Trade Unionists present in Labour Party Caucus!
I don’t know if you have noticed, but there is an odd little argument which seems to frequently pop up in the blogosphere. It goes something like this. The Labour Caucus has a lot of former Trade Unionists in it. Therefore, the Labour party is a Bad Thing, and ought not to be in government. Span has already blogged on this, and it got me to thinking. I think this is a very, very weird argument. The point of this post is not so much to say that unions are a Good Thing, (although I think they are, despite their problems) as to say that criticizing Labour for recruiting a large number of former union employees is just a bizarre and pointless thing to do, and doesn’t seem to show much analytical or political acumen.
First, it seems to ignore a really basic point about political parties. Political parties are actually coalitions of people with broadly similar views on how things ought to be. Of course parties are going to have large clumps of people with similar views and backgrounds, that’s the entire point of a party, to allow people to form a broadly consistent political programme, based on shared values. Can anyone imagine what a party that was totally representative of New Zealand would look like? Frankly it would be unable to agree any meaningful value framework, or political programme. So, of course people with broadly similar views are going to form parties. And it stands to reason that those parties are going to have clumps of people with similar backgrounds. That’s why the National party has clumps of businessmen and farmers, and lots of old white men, Labour has a lot of trade unionists and academics, and United Future has lots of middle aged white fundies!
Secondly, it’s an ad hominem argument. It always seems to me that when someone is unable to critique a policy or action itself, they just default to attacking the C.V of the person responsible for it. I guess it saves some time spent actually thinking about things, but it hardly makes for good or convincing argument. In any case, if the number of trade unionists really put Labour so far out of touch with the electorate, why does that electorate keep voting for them?
It also ignores something quite critical about the nature of trade unions, and to a lesser extent, teaching and academia. These professions do not simply attract a random sample of people, who then form a disproportionately large part of the Labour caucus. Rather, they attract people who already have an attraction to left-wing politics, and a desire to get involved in it. If one did not have fairly strong political beliefs, there is certainly much more money to be made elsewhere, so union work, teaching and academia are obviously going to attract a lot of people who are motivated by principle rather than cash money. Obviously there will be people who go into teaching or academia for other reasons, but the point is still valid. There will be more people who choose teaching or academia for reasons of left-wing principle, than other professions like accounting or tax law.
The people who go into union work especially do so because they want to put their left-wing principles into practice, and the unions are the main means by which one can do this, while still earning some money for essentials, like Laphroaig. It seems to me that anyone who has a commitment to left-wing politics probably has a pretty high chance of working for a union at some stage.
So Labour’s tendency to select from the unions is largely a reflection of the kinds of people who go into the union movement, and is not comparable to simply choosing any other profession to recruit from. Frankly the anti union argument seems to me to be a whinge that can be used as a fall-back when an actual argument based on principle or practicality would just be too hard.
I don’t know if you have noticed, but there is an odd little argument which seems to frequently pop up in the blogosphere. It goes something like this. The Labour Caucus has a lot of former Trade Unionists in it. Therefore, the Labour party is a Bad Thing, and ought not to be in government. Span has already blogged on this, and it got me to thinking. I think this is a very, very weird argument. The point of this post is not so much to say that unions are a Good Thing, (although I think they are, despite their problems) as to say that criticizing Labour for recruiting a large number of former union employees is just a bizarre and pointless thing to do, and doesn’t seem to show much analytical or political acumen.
First, it seems to ignore a really basic point about political parties. Political parties are actually coalitions of people with broadly similar views on how things ought to be. Of course parties are going to have large clumps of people with similar views and backgrounds, that’s the entire point of a party, to allow people to form a broadly consistent political programme, based on shared values. Can anyone imagine what a party that was totally representative of New Zealand would look like? Frankly it would be unable to agree any meaningful value framework, or political programme. So, of course people with broadly similar views are going to form parties. And it stands to reason that those parties are going to have clumps of people with similar backgrounds. That’s why the National party has clumps of businessmen and farmers, and lots of old white men, Labour has a lot of trade unionists and academics, and United Future has lots of middle aged white fundies!
Secondly, it’s an ad hominem argument. It always seems to me that when someone is unable to critique a policy or action itself, they just default to attacking the C.V of the person responsible for it. I guess it saves some time spent actually thinking about things, but it hardly makes for good or convincing argument. In any case, if the number of trade unionists really put Labour so far out of touch with the electorate, why does that electorate keep voting for them?
It also ignores something quite critical about the nature of trade unions, and to a lesser extent, teaching and academia. These professions do not simply attract a random sample of people, who then form a disproportionately large part of the Labour caucus. Rather, they attract people who already have an attraction to left-wing politics, and a desire to get involved in it. If one did not have fairly strong political beliefs, there is certainly much more money to be made elsewhere, so union work, teaching and academia are obviously going to attract a lot of people who are motivated by principle rather than cash money. Obviously there will be people who go into teaching or academia for other reasons, but the point is still valid. There will be more people who choose teaching or academia for reasons of left-wing principle, than other professions like accounting or tax law.
The people who go into union work especially do so because they want to put their left-wing principles into practice, and the unions are the main means by which one can do this, while still earning some money for essentials, like Laphroaig. It seems to me that anyone who has a commitment to left-wing politics probably has a pretty high chance of working for a union at some stage.
So Labour’s tendency to select from the unions is largely a reflection of the kinds of people who go into the union movement, and is not comparable to simply choosing any other profession to recruit from. Frankly the anti union argument seems to me to be a whinge that can be used as a fall-back when an actual argument based on principle or practicality would just be too hard.
4 comments:
another point would be that labour does have business people and farmers as MPs. How many trade unionists are currently national mps? or sociologists? or community workers?
I think you're right to say that no party can represent everyone; but I also think that labour represents a considerably broader church than national.
I agree Terence, that was the main point of my post, which Carl has graciously linked to in his.
DPF has countered on Jordan's post on the matter that the reason there are no ex-unionist Nat MPs is because there are a relatively small number of them nationwide. I'll try to find a link.
Quite right Terence, there are plenty of different types of people in the Labour caucus. I felt that was apoint Sapn and others had already made quite well, so i just wanted to focus on the other aspects of the argument =)
Yes, it is true that Labour is a broad church, so to speak, and is probably more reflective of 'mainstream' New Zealand than National. But there are challenges ahead. As some of our more experienced MPs move on we will need to ensure we maintain a good balance of skills, life experience, ideas and so forth.
The National Party's benchmark for selection seems to be success in the private sector. That can be one benchmark, but is not the only one. A coherent set of values, a history of work within a community, these are also things we should value.
Fundamentally politics is about ideas. We shouldn't get too hung up on what people have done before they enter politics. We should focus on what they stand for, what they think, and what they intend to do!
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