Renfrey Clarke, Adelaide
The January 18 meeting of the South Australian branch of the Socialist Alliance decided to stand a candidate in the seat of Port Adelaide in the March 18 state election. The Port Adelaide community has some of the strongest left and class-struggle traditions in Australia.
The Socialist Alliance is very active in the resistance to the attacks by the federal Coalition government on workers, the unemployed and their families, and is calling on state Labor governments to refuse to implement any of the Coalition's Workchoices laws.
In South Australia, the Socialist Alliance has commended the Mike Rann ALP government for setting up a website to expose the federal attacks on workers' rights, but argues that this is not enough. The alliance is calling on the SA government to also:
1. Guarantee that no state employees are offered individual contracts, which undermine the wages and conditions of workers and destroy workplace solidarity.
2. Repudiate the federal government's demand that all university and TAFE workers must be offered individual contracts if those institutions are to receive federal funding. The Labor state government must guarantee education funding from other sources.
3. Give a commitment that state police will not be used to enforce federal government attacks on workers under Workchoices, or attacks on construction unions under the Building Industry Improvement Act, or on any worker or union taking industrial action.
4. Enact state legislation to guarantee unfair dismissal protection for all workers.
5. Repudiate the federal government's attempt to abolish the state industrial system, and enshrine all conditions (long-service leave, penalty rates, allowances, meal breaks, etc.) that the federal government wants to strip from awards in state legislation.
Socialist Alliance activist and trade unionist John McGill told Green Left Weekly: "For too long workers in Australia have been forced to choose between two major parties with the same agenda and the same stripe of politician. Socialist Alliance will give working people a chance to vote for a fellow worker.
"More importantly, we will use the election campaign to help strengthen the fight-back campaigns and movements that are working people's best defence against ruthless employers and their representatives in parliament, the government."
"All SA candidates make a pledge that, if elected, they will accept only an average worker's pay. After all, MPs are supposed to represent their electorate, not just a rich elite. The Socialist Alliance is for the millions, not the millionaires."
To support the Socialist Alliance's Port Adelaide campaign or to get involved in the fight-back against Howard's anti-worker laws, email < adelaide@socialist-A HREF="mailto:alliance.org"><alliance.org> or phone the SA office on (08) 8212 6706.
From Green Left Weekly, February 1, 2006.
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