The Prices and Incomes Accord between the Hawke and Keating Labor governments and the ACTU is to this day held up by union leaders like the ACTU's Sally McManus as a fantastic achievement. They argue that it staved off neoliberalism and lifted workers' living standards. An honest account, however, shows that the Accord was a disaster for the union movement. Not only did it cut wages but it gutted workplace union organisation as union leaders squashed union militancy. Strikes collapsed and union coverage fell dramatically. This talk explains why the class collaboration at the heart of the Accord did so much damage to the working class in Australia.

OTHER SESSIONS IN THIS STREAM

• The Communist Party of Australia and the Unions in the 1940 and 1950s

• Shop Committees, Bureaucracies and radical workers in the the flood tide 1968-75