BY JORGE JORQUERA
MELBOURNE — Trade unions in Victoria are on the horns of a dilemma: do they support the planned protests at the World Economic Forum's Asia-Pacific Economic Summit here on September 11-13 and strike a blow for global justice, or do they follow the wishes of Victorian Labor premier Steve Bracks and keep well away?
Several months ago, the Melbourne S11 Alliance sent a letter to 250 Labor branches in Victoria, seeking their support for S11. Only the valiant West Waverley branch offered its support.
The Victorian Labor government has made many public statements warning against any "disruption" of the summit. As the heir to Liberal Premier Jeff Kennett, Steve Bracks is acutely sensitive to anything that might upset big business. Maintaining "business confidence" is the number one priority of Victorian Labor.
Bracks is putting enormous pressure on the leaders of Victoria's trade unions to not lend their organisations' weight to the September blockade.
The Victorian Trades Hall Council has organised a "Rally for Australian jobs and the human rights of workers all over the world" for September 12. However, its organisers do not intend to allow it to march to the blockade at the Crown Casino. Instead, the rally is to march to Enterprise Park on the other side of the Yarra River.
So far, most unions have not officially endorsed the community blockade, on the pretext is that the S11 Alliance has not made it clear that the blockade will be non-violent.
The S11 Alliance, however, has unanimously agreed that the action at the Crown Casino will be a "non-violent community blockade". This has been made repeatedly and strikingly clear in all the alliance's publicity and has been communicated to the unions and all interested community organisations.
Some unions have made positive steps. The Victorian division of the National Tertiary Education Industry Union has voted to publicise all activities related to S11, leaving its members to decide which events to attend. But many more remain to do so.
Trades Hall's refusal to allow its rally to join forces with the blockade, combined with the lack on trade union endorsements, creates the perfect conditions for the state government to isolate the community blockade.
The trade union movement has to decide whether it will allow itself to be used by the government to split the anti-WEF protests. If it does not endorse the blockade, and does not join forces with it, the union movement will be abandoning the community protest to the "mercy" of the state government's cops and the federal government's troops (who will likely be protected from any legal consequences that might flow from their use of deadly repression).
The right choice, however, to endorse, participate in and help organise the community blockade, would be a major blow to the summit's prestige and would help delegimitise corporate rule. Which way will the union movement choose?
[Jorge Jorquera is an organiser with the S11 Alliance. He is the Democratic Socialist Party's Melbourne secretary. Visit Green Left Weekly's Global Action Against Corporate Tyranny web site at <http://www.greenleft.org.au/globalaction/s11>.]