Bert Kelly, “The dinosaurs progress,” The Bulletin, March 26, 1985, p. 140.

Because I have been writing so much about Bruce, our industrial relations dinosaur, I received an invitation to visit him in his stall in the Living In the Past City. My guide was one of his minders from the Industrial Relations Club.

Bruce was in fine fettle, with his coat fairly gleaming. He seems unconcerned about all the industrial relations disasters overwhelming us ordinary citizens of the Rough Cruel World (RCW).

I don’t think his minders tell him about our troubles, lest the news upset him. After all, he is over 80 and getting a bit tetchy. So he just chews his cud contentedly, remembering the nice things that Justice Higgins said about him in 1904, and looks with affectionate admiration at the motto ornately inscribed on the wall of his stall. It resembles proverbs I saw in the bedrooms of my more ancient relatives when I was a kid, such as “The Lord is my refuge and strength” or “I need thee every hour.” However, Bruce’s proverb was more plebeian; it read, “All the way with CWJ.”

When I saw this, I felt that I might be intruding into Bruce’s private life and that the message might have had a romantic origin (though it is hard to imagine a Miss Dinosaur lurking in Bruce’s background when we know that dinosaurs are extinct, all except poor Bruce). But his minder told me that the CWJ referred to “comparative wage justice,” to which Bruce is dedicated.

Then I remember what Simon Crean, the senior vice-president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, said at the Australian Outlook Conference:

We have to operate in the real world, conditioned by institutional factors — including the fact that comparative wage justice is firmly entrenched in the Australian wage structure.

As CWJ is so very dear to both Bruce and Crean, we should have another look at it.

Lest you think that my interest in the stifling influence that the CWJ policy has had on our economic performance is only academic theory dreamed up by Eccles, I shall spell out the difference between American and Australian behaviour if an industry is in trouble and may have to close down.

Lead has been as cheap in the United States as it has been here and, late last year, it seemed that three large mines there would have to close. But negotiations between the union and the companies hammered out agreements that run for 42 weeks and included wage cuts of $1.21 an hour with “no strike” guarantees.

How would we have tackled a similar situation in Australia?

The first problem would have been to prevent our union leadership regarding it as an opportunity to continue fighting to class war of long ago.

And, even if they wanted to be as cooperative as the American union — even if they were willing to cut corners to keep the sick industry on its feet — a similar deal would have been impossible.

CWJ demands that the award rate for similar classes of work must be the same all over the country and in all industries. This would prevent such cooperative behaviour. So, our industry would have to close down.

With this experience in the back of my mind, I keep having another of my wretched nightmares. In it, old Bruce is leading a compact group of his followers along the road to the RCW. Bruce walks very slowly, considering each step deeply. His followers have to keep strictly in step, as CWJ demands. As they creep along, they chant in dead slow time a funeral dirge entitled, “We shall not be moved.” They also drag along in the dirt behind them an effigy of the Australian dollar.

Every now and again, Bruce has to stop to have a think and then one of the company takes the opportunity to make a resounding speech about the class war, and blows fiercely on the dying embers of the past. Then, after Bruce has chewed his cud and everyone has had a nice rest, the column sets slowly off again — strictly in step, of course.

Soon, they are passed by a chattering and argumentative group of American workers who are puzzled as to why Bruce’s battalion is going so slowly. Bruce’s people explain that they have to go slowly so that everyone can keep in step, even the slow ones. They go on to explain that Mr Crean says that CWJ is very firmly entrenched in our wage structure.

The Americans listen to all this talk impatiently and then trot off, holding high their dollar banner. They seem much happier than Bruce’s people. They have probably heard that, during the past five years, American employment has risen by 5 percent while union membership has fallen by 13 percent.

Bruce frowns a little and stops chewing his cud as they disappear into the distance and then resumes his placid plodding and his people keep perfect step. But they never seem to get far.