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A Unionist's Thoughts
With me was a comrade from the Community and Public Sector Union. When we arrived at Flinders Street station in the centre of Melbourne, we hopped on a tram to the G. Thanks to the Rail, Tram and Bus Union, public transport to the rally was free. When the driver of our packed tram announced that we were at the right stop, everyone got off and walked through the grounds to our respective gates. Along the way, I noticed on the footpath tributes to John Cummins, a long-time construction unionist renowned for his militant leadership, who died a few months earlier. By 7.30, countless thousands were already there. Colour-coded contingents stood out the most: National Union of Workers members were decked out in bright red and cleaners from the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union in a beautiful maroon. There were lots of T-shirts with the ubiquitous union slogan, "Your Rights at Work Worth Fighting For." At 8.00 we streamed inside to take our seats. With my workmates, I sat among our fellow ASU members. Huge banners hanging from railings let everyone know that workers from the hospitality and service industry, teachers, nurses, health, community and public sector workers, and shop assistants were there en masse. People were excited to be away from our besieged, isolated workplaces. It's much more empowering to experience the collective strength of tens of thousands of other unionists determined to defeat these laws. Many would have taken annual, flex or sick leave to be there. Some workplaces would have voted to go out, regardless of possible management reprisals. A few, like Amcor Flexibles in Melbourne, would have defied bosses' threats and shut down their sites to attend the rally. They came from all over Victoria, as far west as Portland and as far north as Mildura. They were there out of sheer determination, almost in defiance of the lack of a national strike. "Fill the G" was the call from Victorian Trades Hall Council and our unions. The venue's capacity is 100,000. By 9.00, when the program started, it was clear this wouldn't happen. The final estimate was 60,000. This time last year, there were a quarter of million choking Melbourne's streets. The good... The MCG was the stage for the rest of the country. Its program was beamed by Sky Channel to rallies across the continent. And staged it was! It's an ancient trick: when the people are angry, try and mollify them with a circus! Still, the entertainers were excellent. Corrine Grant and Dave Hughes, from the ABC's The Glasshouse, recently axed for its "biased" satire, showed their unionist colours. Indigenous singer, Casey Donovan, and comedian, Gerry Connelly, who impersonated a Queen Elizabeth planning to sack John Howard for being a bad team player, were a treat. Rock star, Jimmy Barnes, backed by his drummer wearing a Union Solidarity T-shirt, wound everyone up at the end with his heartfelt and boppy "Working Class Man." The rank-and-file unionists featured on the platform and screen — Bernie Banton, a former asbestos worker who has led the union campaign against James Hardie Industries, the 107 striking railway construction workers in Western Australia and those from the Spotlight store chain and Melbourne's Heinemann Electric who have stood up to the worst consequences of Howard's anti-union laws — struck a chord and inspired everyone. the bad... But the message from the official Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and Australian Labor Party (ALP) speakers was terrible. The ALP's then leader, Kim Beazley, Victoria's Premier Steve Bracks, ACTU President Sharan Burrow and Secretary Greg Combet told unionists that the one way to defeat the laws is to vote for Labor in the 2007 federal election. From the beginning of the ACTU's anti-WorkChoices campaign, workers have been depicted as victims, needy of an ALP government that will look after their interests. But it was Labor's Prices and Incomes Accord of the 1980s which brought in "wage restraint," privatisation and deregulation. In just seven years, the share of wages in the national income dropped while the share of profit rose, resulting in a shift from wages to profit worth $400 billion. The ALP will not scrap the intent of the WorkChoices laws, but will try to give them a pro-worker gloss, just like the Accord. This is where the nationalistic theme of the ACTU campaign comes in, and the MCG spectacle reeked of it. The opening of the program with the national anthem was weird and unsettling. The references to the WorkChoices laws as "un-Australian" and Beazley's praise of workers as "patriots" echoed the xenophobic rants of the Howard Government. Nationalism is designed to make workers identify with their bosses at home instead of their class sisters and brothers in other countries. ...and the ugly. For me, the final straw was the grande finale. Throughout the program, the enormous cricket ground was covered with "Your Rights at Work Worth Fighting For" in gigantic letters. A team of workers walked across the pitch and, with great precision, removed the word "fighting" to unveil "voting." That just said it all. Within seconds, I received a text message from a Radical Women comrade sitting with her union, the Australian Nursing Federation: "I want to vomit!" pretty well summed up the moment for a good number of unionists. A march to Federation Square in central Melbourne followed the rally. This part was not planned or directed, and so rank-and-file unionists came into their own. When we took to the streets, we recovered a sense of our power. From the G to Fed Square, Flinders Street was blocked with a mass of marching unionists. You couldn't see the front or the rear. On the down side, the lack of planning meant that nothing happened once we reached the square, and people dispersed. My workmates and I were among the many who had to return to wage slavery for the rest of the day. Summing it up. November 30th was the fourth all-union national protest since WorkChoices became law in June 2005. Nationally, the highest turnout was over half a million in November 2005, and November 2006 was the lowest at 270,000. Union movement leaders blame the laws, which arm employers with the power to retaliate. It's true that individual workers can be fined $6,000 for taking industrial measures outside of "protected" action, and unions can be fined up to $33,000. Most workers — 90% in private industry — are employed in businesses with fewer than 100 staff. The laws allow dismissal without reason in these workplaces. Bluescope Steel in Wollongong typified the intimidation, forcing employees to attend one-on-one meetings with managers to warn them against attending the rally. It's a rare union official who does not use repressive laws as an alibi for their own refusal to mobilise. The fact is, a union movement tied to the ALP will always hold back the membership in any fight, just to deliver an electoral victory. Its misleadership will use any excuse, any treachery and any weapon to do this, and this is what unionists are facing right now. I am the union delegate at my small community sector workplace. My union did a lot of work to promote November 30th, as it has for every one of the protests. But the leadership put the entire responsibility onto delegates to turn out their workplaces at these rallies. Countless motivational messages encouraging members to attend a rally and leaving it to them to get their employer's permission are no substitute for a strike. My nearly 100% unionised workplace voted unanimously to go out and let management know that we expected not to be docked or required to make up time. If management chose to retaliate, members could have faced dismissal without union support. This is not union power. Now that the ACTU's message is unequivocally to vote in Labor, the numbers for the next rallies will be even smaller. Why would a unionist risk reprisals to participate in the next vote-getting exercise? Between now and the federal election some time this year, how are workers expected to fend off the attacks? What happens if Labor isn't elected? And what if Labor is elected? Beazley's promises to the union movement were never convincing. The ALP's record, not to mention his own pro-business allegiance (he wouldn't be the party leader otherwise), give working people every reason for deep distrust. Less than a week after the MCG extravaganza, the ALP ditched Beazley for Kevin Rudd who, as the head of the Queensland Department of Premier and Cabinet, slashed public service jobs. A devout rightwinger and Christian who immediately disclaimed any socialist leaning, Rudd has already set about junking Beazley's promises. Given his commitment to "economic growth" (code for "profit") — and despite his talk of social justice — a backdown on his part from Beazley's anti-WorkChoices position wouldn't be too wild a guess. The ACTU is planning the next protest on a weekend in April. Combet has stated that the leadership aims to minimise the disruption to business. Yet workers' collective power is exactly that: to stop work — disrupt profit — until our demands are met. Workers know this and need to get the confidence to act on this fundamental truth. On a brighter note... November 30 was the debut of Radical Women's badges with the slogans: "Your Rights at Work Worth Striking For" and "Strong Unions Need Women." They sold like hotcakes! The prominence of women-dominated unions at the G, the determination to be there, the anger, and the rank-and-file union strength shown by the WA 107, Spotlight, Heinemann Electric and Amcor unionists all pointed to the victory that is in our reach. If unionists organise across industries and union boundaries as a united, democratic body independent of the ALP and prepared to break bad laws, we can beat off the corporate attacks. We need to tell the current leadership that it can follow our lead or be swept aside for leadership that will. Debbie Brennan |
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