No Power Greater: A History of Union Action in Australia

by Liam Byrne

Unions are making a comeback. Labour disputes around the world have hit the headlines as unions take action to challenge inequality. But while media coverage has increased, understanding of unions has not. In this lively history of Australian unionism Liam Byrne seeks to illuminate what unionism means, exploring why successive generations of working people organised unions and nurtured them for future generations. Foregrounding the pioneering efforts of women workers, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers, culturally and linguistically diverse workers, and LGBTIQA+ workers as central to the union story today, Byrne uses case studies of worker action and struggle to better understand the lived reality of unionism, its challenges, and its contribution to Australian life. No Power Greater is the compelling story of the acts of rebellion and solidarity that have shaped Australia's past and shows that unions are far from history.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Politics

312 pages, Paperback

Published May 14, 2024

Reviews

[silky]

I picked this up based off the recommendation of a friend (though I finished it before them, haha) and because I wanted to learn more about the history of unions in Australia. I remember as a kid I feel like I would always hear about strikes on the news, maybe because I was in school and it was often the teachers striking - so I wonder now, where has that momentum gone?

I found this to be very accessible with its writing, basing the chapters around certain figures will make readers relate to and connect to the cause, as well as making it easy to follow along with. I also appreciate that the author included many examples and chapters about women, Indigenous people and migrants to Australia - and even highlighted that while many rights were won, it was often at the expense of these people, white men will always put themselves first! Even so, there were many great examples of solidarity in the movement too and overall I found the book to be quite informative and inspiring.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent chronology of the blues that have shaped Australian workers, and the movement's stalwart defence of them. May the emotional community of unionism continue to prosper.

[Andrew Norton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a short and clearly written history of unions in Australia, with a focus on major developments. Several themes recur in a largely chronological narrative history.

Author Liam Byrne, who works for the union peak body the ACTU, sees unions as forces for the decommodification of labour. A regular claim is that poor wages and working conditions denied the humanity of workers - put in the same position as the 'cabman's horse', 'tired of being treated as slaves', lower wages for women a 'systemic denial of their humanity based on their gender', outworkers complaining that they were treated like machines or robots, dehumanising 'management by algorithm'.

While 'denial of humanity' is a melodramatic way of describing the situation of these workers, there is a real sense in which unions, backed by laws they promoted, put limits on labour transactions that protected the private time and personal safety of employees.

This however is not what modern unions do most of the time - they are agents of employees, haggling over the terms and conditions on which the commodities of employee time and skills are bought. Declining private sector unionisation has also meant that much industrial negotation is with goverments - often Labor governments backed by unions - rather than employer agents of capitalism.

There was, however, a significant period of 20th century Australian history when wages for many occupations were determined by non-market criteria (the history of this is chapter 4 of Byrne's book). The benchmark instead was the level of income needed for a male employee to support himself and his family. As Byrne notes, this 'embedded the gendered division of labour into the arbitration system'. Later chapters describe how women eventually won equal pay.

Another recurring theme is unions as 'emotional communities', groups with shared purposes, collective identities, and a willingness to make sacrifices for each others.

While union solidarity has been important to the union movement's effectiveness, it exists in tension with Byrne's third major theme, the union movement's sometimes slow progress towards conformity with late 20th/early 21st century views on race and gender.

Well into the second half of the 20th century, unions were for white, male, working class breadwinners - people with much in common. While Byrne says that unions reflected rather than created the 'racist and gendered imperial ideologies' of their founding era in the second half of the 19th century, they had a greater reason than employers to keep cheap Chinese labour out. Would women and men have been paid such different rates for the same job without a system of setting wages on political rather than market criteria? Outworker rates of pay were low, but did women and men get different rates?

While I have some reservations about this book, so far as I can recall there are no other recent histories of the union movement, so it is one for the shelves of people with a high interest in Australia political and economic history.

[Mark Cully · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book more than, for me at least, it transpired. The framing of union action around the "emotional community of unionism" was too forced in many instances, and its repetitive use throughout was jarring. The history properly elevates some union actions that have been missing from more general histories, but this comes at the cost of leaving out other important actions. And, while Byrne sets out at the start that the book was written independently of his day job at the ACTU, he is not an impartial observer. Yes, there is much to celebrate about what the union movement in Australia has helped to achieve, but there is a good deal of ugliness in its history that is hinted at, or ignored, in this account.

[Lee Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book offers vital context to any Australian, especially those of the working class, on what really is the foundation of our country. beyond that I believe there are some important learnings for international working people as well.

[Thomas Schembri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic. Makes me proud to be Australian.

[Joshua Winstanley · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book, shows the results unionism in Australia has achieved and how they make that change. Must read for every working class person in Australia

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recounts the trajectory of the union movement in Australia often by focusing on less typical perspectives.

The author feels the need in the early chapters to constantly reiterate the how the union movement
was dominated by colonial white men which became grating. He then goes on to say how its not the fault of the union movement for doing this as they were just reflecting the values of the society they were in. Which was a bit just yea odd choice.

The central theme of the book is how the "emotional community of unionism" continuously expanded to include all groups in Australian society. So his point I assume which, is to show how exclusionary it started as a contrast with how inclusive it became. Which is basically the trajectory of Australia generally speaking.

Overall enjoyable read.