Editorial: Union ads run risk of backfiring

A blip or two notwithstanding, the link between the Labour Party and trade unions has remained close down through the years. Understandably so, given the party's origin as a collection of political and union elements that had come to realise the limits of industrial action.

Rarely, however, can that connection have been displayed so overtly as through the union movement's current radio-based advertising campaign. Advertisements taken out by the Council of Trade Unions and several of its affiliates are encouraging union members - and the wider public - to recognise the raft of worker-friendly measures enacted by the Government.

The CTU president, Ross Wilson, says the campaign is an attempt to counter the "spectre of the hard-nosed employer paying campaign contributions to the 'screw-the-worker' party".

It is not, he says, telling union members how to vote, but provides an assessment of policies which gives Labour, the Greens and Progressives a tick. That explanation borders on gobbledegook. The advertising is, effectively, a reminder to trade union members of where, according to the CTU, their responsibilities lie.

Mr Wilson does not suggest what his view would be if employer groups and business organisations were to mount a similar campaign, this time castigating the likes of paid parental leave and the NCEA, and urging a vote for the National Party or Act.

Doubtless, however, he would view it dimly. He would object to the depth of the pockets that allowed such extravagance. He might even suggest the upshot, if not the aim, of the tactic was a sidelining of the rules governing advertising by political parties.

Advertising can never deliver a guaranteed outcome. For every campaign delivering high brand recognition and bountiful sales, there are any number of duds. The advertising of the CTU and its affiliates runs the risk of falling into the latter category. Indeed, the message it is peddling could easily backfire.

What, for example, will be the reaction to teacher unions advertising their support for the NCEA, given the widespread unease about the new system and its widely documented woes? Will many see such endorsement as that of a vested interest who could be held partly responsible for the assessment system's failings?

Indeed, it is possible that some will view much of the advertising campaign as driven by self-interest. National says the public service has ballooned over the past few years, and has spelled out its determination to cut "bureaucracy". The most at risk of this policy, quite obviously, are members of unions, whether in the field of health, education or infrastructural services.

Additionally, some union members could not have envisaged their fees being used for such a demonstration of overt support for Labour. They may well recognise the benefit of the likes of extended holidays and paid parental leave.

But they may have been singularly unimpressed by, say, the Government's social legislation. And they may also be much attracted by the prospect of a significant tax cut. If so, they are unlikely to relish seeing their money used by the trade union movement in this manner.

The CTU advertising campaign was presumably devised well before National's surge in a series of opinion polls. At a time of comfort for the Government, it would have been seen as little more than a safeguard. Now, with the dramatic shift in the political landscape, it assumes greater significance. And a bigger potential for being a doubled-edged sword.