Douglas still flying the red flag

By DANIEL RIORDAN

The ruddy bloodhound face sprouts the sharpest of haircuts.

Grey checked slacks, grey open-necked shirt, and a stylish black carrybag emblazoned Neve Paris - could it be that Ken Douglas really has sold out to the ruling classes?

Don't bet on it.

The last of the big union bosses vows he's still a proud socialist, holding true to principles derived in large part from his grandmother and Karl Marx.

A Government-appointed director of the Trade Development Board, New Zealand Post and the Asia 2000 Foundation, Douglas two months ago joined Air New Zealand's board at the behest of chairman John Palmer.

His appointment drew obvious comments about a communist rubbing shoulders with members of the old boy network that runs corporate New Zealand, including managing director Ralph Norris - a former Business Roundtable chairman - but Douglas isn't fazed.

He sees the directorships as a continuation of the struggles for the wellbeing of the workers and the country.

"My work experience as a truck driver showed consistently that the people who know most about job solutions are on the ground, not - with due respect - some escapees from the university."

He maintains that a critical part of Air NZ's revival will be restoring goodwill and pride in the company, and its workers understanding they're part of that solution.

"What tipped me when I was asked by the chairman to join the board was my concern at all the negativity that was in the public domain on Air NZ, yet it's such a fine company.

"The challenge is going to be restoring the prestige of the airline and its financial stability - the sort of challenge I don't mind."

NZ Post's overseas expansion provides a chance to make use of the intellectual capital unleashed at great cost to workers by the reforms of the late 1980s - reforms which Douglas opposed.

His former union colleagues say Douglas' directorships aren't about recognising the union movement - though they're pleased a workers' advocate has made it to the inner sanctums - but rather an acknowledgment of Douglas' abilities.

He already had a Government gong before he left union office - membership of the Order of New Zealand, the country's highest honour - so he's no Johnny-come-lately to respectability.

Friends and adversaries alike say Douglas was always ahead of the play, blessed with the kind of analytical mind that could see where the economy was headed, which trends could be resisted and which simply had to be accepted.

"One of the reasons Ken is sought after for these boards is his great analytical brain and the breadth of his perspective, not just from working people," says PSA national secretary Paul Cochrane. "He understands decision-making, how organisations relate to unions, Government and the global economy, and their impact on the people who work for them."

Central Amalgamated Workers' Union assistant secretary Richie Gillespie says his mate of over 40 years has always been a realist, schooled in the university of life.

"It's good he's on these boards, good they've got a working-class attitude in there. He's smarter than most of them anyway."

A resident of Titahi Bay for almost 40 years, Douglas chairs the Porirua City Council's strategy committee and represents the council on the Wellington Regional Economic Development Agency. He also chairs Instep, a company that organises workplace drug and alcohol education programmes. Throw in his advisory role to the PSA and corporate consultancies and at 66 he's clearly enjoying a working "retirement".

Across the table at the PSA's Wellington headquarters, Douglas' conversation is punctuated by choppy movements of his meaty arms and hands, and though his heavy frame shakes frequently with laughter, most of the time Douglas leans forward in studied concentration - especially when he discourses his world view, with not an element out of place.

He misses a beat only once in two hours, when explaining the evolution of modern day capitalism and its three stages of technological evolution - something about technology devouring, displacing then enhancing labour - pauses for five seconds to regather his lines, then ploughs on.

Born in Lower Hutt to a family with strong union ties, Douglas' only real interests at Wellington College were cadets and rugby. His double failure to get School Certificate scuppered any chance of officer training, but he kept propping the scrum till he was 44.

"If it wasn't for my damn knees, I'd still be there."

His first job was as a trainee wool classer, but it was his nine months on the Wellington wharves that left the bigger mark, at a time when the union was still licking its wounds from the beating it took in the 1951 lockout.

Joining a local trucking firm, he worked his way through the Wellington Drivers' Union ranks to president in 1957. He joined the Communist Party in 1960 but left five years later to co-found the Socialist Unity Party.

He reached the top of the union movement in 1979 when he was elected Federation of Labour secretary, forming a formidable leadership team with president Jim Knox.

Douglas had once been a bitter opponent of the FOL, which he accused of selling the watersiders down the river in 1951.

In 1987, the Council of Trade Unions was formed, with Douglas as president. It brought private and public sector unions together, but 12 years later when Douglas retired, its membership had fallen from 530,000 to 205,000, hamstrung by the introduction of the Employment Contracts Act in 1991.

Douglas took a lot of stick from union members for failure to stem the movement's decline, and was widely castigated for not calling a general strike to try to block the ECA.

The big man burned bridges within the union movement after steering the CTU to a more conciliatory stance towards the Government and employers.

His supporters, and the man himself, say it was the only course that prevented unions from being banished permanently to the economic boondocks.

His critics say that's where they have ended up anyway.

Did he sell the union movement down the river?

"That's a point of view."

Ask Douglas who his enemies are, and his eyes twinkle.

"My grandmother taught me never to personalise an argument. If you do you'll take your eye off the ball."

He crossed swords often enough with Rob Muldoon - who led a mud-slinging campaign against Douglas and other communists - but says he never took umbrage with the Tamaki Terror.

"He always showed me and the union respect - he was always well briefed for our meetings."

Former Employers Federation head Steve Marshall waxed lyrical when his old sparring partner retired from the CTU, calling Douglas a "nice human being with a great set of values, a bloody good negotiator and a very good thinker".

Ross Wilson, Douglas' understudy at the CTU who took over on his retirement, says Douglas was always ahead of the pack, a "powerful intellect" and a "towering figure" over the union movement.

"He dominated the landscape for two decades. He's been a fierce and forceful figure at times but he always felt he owed the movement more than it owed him."

Wilson says Douglas is still fondly regarded by most in the union movement, issues from the 1990s notwithstanding.

"Some say he could have used his mana to lead a successful defence against the Employment Contracts Act, but Ken has always been modest about his ability to lead people. He also recognised union actions wouldn't have blocked the act."

Cochrane says Douglas was a key figure in modernising unions.

"The union movement has felt itself challenged by Ken in a lot of ways. He's always gone beyond pat answers in what you'd expect a union to do or say. He encouraged unions to engage with the rest of society, rather than sit back and condemn, as if somehow we have a better answer, and the past is always going to be better than the future."

Although generally laid back, when Douglas gets his Irish up, watch out.

"He can be a grumpy bastard at times," says Gillespie. "He gets a bit frustrated with people who can't see the wood for the trees - people who should know better.

"Ken's a passionate person; he holds things quite dearly. He'll stand by what he thinks and say it, but what I've never seen in him is unprincipled anger."

Frustration, sure, probably on the golf course more than anywhere else.

For an avowed golf nutter, the past year has been tough.

Douglas has been off the local club's fairways since having both knees replaced but has pledged to return on June 10 - the anniversary of the operation.

He laughs about the humiliation of having grandsons on lower handicaps. "I used to be on a handicap of eight, but it's up to 16 now. I'm determined to get it back to at least 12 in a year's time."

He has nine grandchildren, and four children from a marriage that ended 20 years ago. His partner now is a pharmaceutical adviser.

Trade New Zealand chief executive Fran Wilde has known Douglas for 30 years, dating from her early days in the Labour Party.

She describes him as an exceptional New Zealander, a man of huge intelligence and great personal integrity.

"As a director, he asks difficult questions, and has a vast background knowledge of New Zealand industry and the international environment."

For Douglas, Renaissance man in a roughly hewn frame, peace of mind is no great mystery.

"My grandmother had a saying. She said when you look in the mirror each morning, ask yourself if you did something the day before to improve things. If you can say yes, you'll have a good day."