Ideas that work: mobilizing Australian workers using a discourse of rights

In this paper, we focus on a potential mechanism for revitalizing unions' influence as broader political actors: their use of familiar and appealing discourses to frame political campaigns. Through a discursive analysis of campaign texts, we show how the Australian Council of Trade Unions successfully promoted a counter-discourse, which operated as a collective action frame to mobilize alternative meanings, identities and possibilities for agency that preceded the eventual repeal of radical employment relations legislation. In doing so, we demonstrate the role and potential of discourse in revitalization strategies available to the union movement. We conclude by arguing that the ability of unions to challenge and shape discourses to their advantage can be a powerful force in the regulation of labour markets and in the shaping of employment relations