BY CHRIS CAIN
When the Workers First team, headed by Craig Johnston, was first elected to lead the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) in Victoria in 1998, it was like a breath of fresh air coming into the union movement.
What the Johnston leadership has actually done in pattern bargaining, in getting the delegates together, in revitalising and restructuring the union in Victoria by giving the members a say, has been an inspiration for trade unionists around Australia.
By giving the union back to the rank and file members, the AMWU in Victoria made a lot of progress. I believe that Johnston and his team in Victoria have set the pattern for a lot of other unions to follow. There is opposition to that from the hierarchy of the ACTU and some national leaderships but that's because they're all linked to the ALP.
A couple of union officials whinged about Johnston coming to Western Australia to speak at the Socialist Alliance trade union conference because they were worried that he might set up some rank and file movement in WA. My answer was: Why wouldn't you want in this state what they've done in Victoria, where the AMWU has dramatically increased the membership and let the union go back to the rank and file?
Over a number of years since the former federal Labor government's Prices and Incomes Accord, workers have actually gone backwards in real terms with wages and conditions. Now, we see a new type of unionism that's challenging that, and it's being attacked by Prime Minister John Howard and by the Labor Party.
I went out to a few building sites in Perth where there were combined meetings of Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), Electrical Trades Union and plumbers union members, to talk around the issues in the Johnson Tiles case. Seventeen AMWU officials and rank and file members, including Johnston, face charges arising from alleged incidents at Johnson Tiles and the labour hire firm Skilled Engineering which employed the scabs.
Normally when you ask for a levy to support other unions and other unionists, you get a couple of hands up in opposition, but after we'd spoken about the facts of the Johnson Tiles dispute, there was no opposition.
And why wouldn't workers support a union when it is under attack for trying to stop scabs from Skilled Engineering from taking the jobs of unionists who have worked in the same job at Johnson Tiles for 20 odd years? They have a right to a bargaining period, and have a right to go on strike under that bargaining period to protect their jobs and working conditions.
After talking about the facts of what happened, on one site where there were 200-250 workers, about 100 people put their hands up to second the motion for a $50 levy to help with the legal costs. No-one abstained, no-one spoke against, and plenty of people spoke for the levy. We raised $15,000 for the defence campaign on those two sites.
I will gladly support and encourage every member of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) to support the people who supported them, and that was the rank and file from the metalworkers in Victoria.
I believe that trade unionism means that you help each other. Johnston brought around 5000 members to the 1998 wharfies' lockout, and just recently, he brought nearly 600-700 members to the Yarra River ship dispute in Melbourne. On the picket lines during the wharfies' lockout, AMWU members welded shipping containers together and put railway sleepers down to help stop scabs from crossing the picket line. The AMWU were always there to support the MUA.
I was listening to Tony Abbott in parliament giving Johnston a pay. Now, if a boss gives you the pay then you've obviously done the right thing. If he's patting you on the back then you'd be worrying that you'd done the wrong thing by the members.
I'd like to congratulate the AMWU in Victoria and the CFMEU for what they've done as leaders in the union movement. Hopefully other unions will look at what Johnston and his team have done in Victoria and go on with it.
[Chris Cain is an activist in the Maritime Union of Australia, a member of the Socialist Alliance and has recently initiated a Defend the Unions campaign in WA.]
From Green Left Weekly, July 17, 2002.
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