BY KATHY NEWNAM & REBECCA MECKELBURG
ADELAIDE — Declaring that "M1 will pick up where S11 left off in building the people's movement for global justice", M1 Adelaide served a "Notice of Closure" on the Australian Stock Exchange on March 1. The activists forewarned the exchange, and other "people-exploiting, earth-destroying corporations" housed in the Santos building, of the group's planned blockade of it on May 1.
The building, in the heart of Adelaide, houses the offices of the exchange itself, oil company Santos and builder Multiplex (both of which are involved in the stealing of the oil and gas in the Timor Gap from the East Timorese) and giant information technology monopolist Microsoft.
The coalition's meeting that night reflected the growing enthusiasm for the May 1 day of action. The biggest meeting of the group to date, it established working groups to coordinate media, publicity, a benefit gig on April 15 and an April seminar on globalisation.
An M1 union sub-committee has been formed to gather further support from trade unions, while M1 activists have also planned a range of publicity stalls aimed at high school students.
Anti-corporate activism has certainly struck a chord on the city's universities, as well. The Flinders University women's collective organised a February 26 Fairwear "fashion parade", targetting the exploitative practices of Nike, Mambo, Mooks, Rip Curl and other "fashionable" labels.
Hannah Mitchell-Steiner, the state women's officer for the National Union of Students, told of women workers in Australia who work for $1 an hour and of others in countries like Indonesia who work for $1 a day to produce the fashion items displayed in the parade. These items sell for up to 20 times what a worker is paid to produce them, she pointed out.
Thirty students at the university have also put their names down to join an organising collective for M1. Some of the students had been to the S11 protest in Melbourne, but many others had heard about it after the event and wanted to now get active themselves.
Elicia Savvas, a Flinders University student councillor who was one of the initiators of the M1 action group, said "Staging M1 civil disobedience actions in Adelaide, as well as in other capital cities in Australia, gives more people the opportunity to directly express their opposition to the actions of the coporate rich and their government representatives. Organising students at Flinders University means that we can take M1 and the inspiration of S11 to the people living in the south of Adelaide."
An M1 action group will also be established on Adelaide University in the coming weeks.
For more information about M1 in Adelaide, contact m1adelaide@start.com.au or phone 8231 6982.