Some things to think about with Morrison's announcement today. Is a new Accord or agreement between government, unions and industry such an easy thing to put together?

Is there really a 'national interest' in these sorts of things, in the way people talk about? Or are the interests of big business and workers always different? In arriving at decisions, will it not be about certain interests winning outover others?

ACTU secretary, Sally McManus, said the unions would measure any changes “on the benchmarks of: will they give working people better job security and will they lead to working people receiving their fair share of the country’s wealth?" (thanx Guardian blog)

Jennifer Westacott, Business Council of Australia, says that current workplace laws and conditions are “too complicated...It is too hard to get enterprise agreements done...There are too many things in them ... we have multiple clauses.” (Guardian blog)

There is not some mid point between those two positions. They are expressions of fundamentally different, counterposed interests.

Labor’s Tony Burke, the shadow minister for industrial relations, says he has “an open mind” about changes to industrial relations laws (Guardian blog). That language should be a big worry for the ACTU.

Accords/social contracts are, fundamentally, introduced to hold down wages — and use loyalty to the nation (ideas of the national interest) to do it. They are about the state (and often the state with business) imposing things on labour and making them pay for the crisis.

The ALP-ACTU Accord of 1983-1996 suppressed wages, halted industrial action, and disorganised rank and file workers. It also moved in more and more conservative direction over time as unions became weaker. It also helped facilitate the advance of neoliberalism.

Not everyone will want to read my book, but there needs to be real soul searching on the part of union leaders who believe the hype that the Accord was the halcyon days of the union movement.

That said, in 1983 over 50% of workers were members of a union. Today it is around 14%, with the private sector much lower at around 9%. Some industries are virtually un-unionised. Accord 2.0 (if it eventuates) can not be a re-run. Unions do not have the same social weight.

AND, what happens from here will not only be up to union leaders, but what workers do.