BY TIM GOODEN
& ALISON DELLIT
One of the hottest debates at the August 4-5 Socialist Alliance national conference was the relationship between the alliance and the unions. Green Left Weekly spoke to two Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) activists about why they have joined Socialist Alliance.
Gary Rob joined the AMWU as an apprentice and was elected as a workplace delegate when he was 20. He has organised the Geelong region of the AMWU for the last three years. Part of the Workers First team in Victoria, Rob was a militant leader of Campaign 2000, which won manufacturing workers a 36-hour week, income protection and the highest pay increases in years.
"I see the alliance as being similar to Workers First", he explained. "There is a lot of frustration with the Labor Party and the Liberals. People are looking for something different."
Several members of the Workers First team in Victoria have joined the Socialist Alliance."We see it as something that has come from a working-class, environmentally friendly sort of background."
Adam Leeman has been AMWU delegate at Lovells Springs, in Sydney's west, for the last six months. He was elected delegate when seven of the previously unorganised 25-strong work force joined the union in January. He is also the coordinator of the Parramatta branch of the Socialist Alliance, and a member of the Democratic Socialist Party.
According to Leeman, the Socialist Alliance offers "a big opportunity for working-class politics in Australia".
"Unions like the AMWU and the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union have shown they are prepared to run real industrial campaigns. The dispute at Metroshelf's Revesby factory and the TriStar dispute prove that industrial action can force employers to give workers more. Socialist Alliance should support these industrial battles", Leeman said.
"It's really good that unionists are joining the alliance. We want to involve as many union militants as we can, and convince them of the need for a socialist platform. We should be encouraging unions to give money to the alliance."
Rob hopes the alliance could help to fill a void left by the Labor Party's failure to act on behalf on workers. "The alliance should be more accessible for workers and deal with their problems. Hopefully the Socialist Alliance could put pressure on the big parties by being a voice for workers and the community."
Believing that the Socialist Alliance needs to directly challenge the loyalty that many union leaderships feel towards the ALP, Leeman argued: "The ALP is a party for the bosses. Unions have lost more members under ALP governments than under Liberal governments, because wages went down. Beazley is already promising that he can achieve more for employers, by negotiation with unions, than Howard can by openly attacking them."
Rob argues that most workers are more concerned about day to day issues. "[The relationship between unions and political parties] has never been high in people's minds. The focus is usually on the workplace. But workers recognise that governments do govern and make laws and so we need some sort of political voice. We hope that someone from the Socialist Alliance gets elected and has a say over the laws that affect workers."
Although the Socialist Alliance has run in the Aston by-election in Victoria, the Melbourne City Council elections and is contesting the Northern Territory elections, the federal election will provide the biggest test for the new formation. Both Robb and Leeman think it is important that the alliance highlights the issues most relevant to union members.
"Manufacturing jobs are a major issue for workers and obviously for the AMWU", Rob told GLW.
Leeman concurred, "A real priority for the alliance needs to be raising demands that will share the work around more. More people are being pushed into part-time work, and have to live on less than a full wage. We need a 35-hour week, with no loss in pay."