BY MELANIE SJOBERG
The web-based Workers Online (<www.workers.labor.net.au>) published by the NSW Labor Council received a major plug in the June 5 Media supplement of the Australian. Workers Online was praised for offering innovative trade union news and reaching more than 5000 unionists each week. However, Media neglected to mention the Workers Online censorship policy.
An open forum that provides news about work-place struggle and builds union solidarity is certainly a good thing — and, despite being very focused on the activities of NSW unions, Workers Online had allowed some debate and discussion to flower among labour movement activists.
This is particularly important given that union membership and organisation is in decline, and activists are trying to grapple with massive privatisation, extensive job losses, rampant casualisation and restrictions of union rights through the Workplace Relations Act.
The recent attack by the NSW Labor government on workers' compensation rights and the tactics at the June 19 Labor Council-organised blockade of the NSW parliament should have encouraged more discussion at Workers Online about how to carry on the fight. These experiences have provoked political discussion about the ALP and its relationship to unions, as well as the role of the police at protests, and at work places throughout NSW.
For many workers, the June 19 blockade of the NSW parliament was an eye-opening experience — firstly, because Labor MPs crossed the picket line, making offensive and derogatory gestures at the picketing workers; and, secondly, because despite the Labor Council's "deal" with the police not to use horses at the blockade, the cops did use horses, and some unionists were injured.
During the Labor Council's statewide video-linked meetings on June 27 it was announced that the negotiating team to pursue legislative amendments with the government included a representative from the NSW Police Association. Boos and heckles then erupted at several of the meetings, including the one i attended. Many unionists had felt the full force of police "solidarity" as the cops barged through the crowd making a path for the politicians to cross the picket line.
Instead of opening up a discussion on the role of the police in the dispute, Workers Online has battened down the hatches by enforcing its editorial policy that declares: "Affiliated unions and their members are not to be bagged. Only affiliates can criticise Labor governments. Other political groups are to be encouraged to debate general issues, but not to use Workers Online as a political soapbox against the ALP. Workers Online will be non-factional in its operation."
I discovered this editorial policy when I wrote a letter responding to a Workers Online article written by NSW Police Association president Ian Ball criticising workers on the picket line at Parliament House for "verbally abusing" police officers who were "doing their duty". The article can be found on the Workers Online web site, and my letter is reprinted on this page.
Apparently Workers Online did not consider criticism of union picketers contradicts its policy of opposing the "bagging" of affiliated unions and their members. My letter, criticising the Police Association (an affiliate of the Labor Council), apparently did.
I received a letter from NSW Labor Council employee Paul Howes informing me that my letter was refused publication and outlining the editorial policy.
In practice, this policy allows censorship of any contribution that challenges or criticises an affiliated union in any way — blocking genuine debate. It also hinders publication of criticism of the ALP even when it is attacking workers' rights.
The Workers Online editorial policy makes a mockery of the argument that Workers Online provides a forum for debate among all unionists.
The failure of the Labor Council's campaign against the NSW Labor government's attack on workers' compensation rights demonstrates that the existing union leadership's ways of operating have to be challenged. It is not good enough for union officials to give orders and expect the mobilisation of union members to be turned on and off like a tap.
What we desperately need in the labour movement is an open debate that seeks to involve and build confidence among the largest possible number of union activists. Workers Online does a gross disservice to the union movement with its editorial policy. It makes Workers Online little more than a propaganda tool for the defenders of the ALP in the unions.
[Melanie Sjoberg is the national industrial work coordinator for the Democratic Socialist Party.]