetic to the idea that for unions to have a future, they will have to both maintain independence from the Labor Party machine and be willing to engage in industrial militancy.<\/p>\n\n \n \n
\n OK, so What Is to Be Done?<\/h2>\n \n
Despite everything that has gone wrong, Schneiders notes accurately that \u201cworkers are not storming the barricades\u201d and that \u201cmajor political change on inequality, for now, appears unlikely.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schneiders\u2019s proposed solutions are cautiously diverse and are clearly based on discussions he has had with various labor movement leaders, activists, and experts. It can at times be a little contradictory. For example, the reader is told that \u201cfundamental changes to the workplace relations system are required . . . to allow workers to build power from the ground up.\u201d At the same time, Schneiders also asserts that \u201cthe legal and industrial system shifting is often a manifestation of social and economic pressure, rather than the other way around.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another example of this confusion is from a union leader that Schneiders quotes who warns that it took revolutions to end the last gilded age \u2014 and then advocates for agricultural cooperatives. At one point, Schneiders himself proposes that Australia should emulate \u201cScandinavian societies,\u201d before suggesting later that richer unions like the CFMEU could just sell their assets to fund worker-owned companies.<\/p>\n
But these issues aren\u2019t the main point; Hard Labour<\/i> is not intended as a manifesto. And it\u2019s admirable that Schneiders expresses support for \u201ca slow rebuilding of activism, of ambition, of a broader project than just refining workplace law.\u201d<\/p>\n
It will be interesting to see what follows in mainstream publishing, now that the politely partisan Schneiders has let the cat out of the bag. We might see a flood of titles emulating his talking points. A more depressing possibility is Hard Labour<\/i> will become an outlier as most journalists and labor movement talking heads fall in silently behind the new Anthony Albanese government. In the end, however, the most important audience for Schneiders\u2019s book is the working people whose story he tells. In their hands, his suggestions could help lay the basis for a revival in union power.<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n\n \n
\n \n\n\n
This post was originally published on Jacobin<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ben Schneiders\u2019s recently released book, Hard Labour: Wage Theft in the Age of Inequality, is labeled \u201ca dispiriting story of the concentration of power and wealth.\u201d While true enough, it\u2019s also an undersell. Hard Labour is the first honest mainstream depiction of how big capital steals billions from ordinary Australians on a daily basis, aided [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1650,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859449"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1650"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=859449"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":859450,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859449\/revisions\/859450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=859449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=859449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=859449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}