Sue Bolton, Melbourne
Craig Johnston is a "magnificent man ... who should be part of the struggle that needs to be fought. We have a massive job ahead of us, and it is fortuitous that on this day, the day that the Coalition announces an unprecedented assault on our rights, workers' rights, that Craig Johnston is released from jail."
This is what Steve Dargavel, the Victorian metal division secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), told a May 27 celebration in Melbourne. Johnston had been released that day after serving a nine-month sentence over charges relating to an industrial dispute in 2001, when he was the Victorian AMWU secretary.
Construction union (CFMEU) Victorian secretary Martin Kingham discussed the significance of the 11 trade unions that joined together and formed the Free Craig Johnston Trade Union Committee. This "support base is a strategic alliance", he said, "because the reality is that the prison sentence that Craig got is what a lot more people are likely to be facing in the future".
"This government is committed to criminalising the work that we do as union officials on a day-to-day basis. And Craig's case was symbolic. That's why they went for him so hard. They wanted to send a message out there."
Kingham's message in response was that "we will look after our own, and we will do what we have to do, and we will take what blame we have to take, but we will do it together ... as a large group of workers, as a large group of unions".
Kingham described the evening as "a very happy night" because "we've got one of our favourite sons, one of our own, someone who'll stick their head alongside us on picket lines in countless blues, someone whose basic principle is always looking after workers".
In a speech to the gathering, Johnston concluded with a message to AMWU national secretary Doug Cameron, ACTU secretary Greg Combet and other union leaders who have opposed his role in the union movement. "I'm not their enemy, as much as they might think. The enemy's John Howard, the enemy's the capitalist system, the enemy's all those rotten Liberals who want to take us on. And I want to be part of the fight to beat the bastards, to protect what we've got and improve our wages and conditions."
From Green Left Weekly, June 1, 2005.
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