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egional labour councils have been involved in building labour–community coalitions. The case study of the South Coast Labour Council demonstrates that a regional labour council can engage in a broader make-up of lobbying partners than is generally recognised in the literature, which includes labour–community coalitions that are not geographically, politically or socially close. The South Coast Labour Council did not focus on employer opposition, as is usually the case with building labour–community coalitions, but rather, it focused on lobbying farmers to increase pressure on government officials for the siting of a grain terminal in Port Kembla, near Wollongong in the Illawarra region of NSW. It pursued broader aims of labour–community coalitions to include local employment generation.INTRODUCTION
The South Coast Labour Council (SCLC) is a regional peak union council of locally based trade unions in the Illawarra and South Coast regions of New South Wales. It had 45 affiliates during the lobbying and construction of the Grain Terminal (GT) project between 1983 and 1989, which were grouped under ‘metals’, ‘building trades’, ‘marine transport’, ‘public sector’ and ‘transport’. The SCLC was resourced through affiliation fees of member unions. It formed and utilised a labour–community coalition with farmers in the West and South-west of New South Wales to pursue local employment generation in the Illawarra region.
LABOUR–COMMUNITY COALITIONS AND REGIONAL LABOUR COUNCILS The concept of labour and community offers a wide area of research. Community is an important base for labour organisation, labour history, labour reproduction and working-class culture (see Labour and Community: Historical Essays 2001; Labour HistoryMay 2000; Australian Society for the Study of Labour History 1999).
The literature suggests that labour–community coalitions are specific form-ations, with a noteworthy distinction between labour–community coalitions
and trade union involvement in community issues. A labour–community coali-tion is distinguished by the circumstances where ‘. . . it is part of an explicit union strategy of seeking reciprocal community assistance in the pursuit of industrial objectives’ (Thornthwaite 1997, p. 248). Unions sometimes find it advantageous to align themselves with communities to achieve union goals by utilising community as a resource (or ally) in collective bargaining and as a source of union power (Thornthwaite 1997, pp. 244–6). Yet, reciprocity is important for community. Labour–community coalitions can be used to increased pressure on both employers and on government officials, with regional labour councils possibly playing a significant role.
Studies of unions explain that the roles of regional labour councils, and the national and State peak union bodies, are mobilisation, exchange and the social regulation of labour and commodity markets. Each of these roles evoke both political and industrial dimensions (Briggs 1999, pp. 28–9; Ellem and Shields 2001, pp. 65–6). Further, affiliates provide regional labour councils with ‘power for’ utilising their collective strength to pursue common interests through coordinating action, negotiating on their behalf, and providing support with strikes. Correspondingly, regional labour councils use ‘power over’ affiliates. The concepts of ‘power for’ and ‘power over’ are inter-related. Affiliates concede a degree of their autonomy, and, thereby, provide the peak council with ‘power over’ them, to provide ‘power for’ a united front (Brigden 2000, pp. 62–4).
Unions in the US and Australia have used labour–community coalitions in industrial campaigns over issues such as retrenchments and plant closures, with US examples also including threats of plant closures, relocations and employers gaining concessions from unions, labour and the state. The literature has covered labour–community coalition activity in a local area as in the United States hospital patient care example and, in one town, as in the examples of threatened retrenchment and retrenchment in Hammond, Indiana, United States and in Lithgow, Australia. Similarly, the literature has covered protests against possible retrenchment and retrenchment in multiple localities in rural Queensland, Australia (Craypo and Nissen 1993, pp. 8–17; Nissen 1993, pp. 210–6; Patmore 1997, pp. 219, 224–41; Thornthwaite 1997, pp. 244, 249–61). The range of responses to labour–community coalitions has included slowing or halting the planned retrenchments, workplace closures and declining services.
In the present case study, the SCLC mobilised the power of affiliates into collec-tive action to engage (or exchange) effeccollec-tively with governments to regulate the labour market in terms of generating local employment. The political dimension of mobilisation and exchange included mobilising its affiliates to organise farm-ers to assist it in lobbying governments. The affiliates gave up their autonomy in this case to the extent that they allowed the SCLC ‘power over’ them so as to coordinate lobbying actions from which all could benefit. The SCLC regulated the labour market by generating local employment.
PORTKEMBLA HARBOUR TASK FORCE
Its members consisted of representatives from Wollongong City Council (chairperson), University of Wollongong, SCLC, Waterside Workers’ Federation (WWF), Painters and Dockers union, stevedoring and transport industries, citizen members and professional staff of the Wollongong City Council attached to the executive committee. The major initiative of the PKHTF was to attract the construction of the GT to the Illawarra (Blakey 1984, p. 12; Markey 1988, pp. 21, 48; PKHTF 1985, p. 1).
The PKHTF lobbied many government and opposition members, and govern-ment authorities to pressure the state governgovern-ment’s Grain Handling Authority of New South Wales (GHA) to choose Port Kembla as the site on which to build a new grain terminal. As part of the PKHTF, the SCLC participated in lobbying government officials, but also believed that, for the most part, its energy was best directed towards lobbying wheat growers and, thereby, developing an active support network with the agricultural community. The support of farmers was critical as they were to pay a significant part of the cost of construction that was to be levied through the New South Wales Livestock and Grain Producers’ Association (LGPA; now known as New South Wales Farmers’ Association). It was considered that the farmers’ public preference for siting the GT at Port Kembla, rather than at alternative locations, would carry significant weight in the final decision, particularly for the state government that was keen on appealing to the rural sector (Blakey 1984, p. 3; Ginnane 1986, p. 3; Markey 1988, pp. 42, 48; SCLC 1986, p. 5).
LOBBYING PROCESS
Beginning in 1981, the New South Wales Government examined various options for increasing the capacity of existing grain handling sites and determining possible sites for the construction of a new terminal in New South Wales. Grain terminals were used to assemble cargoes of grain, primarily wheat, for shipment and to provide ship loading facilities. The commissioned Coopers and Lybrand Study of 1982 recommended eight options, but favoured an expansion of the Botany Bay site because it provided the lowest cost. The suggestion by the PKHTF of Port Kembla as a possible site was dismissed. However, lobbying by the PKHTF assisted in the decision of making it one of nine options. Subsequently, with further lobbying by the PKHTF, in February 1983, Coopers and Lybrand recommended Port Kembla as the ‘preferred option’, for achieving maximum cost-effectiveness. Yet, this recommendation depended on the agree-ment of the federal and state governagree-ments, and grain growers with the provision of funds. So, the PKHTF, which included the SCLC, continued with its intensive political campaign. It set out its case and met twice with the New South Wales Premier. It met several times with the Federal Government Ministers of Agriculture, Trade and Employment, National Farmers’ Federation Board, GHA, State Rail Authority, Maritime Services Board, LGPA Board and the Barley Marketing Board (Blakey 1984, p. 3; Blakey 1985, p. 3; Carmichael et. al. 1981, pp. 75–80; Gilpin 1985, p. 6).
industry as industrial relations at existing facilities. The SCLC and unions were aware that there would be resistance by farmers to the terminal being located at Port Kembla. In response, they raised with the farmers the misconceptions of the media and employers about the militancy of the area and, in particular, the maritime unions. In working with the PKHTF, the SCLC and unions offered a united union position to grain growers concerned with the GT project. They established that industrial relations, on the union side, at the Port Kembla GT would be managed by combined unions operating as one union and stoppages would only occur as a very last resort (Nixon n.d., p.2; Markey 1988, pp. 51, 64; PKHTF 1983a, p. 1, 1983b, p. 9).
In February 1983, the SCLC met with the LGPA and GHA in Port Kembla. A year later, the SCLC and PKHTF travelled to the wheat growing districts in Western and South Western New South Wales to promote Port Kembla as the site of a new grain terminal. In the tour, the SCLC argued that Port Kembla offered a better option than the two current terminals that were then in oper-ation at Balmain and Newcastle. It compared the operating times at Balmain, which were 8-hours-a-day with Port Kembla, which were 24-hours-a-day. The increased operating hours at Port Kembla were part of an agreement in 1982 between port management together with the SCLC and the WWF (Nixon 1986, pp. 2, 20; Nixon n.d., p. 2; Markey 1988, p. 37; PKHTF 1983a, p. 7).
Shortly after this intense lobbying by the SCLC and PKHTF, the state govern-ment announced in February 1984 that a new grain terminal would be built in Port Kembla. The relationship between the SCLC and the farmers continued and even grew, demonstrating that there was genuine goodwill between the two groups. In March 1984, a delegation from Port Kembla, including SCLC and port unionists, visited for three days as house guests of Eugowra LGPA members; visits were also organised to other areas in the central west of New South Wales, including Parkes, Forbes, Bathurst and Orange (Noble 1988, p. 37; PKHTF 1985, p. 6; PKHTF 1986, p. 1). Return visits to Port Kembla ensued. This time, LGPA members were houseguests of the SCLC and port unionists. The first of these visits, involving 18 guests, was for three-and-a-half days in October 1984. By 1986, the exchange of visits involved a larger number of representatives from both the farming community and the port unionists. These visits helped create strong organisational links as well as personal contacts between individuals and families (Nixon n.d., p. 2; Morton 1988, p. 31; PKHTF 1985, p. 6; PKHTF 1986, pp. 1–2).
CONCLUSION
The SCLC initiated and developed a labour–community coalition to lobby government for a grain terminal in the Illawarra. The relationship between the SCLC and the LGPA can be labelled a labour–community coalition as the liter-ature suggests that a reciprocal relationship is needed for such a characterisation. Indeed, the arrangement between the SCLC and LGPA did involve reciprocity. The SCLC gained an influential partner to assist in its lobbying for the siting of the grain terminal in Port Kembla to help generate local employment. This was in return for the LGPA gaining a partner that was receptive to its needs to have the grain terminal built and operational. Its negotiations with the SCLC provided it with a good working relationship with the unions, a single union position and the promise of minimal industrial disruption, which was fulfilled (Blakey 1985, p. 2).
The SCLC case illustrates that regional labour council participation in a labour–community coalition can take lobbying a step further than is usually recognised in the literature. The SCLC-farmer labour–community coalition covered a larger diversity of groups than has been suggested by the literature. It went beyond homogeneous or close-knit groups and spaces, whether they were geographically, politically or socially close as they are in local areas or single towns, which tend to be the focus of the literature. Instead, the SCLC-farmer labour–community coalition consisted of a relationship between diverse groups. This labour–community coalition was not focused on opposition to an employer in a situation of plant closure or retrenchment, as the literature usually suggests is needed for this formation. Instead, it was ultimately aimed at pressuring government officials to position the grain terminal in Port Kembla, for local employment generation purposes from the SCLC’s viewpoint and for industrial relations from the farmers’ viewpoint.
Rather than being reactive to threats, as in most such coalitions, this partic-ular labour–community coalition took the initiative to pursue a mutually beneficial goal.
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