Sue Bolton, Melbourne
In a shock decision, three Appeals Court judges on August 27 overturned a County Court sentence and jailed former Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) Victorian state secretary Craig Johnston for taking part in a 2001 industrial protest.
The Court of Appeal sentenced Johnston to two years and nine months' jail, with nine months to be served immediately. The remaining two years was suspended for two years and six months. The appeals judges struck out the fine imposed on Johnston by the County Court, but the order for $44,000 in compensation to be paid to labour-hire firm Skilled Engineering remains in effect.
Johnston was jailed for his participation in a 2001 protest at the sudden sacking of 29 maintenance workers employed by Johnson Tiles, and their replacement with labour-hire workers from Skilled Engineering. After the picket line was broken, protesters moved through Johnson Tiles' and Skilled Engineering's premises.
The media has perpetuated an image of the sacked workers' protests being violent. But there were no threats or acts of violence towards any people during the protests. However, some property was damaged. The protest on each premises only lasted a few minutes.
Despite many people being involved in the protest, and despite the fact that Johnston was not present at the meeting that decided to enter the premises, Johnston's sentence was vastly harsher than those given the other 17 accused. All charges were either dismissed, or reduced to unlawful assembly and sentenced to a good behaviour bond and a fine.
The prosecutor refused to consider a similar arrangement for Johnston, leaving him as the only protester to face charges of common law assault (verbal abuse), criminal damage and two counts of "affray" (a public fight or brawl, according to the Macquarie Dictionary). How one person can commit an affray on their own was never answered by the court.
'Sacrificial lamb'
Johnston's lawyer Rob Stary told Green Left Weekly that he is "profoundly disappointed with what's happened". "There's almost a view that Craig was the only person involved in this incident. What seems to have been overlooked is the fact that the action that was taken was collective. There were up to 40 people involved and there's just one sacrificial lamb ... A great injustice has been perpetrated on Craig."
Stary said that the appeals court judges regarded criminal damage to property as the most serious of the charges against Johnston. As a result, the most severe penalty Johnston received was for criminal damage. The County Court originally sentenced Johnston to four months' imprisonment for criminal damage, however the Court of Appeal increased that sentence six-fold.
Immediately after the court decision, AMWU metals division secretary Steve Dargavel told the waiting media that, "It's a rich man's law and a rich man's court."
Dargavel told GLW that it was an "outrageous decision by a legal system that is preoccupied with property rather than people. There are countless cases involving employers whose unlawful actions have led to workers' deaths or serious injuries. The courts are incapable of finding a way to jail those offenders, whereas they seem quite capable of finding a way to jail a militant union official.
"Skilled Engineering and Johnson Tiles bosses have not been jailed for what they've done to their workers. Craig Johnston took the rap for the conduct of many in a justified campaign. He has been pursued by a lot of very powerful forces in society. Craig is a militant union official who has spent years and years of his life working tirelessly for working people and working-class causes, and there are countless disputes in which he's got involved and because of that the results for the workers have been much better than they might otherwise have been."
Dargavel explained that the AMWU's Campaign 2000, which was led by Johnston and the militant leadership of the Victorian AMWU, "was one of the most effective industrial campaigns that has been seen in the manufacturing industry for many years". In was no coincidence that Johnston has received "a far stiffer penalty than others in comparable situations... Johnston has been singled out".
Stary pointed out how "justice" is inconsistently meted out. He described how he had previously defended Melbourne University students charged with causing $80,000 damage when they occupied the administration building during a protest over university fees. By promising to be of good behaviour and undertaking unpaid community work, their charges did not go to court.
'Class issue'
"The latitude that was shown to those students, which was fair enough because it was a political protest, was considerable compared to the absence of any latitude that was shown to Craig Johnston", Stary told GLW. "This shows to me that this is a class issue, because, overwhelmingly, the students tended to come from more privileged backgrounds, as opposed to the people at Skilled and Johnson Tiles, who were all blue-collar workers. All the authorities showed the students much more latitude. They're just a little bit more tolerant of students' political activity as opposed to workers' political activity.
"It certainly says to me that if you're a blue-collar activist, and you engage in political and industrial activity, it's likely that the process will become criminalised. The jailing of Craig sets a bad precedent", said Stary.
Stary also compared the treatment of Johnston with that received by the bosses responsible for the asbestos poisoning of thousands of workers. "Some captains of industry have exposed their own and other workers to asbestos, when they knew that they would be likely to suffer terminal illnesses as a result... The directors, company officials and those associated with those companies have known about the dangers of asbestos for 30 or 40 years and yet absolutely nothing has been done to prosecute them. That's real hypocrisy when people engaged in poisoning people get off scot-free, but someone like Craig who is involved in one industrial action, receives a term of imprisonment."
Eighteen unionists have signed a statement condemning the jailing of Johnston. One of the unionists, assistant secretary of the Geelong and Region Trades and Labour Council and local Socialist Alliance leader Tim Gooden appealed to unionists throughout Australia to join the campaign for the release of Craig Johnston.
"Craig Johnston is a political prisoner. He's in jail because he demonstrated in practice that he has an unrelenting commitment to workers' rights. Thousands of workers around Victoria have benefited from campaigns he has initiated. If we don't mobilise to call for Craig's release, the big employers and their governments will take it as a green light to jail more unionists."
From Green Left Weekly, September 1, 2004.
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