Freedom Socialist • Vol. 25, No. 5 • December 2004-January 2005

Unionist Craig Johnston jailed in Australia

Metal trades militant gets nine months for support of fired workers

by Debbie Brennan

Craig Johnston

Since the 1996 election of the reactionary John Howard government, workers’ rights in Australia have been under heavy fire. Intent on taming militant unions, bosses are gunning for their leaders — like Craig Johnston, the former state secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU).

On August 27, 2004, the Victorian state Supreme Court sentenced Johnston to nine months in jail for his 2001 participation in brief occupations of two companies, Johnson Tiles and Skilled Engineering; the first had fired 29 manufacturing workers, the second had supplied scabs to replace them.

In the "walk-throughs" of the premises, which involved several dozen people, some property was damaged. Only Johnston ended up with jail time.

Before Johnston’s election as branch secretary in 2000, the AMWU’s bureaucratic leadership had done little to defend members against the mounting anti-union measures. Fed up with defeats, the rank and file overwhelmingly voted in Johnston and his Workers First ticket.

The Victorian AMWU then launched a campaign that shook the foundations of "enterprise bargaining," a system of workplace-based agreements which has eroded conditions and pay for most workers. Through "pattern bargaining," the union made its demands industry-wide — winning 15 percent wage increases, a 36-hour week, long service leave after 10 years, and permanency for casual employees throughout the whole manufacturing sector.

The new leadership set other precedents. In two separate disputes in 2001 with The Age, Melbourne’s daily paper, its backing was key to victory both for striking journalists and for AMWU printers, who stopped production for the first time in 150 years.

Johnston also stood on the picket lines of other unionists, many of them migrants and women, and initiated Workers Against War in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. He is now organising the inmates of Loddon Prison. As leader of the landscaping team, he pulls them off the job when it rains — a first in the prison’s history.

Michele O’Neill, president of Victorian Trades Hall Council, told a packed public meeting that Johnston’s sentence is "the criminalisation of union activity in this country and around the world."

The judges made this very clear. They condemned Johnston’s radicalism and argued that he would "reoffend," citing his activism against corporate globalisation and his support for refugee rights, asbestos victims, and East Timor’s struggle for independence. The court put him behind bars because he has shown unionists what we can achieve when we stand together.

Within days of Johnston’s imprisonment, Australia’s High Court ruled that workers can take industrial action only over matters directly concerning their employment, outlawing strike action around political and social issues such as anti-union laws, childcare and the Iraq war.

Union militants have powerful enemies. But we have far more powerful allies — each other! Winning Johnston’s release requires a coalition of all whose fights for justice set off alarms in the boardrooms. Once we join together and organise, we can defeat the bosses’ legal onslaught, as we did when another union militant, Clarrie O’Shea, was jailed in 1969.

The Free Craig Johnston Campaign is supported by unions and individuals from across Australia and 15 countries. You can support this effort by signing and distributing the petition for Johnston’s release, passing motions in your union, and joining the November 25 rally in Melbourne, at 10:00am at the State Library, to demand his freedom. The campaign can be contacted by phoning 0413-377-978 or e-mailing .

Debbie Brennan, workplace delegate for the Australian Services Union, can be reached at .

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