By Chow Wei-Cheng
The ACTU has been threatening to call a national strike over the federal government's proposed changes to superannuation.
The Howard government, following the trajectory set by the ALP, has mooted increasing from 55 to 60 the age at which workers can gain access to their superannuation benefits.
In addition, last year's budget contained a measure to allow workers earning $450-$900 per month to opt out of compulsory super and instead receive their super entitlement in cash. This measure is also opposed by the ACTU and will be part of the general campaign against the changes on the grounds that in the switch employers may opt out of paying that entitlement altogether.
ACTU president Jenny George has called on unions to seek member approval for a national stoppage around the retirement age issue. This would be part of a strategy of lobbying the Democrats and independents in the Senate.
If that failed, a new claim would be lodged in the Industrial Relations Commission for a 9% increase in award rates to compensate for lost super benefits.
Any attempt to increase to 60 the age at which workers can access their super is likely to go hand in hand with lifting the retirement age. Such a move, along with increasing restrictions to social security and a high rate of long-term unemployment, will put downward pressure on wages and conditions for low and middle income earners nearing retirement age.
However, we should be suspicious of the ACTU's real reasons for opposing the change that would allow workers earning less than $225 a week to take their super entitlement in cash.
The former ALP government, in the era of enterprise bargaining, needed to create a new role for unions, given that their role in organising struggles to defend wages and conditions would be diminished. They found that role as administrators of industry super funds. The ACTU, in its new role as a financial institution, seems worried about less money coming under its management.
Brian Toohey, writing in the February 25 Financial Review, pointed out: "If the ACTU really thought it was crucial for the poor to make super contributions, it would be better off campaigning for a subsidy — possibly one that could be repaid as incomes rose. The subsidy could easily be funded by diverting a minor part of the budgetary spending on tax breaks to super which remain heavily biased towards the well off."
The ACTU's concern that workers opting to take their super in cash would not be paid at all is also hypocritical. The whole basis of super under Labor was a deferral of wage rises under the Accord (which were lower than productivity gains) and the replacement of the old age pension by a self-funded scheme. Both of these represent a reduction in living standards which the ACTU supported.
To prevent an increase in the age that workers can access their super and prevent attempts to increase the retirement age, what is needed is not another Clayton's campaign to lobby the Democrats and independents. That strategy failed miserably in stopping the Industrial Relations Act and the budget.
Instead we can look to the recent struggles in France against increases in the retirement age and access to retirement benefits, which, by mobilising hundreds of thousands of workers, forced the government to retreat.