Sue Bolton, Brisbane
Over the last four months, Green Left Weekly has been covering the campaign by the more activist trade unions for the union movement to hold another national day of protest and stoppage against the Howard government's new anti-worker laws.
There was initially a great deal of resistance from the majority of unions in the Australian Council of Trade Unions. After considerable campaigning by activists during January and February, however, the ACTU executive's March 7 meeting agreed to call a national day of protest on June 28.
Despite all major unions and all state trades and labour councils being represented on the ACTU executive, some union and labour council secretaries reported back to their unions and labour councils that the ACTU had not agreed to a national day of action, just to a week of activities. Ever since the March 7 decision, a debate has raged in the union movement about whether to mobilise on June 28.
This debate resulted in the Electrical Trades Union deciding to produce two different editions of their national journal, one for ETU members in NSW with no mention of the June 28 national day of protest and another for members in the rest of the country with a big advertisement for June 28.
So far, the Victorian Trades Hall Council, Queensland Council of Unions and NT Unions have all agreed to organise mass protests on June 28. The VTHC has decided to mobilise at three separate points in Melbourne's central business district, with each group then marching to the city centre, gridlocking the city.
South Australian unionists report that unions there have decided to organise a mass protest in Adelaide on June 28, with smaller rallies in the state's three most marginal seats. However, there has not yet been a discussion about the June 28 national day of action in an SA Unions council meeting.
In Western Australia, Unions WA voted against organising a mass protest in Perth on June 28, but offered support to any union that decided to organise a protest. An alliance of unions including the Maritime Union of Australia, the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union are organising a June 28 protest in Perth and are seeking support from other unions and community groups.
Unions Tasmania has decided to organise a rally in Launceston on June 28 and another in Hobart on July 1. Unions Tasmania argued that there aren't the resources to organise rallies in Hobart and Launceston on the same day, and that it was important to have a rally in Launceston as part of the ACTU's marginal seats campaign.
However, Health and Community Services Union delegate Susan Austin expressed the view of other activists in HACSU when she told Green Left Weekly that the June 28 protest would have much more impact if the union movement organised two big, simultaneous protests, one in the south of the state, in Hobart, and one in the north, in Launceston. She rejected the argument that there aren't the resources to organise two protests: "On November 15 last year, Unions Tasmania organised rallies across Tasmania. The biggest was in Hobart, with 6000 people, and there were another 5000 at rallies in northern Tasmania."
In NSW there has been a big debate about whether or not to mobilise on June 28, with Unions NSW secretary John Robertson opposed to any mobilisation. The NSW left unions, and some right-wing ones, have been feeling pressure from their memberships for more action in the campaign against Work Choices and over recent weeks campaigned in Unions NSW for a mass rally on June 28 and for a cross-union mass delegates' meeting in the lead-up.
Robertson eventually agreed to cross-union delegates' meetings, which will be held in various venues across Sydney and in regional NSW centres in the week starting May 15. However, a compromise on June 28 between Robertson and the left unions, announced at the May 5 Unions NSW council meeting, puts Sydney's June 28 protest in the far-western suburb of Blacktown, a marginal seat, with no rally proposed for the city centre. A campaign was launched last week calling on Unions NSW to organise rallies in both Blacktown and the Sydney CBD on June 28 (see article on page 4).
From Green Left Weekly, May 10, 2006.
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