The following statement was adopted by the National Union Fightback Conference in Melbourne on June 11.
With control of the Senate on July 1, the Howard government will begin an all-out attack on the rights of working people. The Coalition's plan is to destroy our unions and their ability to defend our wages and conditions.
If Howard and his big-business backers get away with their plans, many employment conditions such as awards, redundancy pay, penalty rates and breaks will be shredded. Anti-union penalties will be massively increased, and our unions' ability to organise will be massively restricted.
The industrial relations changes announced by the government on May 26 are much more severe than those announced during the election campaign. And the government has already announced a further round of attacks on workers in 12 months' time, after a review of all awards. The sort of attacks that have been launched against the building industry unions will be extended to all unions unless the government comes up against stiff resistance.
We therefore call on the ALP to commit to opposing all anti-union laws and to repealing them when they are next elected to office.
History tells us that anti-union laws can be defeated by the combined mobilised strength of the union movement. Already some employers are nervous. Since the new anti-union laws were announced they have told the media that they will only support the proposed laws as long as there is no significant industrial campaign against them by the union movement.
Therefore, the National Union Fightback Conference recognises that:
1. The campaign against the Coalition government's proposed industrial relations law won't be won by one single action and that there needs to be a sustained campaign involving a wide range of actions — mass rallies, media campaigning, education, workplace meetings, solidarity action between unions, public meetings, joint actions with other sections of the community under attack from the Howard government, and industrial action organised at a regional, industry, state and national level.
2. The campaign for union rights must be linked with opposition to the anti-democratic agenda of the Howard government. This includes defence of refugee rights, civil liberties, students' rights, public broadcasting, and opposition to US President George Bush's war. These issues should be interwoven with all publicity and literature of the campaign.
3. Education campaigns are absolutely vital, but they have the most impact when they are linked with proposals for workers to take action. At the same time, industrial action will be critical in the campaign, although not the only element.
4. Opinion polls show that the majority of workers who aren't union members would join a union if they weren't intimidated by their employers or if they had contact with a union. Non-union workers who are scared about the Howard government's attacks are more likely to join unions if they see the union movement mobilising on a large scale.
5. Coordinated nationwide, statewide or regional mass union protests are particularly important in recruiting non-union workers to unions and in giving workers the confidence to go back to their workplaces and stand up to their employers.
6. Such mass union protests will also be important in strengthening solidarity between different unions, between blue collar and white collar, between low-paid and higher-paid, between male and female workers, between casual and permanent workers, between Australian-born and migrant workers. They will also help weaken the hold of sexism, racism, homophobia and other attitudes used by the bosses to divide working people.
7. Such protests are also important for building alliances with other sections of the community that are being attacked by the federal government, such as disability and sole-parent pensioners. If the union movement makes a broad public appeal for all sectors of society that are being attacked by the government to join the big union protests, it will give increased confidence to other sectors.
8. The old tradition of mass delegates' meetings needs to be revived to strengthen the campaign at the grassroots.
9. Solidarity will be key to the success of this campaign. We need to pledge to take solidarity action to defend any unions which are particularly targeted and build a campaign of solidarity in the event of any unionist being prosecuted under the anti-union laws.
From Green Left Weekly, June 22, 2005.
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