Introduction

How have Australian trade unions attempted to influence public policy development? In analysing union influence on public policymaking during 1983–2013, we identify several distinct patterns of engagement by unions with the policy process during three very different political and policy environments. We see unions as ‘core insiders’ in the policymaking process under the Hawke– Keating Labor government (1983–96), as ‘outsiders of necessity’ under the Howard conservative Coalition government (1996–2007) and as a hybrid of ‘specialist insider groups’ and ‘outsider groups of choice’ under the Rudd–Gillard Labor government (2007–13). While these shifts in unions’ strategic orientation can be understood as responses to changes in the policy and political agendas of respective governments, they also reflect changes in the structure and organisation of – and strategic thinking within – the labour movement.

During the last 30 years, unions’ strategies differed markedly, as did their relationships with governments and their capacity to influence policymaking. Investigating three decades means that the account provided is somewhat schematic, but the benefit is that we are able to emphasise and, to some extent, explain the contingent nature of union orientation and influence. At various times in their history, some unions have sought to exercise influence over very wide areas of public policy. Here, however, we pay particular attention to policy in the field of industrial relations, for example, in relation to the system of wage fixing, but we attempt to incorporate union interventions across a broader policy landscape, such as labour market, economic and social policy.

To explain the nature of union influence over policymaking, we identify distinct, overarching strategic orientations in changing contexts. Among the various political science perspectives on the role of interest groups in the policymaking process, the nature of union engagement over the past 30 years is best understood in terms of the ‘insiders–outsiders’ framework developed by Grant (2000). We argue that while the environment in which unions operate is critical for understanding their strategic orientation, exogenous forces do not, solely, shape union action. Union ‘organisation’ – membership, intra-union relations, political and cultural focus and frames of reference, gender relations, and the like – plays a critical role in mediating union engagement with the policy process.