Union leaders regain their place in the sun

After a decade in the cold, organised labour is again being courted by the nation's top politicians. MATHEW DEARNALEY reports.

Unionists are revelling in their regained place in the political sun, as the nation's leaders parade before them to shore up support for a second term in office.

After years of being snubbed by National, the Council of Trade Unions found itself lavished with attention and praise from the Beehive at its three-day biennial conference in Wellington.

Helen Clark was warmly received as the first Prime Minister in a decade to venture into the citadel of industrial labour, before appealing for the continuing support of unionists to ensure Government policies can be bedded in.

When Jim Bolger faced up to a CTU conference in 1991, on the heels of his Government's benefit cuts and union-busting legislation, he ran a gauntlet of rowdy protests outside - and once inside had to swallow almost an hour of sermonising before being allowed to speak.

He at least thanked the unionists for taking a constructive approach in receiving him, and promised talks with the CTU.

But neither he nor his successor, Jenny Shipley, were invited back, as collective pay bargaining collapsed into one-on-one contracting and union membership fell by half to just over 300,000.

The CTU's support for the Labour-Alliance Government at next year's polls goes without saying, with the union movement preparing to use its organising skills and modestly rising membership for maximum leverage.

But this year's final conference resolution included a clause promoted by the National Distribution Union urging big Government investments in health, education and other public infrastructure while developing a more progressive tax base.

This follows concern about industrial action by the likes of teachers and nurses, whose employers are pleading poverty.

The conference saw none of the divisive debate between Labour and Alliance supporters which dissipated energy at CTU summits before the parties agreed in 1998 to join forces to bury National.

Alliance chief Jim Anderton and Greens Party co-leader Rod Donald received cordial welcomes, although Mr Donald was unable to say whether his party's continuing support for the Government would extend to a formal coalition.

Helen Clark embraced a key conference theme in welcoming the CTU's intention to broaden its campaigning from purely industrial issues to improving the lives of people outside work. Unions were important social partners in the nation's life "and it is clear you have picked up that mandate and are running with it", she said.

The CTU wants workers to "get a life", and will launch a campaign under that slogan early next year to curb excessive working hours and other pressures, now that unions have won recognition under the Employment Relations Act.

Delegates backed a bid to restore a balance between work and life, and "resist the culture which promotes work to the exclusion of family and community values".

CTU president Ross Wilson told the Prime Minister of their wish for a society "where we can all have a life - not simply as work automatons".

The CTU will spend coming months working out a bargaining strategy of common claims such as flexible working hours, family leave and job sharing.

Mr Anderton welcomed the role of unions in steering groups aimed at developing industries such as timber and textiles, although he acknowledged that some policymakers were having difficulty coming to terms with their status "as an integral part of the future economic development of New Zealand".

Another theme that ran strongly through the conference was reunification, following the return to the CTU of the distribution union and others such as the hard-line Trade Union Federation.