A-Infos (en) Australia, AnComFed: Picket Line - Members first or members control? (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The United Workers Union leadership election (and why it didn't really 
matter) ---- Back in June, the United Workers Union (UWU) wrapped up a 
hotly contested election for its National Convention. The UWU is one of 
the biggest unions in the country, with 150,000 members in dozens of 
industries, including warehousing, hospitality, aged care, and early 
childhood education.

Two tickets pitched themselves to members. 'United for You', led by 
union president Jo Schofield, ended up winning with a slim majority. But 
they faced a serious challenge from a group calling itself 'Members First'.

Members First had a slick campaign and some of what they had to say 
sounded pretty good: Less focus on the Labor Party, no backroom deals 
without delegates present, and more money for strike funds and organisers.

But despite its name, and what some on the Left claimed during the 
campaign, Members First was no rank-and-file movement. The ticket was 
the project of UWU's national secretary, Tim Kennedy, and was run with 
very little member involvement.

The election, then, was a factional battle between sections of the 
officialdom, and the parts of the Labor Party they align themselves with.

Two sides, same coin
The UWU was founded as a merger between the National Union of Workers 
(NUW) and United Voice (UV) in 2019. The forces behind the two election 
tickets can be traced back to the separate unions.

United for You represented the UV wing. The ticket's campaign carried on 
their faction's tradition of prioritising political lobbying over 
industrial organising. Under their model, unionism is a kind of 
'service' that members sign up for: legal advice and other perks are 
provided by the staff of the union in exchange for dues.

The NUW, on the other hand, placed more emphasis on traditional 
industrial organising, in industries like warehousing, logistics and 
food manufacturing. The leadership of the Members First campaign came 
from the NUW faction, and their election promises - more organisers, 
support for delegates, the occasional serious strike - reflect their own 
priorities.

The NUW approach, and the promises of Members First, might look pretty 
good at first glance. But the two strategies aren't as far apart as they 
seem.

The empowerment of members promised by Members First was incredibly 
limited, and largely focussed on 'transparency'. Even the promised 
strike funds were a fraction of the union's actual resources. Members 
weren't engaged in democratic structures as part of the campaign, and 
very few attended election events.

Members First wasn't an example of organisation from below-it was an 
advertising campaign, controlled from above.

Power to the rank-and-file?
Despite the hundreds of thousands spent on campaigning by both sides, 
only 31% of members actually voted. Neither ticket mobilised members in 
a genuinely democratic or militant way, because, ultimately, both want 
to maintain the power of the officials and their links with the Labor Party.

Throwing money at an election isn't how you build the confidence, 
militancy, or participation of members. On paper, Members First may have 
been a marginally more militant ticket. But had they somehow managed to 
win, they would still be in the exact same position as their United For 
You opponents.

Without a real, well-organised rank-and-file movement, with power based 
in workplaces, the officials are left balancing between members, the 
bosses, and their mates in the ALP. With all the power on the bosses 
side, and pressure from the government to keep members in line, they 
have every reason to settle for bad deals.

The only people that can really put members first are the members 
themselves. To win democratic control over our union, we have to get 
organised at the level of the rank-and-file

No saviours from above
The UWU election was a fight for control of the National Convention, a 
body of 500 which then elects the day-to-day managers of the union. 
Rather than elect Convention delegates by industry or workplace, members 
are grouped together by the electorate they live in.

This system was designed to entrench the power of the Executive and 
prevent an alternative base of power forming among specific groups of 
workers on the shopfloor.

Still, there are industry specific structures for parts of UWU's 
coverage (farms, early childhood education, logistics etc.) Delegates 
and other members should use these to make connections with each other 
and facilitate democratic decision making. These structures can be used 
to pull the leadership in behind members' actual demands, or push beyond 
the leadership entirely.

Connections between workers elected from the shopfloor would be the 
basis for genuine member control. Where these structures don't function 
democratically, or in industries like hospitality, where they don't 
exist, we have to build them: shop by shop, street by street, suburb by 
suburb.

Only a real rank-and-file movement, based on democratic rank-and-file 
groups, can make a clean break from the Labor Party and embrace militant 
industrial action. This would have been true even if Members First had won.

No faction fight is going to bring the change we need, because saviours 
never come from above. We, the members, are the union. And it's our job 
to make it a fighting one.

https://ancomfed.org/2026/08/members-first-or-members-control/
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