The Union Official as Pastoral Carer

By Brendan Byrne

Union officials and ministers of religion have much in common, if only because both roles can be intensely pastoral.

We often see human beings at their very worst, and our reward is that we sometimes see humans at their very best. And it's the small victories, the apparently insignificant outcomes that mean so much to the recipients, as well as the glimpses of human spirit amid what would otherwise be a welter of misery, that sustains life and hope.

Carl Sagan's description of science as "a collaborative enterprise spanning the generations" is a great view of the union movement. The Howard Government's so-called Workchoices" legislation poses a great threat to the intergenerational enterprise of trade unionism. But I have a sense of hope--no, an expectation--that the threat will be defeated. Not because of any dogmatic conviction; just the simple knowledge that young people are still prepared to plunge themselves into the trauma ward of industrial relations, so that they--or those who come after them--may see the far side of some new horizon.

Eureka Street vol. 16, no 15 17th October 2006.