Julia Gillard slaps down union heavies

Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes and president Bill Ludwig on the Gold Coast. Picture: Jack Tran Source: The Australian

Ms Gillard last night ordered union leaders to be more respectful to employers after Australian Workers Union leaders Paul Howes and Bill Ludwig declared war on mining giant Rio Tinto and then attacked Dr Emerson for suggesting they moderate their language.

Her comments came amid cabinet anger at the AWU outburst, with Resources Minister Martin Ferguson, a former ACTU president, passionately defending Rio and warning the union it would not lift membership numbers until it understood the "complexity" of the economy and the need to work with business.

And Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, whose prime ministership was terminated last year when Mr Howes and Mr Ludwig switched their support to Ms Gillard, savaged the pair as "factional thugs" who were letting down their union members.

But Wayne Swan, an AWU member who lavished praise on Mr Howes and Mr Ludwig earlier this week, did not return The Australian's request for comment for a second day, sparking opposition charges of cowardice.

On Tuesday, Mr Howes used a speech at the AWU national conference on the Gold Coast to claim monkeys could to a better job of running Rio than its executives. Mr Howes vowed his union was going to "take on" the company, and accused its chief executive, Tom Albanese, of "sucking the blood of blue-collar workers".

On Wednesday, Dr Emerson, a former economic adviser to Bob Hawke, said he would not have used such language and preferred co-operation to conflict.

Yesterday, Mr Ludwig told the union conference that the minister was a rat.

Revealing that Mr Hawke had once prevailed upon him to look after Dr Emerson, Mr Ludwig said: "The honourable Craig Emerson is a misnomer."

Mr Ludwig said the union did "look after Dr Emerson. And what did he do? He ratted on us," he said, in an apparent reference to Dr Emerson's refusal to accept AWU orders that he back Kim Beazley over Simon Crean in a leadership ballot in 2003.

Mr Howes said that while Mr Hawke as prime minister changed the lives of working people, "I am pretty certain that Craig Emerson has never negotiated a pay increase for anyone in his life other than himself".

Last night, amid growing anger from Labor ministers, Ms Gillard split from her factional sponsors.

"I reject out of hand the criticisms of Minister Emerson that were made at the AWU conference," the Prime Minister told The Australian.

She said she understood the passion of the union leaders but believed employees, employers and unions needed "to work together in an environment of mutual respect".

"I think everyone should have a Bex and a good lie down," she said

Mr Ferguson said unions had made mistakes in the past, citing their behaviour during the Robe River dispute of the 1980s, and needed to "move on" to make themselves attractive to working people. "The labour movement's sabre-rattling is not going to win the hearts and minds of workers and their families," Mr Ferguson told The Australian.

"People will not come back to the union movement unless the union movement understands the complexity of the economy in which we exist, and is capable of not only working with management but also catering to their industrial needs of members."

Mr Ferguson also defended Rio Tinto, which he said employed 20,000 Australians "more often than not on wages and conditions far in excess of what ordinary Australians earn".

He said Rio had $9 billion worth of investment plans, was the nation's largest employer of indigenous Australians and had recently introduced a generous paid maternity leave scheme, including full pay for 14 weeks.

Mr Rudd leapt to the defence of Dr Emerson, who defied the caucus trend last year to oppose Ms Gillard's ascendancy.

The former prime minister said working families represented by the AWU wanted leaders to work for their basic interests, rather than behaving as "factional thugs".

In a shot at Mr Howes's decision to invite former Liberal Party official Michael Kroger to launch his book Confessions of a Faceless Man, Mr Rudd said: "They (AWU members) also expect better from their leaders - particularly those who spend their time constantly attacking ministers in a Labor government at the same time as they invite former presidents of the Liberal Party to launch their book. Also, this sort of thuggish behaviour is yet another throwback to the days of the unelected faceless men.

"Both the country and the Labor Party deserve a better future than this and individuals deserve having our mining companies pay more tax on their massive profits for the resources which are owned by the Australian people, but doing so through a rational process of negotiation with the government."

Regional Australia Minister Simon Crean, also a former ACTU chief, cautioned unions against returning to the "bad old days".

"The way forward is co-operation, not confrontation," Mr Crean said. "That was the clear message of the 80s and 90s, that is what established the foundation of our prosperity."

For the second consecutive day, the Treasurer would not comment. Opposition Treasury spokesman Joe Hockey said Mr Swan's silence was unsurprising, alleging the Treasurer was "glued" to the AWU.

"You'll never hear him say a word against the AWU," Mr Hockey said. "If he did, they would replace him with another former AWU boss - Bill Shorten."

At the AWU conference session yesterday, Mr Howes also hit out at unnamed Labor MPs who had criticised his attack on Rio in an article in yesterday's edition of The Australian.

Comparing the MPs to "scabs", Mr Howes vowed: "We will not be dictated to by the media, by the government, by the political class, by the boardrooms across this country in what we do."

The ACTU leadership and the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union yesterday threw their support behind the AWU campaign to unionise Rio Tinto's aluminium operations. Tony Maher, the national president of the CFMEU's mining division, said the AWU had his "full support in its battle against the shiny arses. It's our battle too."

ACTU secretary Jeff Lawrence said Rio Tinto Alcan "seems to be stuck in the dark ages of Work Choices" and "its behaviour has no place in the modern Australian workplace".

The ALP's national executive will receive the party's internal review into its last year's election performance today. Party elders senator John Faulkner and former premiers Bob Carr and Steve Bracks - who drafted the review - will present to the executive in Brisbane. It will then decide how much is made public.

There is speculation the review will be shelved until after next month's NSW election, where the Keneally Labor government is tipped to be defeated.