Dick Nichols
On November 22, the Queensland Nationals crossed the floor of the state parliament to vote with Premier Peter Beattie's Labor government and against their traditional Liberal Party allies over the Howard government's Work Choices legislation.
This act dramatically confirmed the impact of the November 15 protests and the depth of concern among all workers, including non-ALP voters, about PM John Howard's anti-union laws. But that protest, with its 650,000 on the streets, will be a hard act to follow. How to sustain and strengthen the movement? Green Left Weekly spoke to five union movement figures about the next stage in the fight.
John Sutton, national secretary of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, said: "We face a long difficult fight for the next two years to the next federal poll, and maybe even beyond, as we try to build on our successes up until now. We will need to further consolidate support in the community and win swinging voters to our side.
"It will be important to resume the ACTU's highly successful advertising campaignraising the funds that can make that possible — as well as carrying out day-to-day community campaigning.
"Our union faces the particular challenge of building industry legislation that is aimed at bankrupting us and we have to be careful not to offer the government and the employers any opportunity to do that. However, that doesn't mean that we put up the 'closed for business' sign.
"We agree with [ACTU secretary] Greg Combet when he says bad laws have to be resisted, but in acting to stare down this legislation we'll need a disciplined approach to action.
"It's not excluded that rank-and-file unionists and union officials will be going to jail, given that the unions are nearly back to where they were 100 years ago as proscribed organisations. However, it's critically important that our actions strengthen community support and draw the undecided voter to our side."
Chris Spindler, Victorian state president of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, told GLW: "Our job can be put into a simple message: keep up the pressure on three fronts — on Howard and the Liberals, on the Labor Party (to make sure Kim Beazley's promise to 'tear up' the Work Choices Act really does mean repealing all of its anti-union and anti-worker content) and on the employers (to get them to realises that trying to apply this law really won't be worth the trouble)."
"So far the campaign against Howard's anti-union laws has gone well", said John Cleary, Victorian branch vice-president of the Electrical Trades Union. "But the test will come when the employers choose to apply them — will the unions be strong and solid enough to win that decisive fight? Of course, there may well be a period of phony war as employers and government manoeuvre in the face of overwhelming popular opposition (and also because many bosses don't want disturbances while they're making fat profits).
"However, there must be a showdown sooner or later and the government will find their Chris Corrigan equivalents to carry it through. Decisive here will be organised union-community solidarity — the capacity of a union or work site under attack to mobilise real forces for its defence beyond its own ranks.
"The Union Solidarity network begun in Victoria is already making an important contribution at building this alliance. At the same time, the cycle of mass protest must continue. The fight against Work Choices will have a 'guerrilla war' aspect to it at the work-site level, but if we don't follow November 15 with further Australia-wide protests, the tide of mass support may begin to ebb and the 'guerrilla front' itself risk becoming isolated."
Dave Kerin, convener of the Melbourne Central group of Union Solidarity, told GLW: "As much as possible Union Solidarity will be trying to convert the energy of November 15 into solidarity on the streets, putting in place an iron ring of resistance against Howard's industrial relations laws.
"The next phase of our work is to put in place a physical network that links union delegates with community activists — building regular meetings between unionists and workers in the parishes, community centres and the suburbs generally.
"This alliance may even get a 'dry run' before Christmas as there are a couple of disputes approaching boiling point."
Susan Price, the Socialist Alliance's NSW trade union coordinator and a National Tertiary Education Union national council member, said: "The clue to getting even more people out onto the streets for the next national protest is to accompany it with an openly declared national stoppage. On November 15, many workers who wanted to participate were intimidated into staying at work by their bosses and supervisors.
"A declared and properly prepared stoppage led by the ACTU and involving all unions will increase participation by unionised and non-unionised workers alike. It will also give confidence to many who came out for the first time on November 15 that this was not a one-off event. It will help increase the level of participation in unions and rank-and-file and union-community networks.
"Increasing that involvement is critical if we are to build up our side's strength to the level needed to defeat the laws."
From Green Left Weekly, November 30, 2005.
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