'Your Rights at Work' campaign: Australia's 'most sophisticated political campaign'

Abstract

The Australian labor movement faced an unprecedented challenge to trade union and workers' rights when the conservative coalition government introduced the Work Choices legislation in 2005. The unions' Your Rights at Work campaign became the most significant political campaign mounted by a non-party political group in Australian history for its blend of television advertising, mobilizing and grassroots organizing, web-based campaigning and televised national days of protest. The unions' strong campaign influenced public opinion powerfully against the laws, and in response the government mounted a fierce attack on the legitimacy of unions as 'bullies' and unrepresentative of ordinary working people. The contest had high stakes for the future of unions in Australia and for the 2007 federal election. This article examines the unions' campaign strategies, with a particular focus on their use of information communication technologies. It argues that the significance of the campaign was its hybrid nature, combining innovative media-based campaigning with traditional organizing through communities. The campaign was a major influence over people's votes and the Australian Labor Party's victory in the November election.