The following is an abridged version of a speech by jailed unionist Craig Johnston's lawyer Rob Stary to a public meeting in Melbourne on September 23. Johnston was formerly the Victorian secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU).
There are a few things about Craig that you all know. One is that he's a terrific organiser. And now that he's working in Loddon Prison, the one thing the prison authorities are concerned about is that he's going to start organising a few of the inmates about their rights and entitlements. When it rains and he's in charge of the outside garden crew, he's not going to stand there and let them get wet and catch colds. That's Craig, and you all know that that's the sort of bloke that he is.
Craig makes no bones about the fact that he was engaged in an industrial campaign to protect the jobs of 20 or 30 odd workers who'd been made redundant by Johnson Tiles and then their jobs replaced by hired labourers from Skilled Engineering.
How this case ever came to the criminal courts is beyond me. As a criminal lawyer, I'm usually dealing with people of a different ilk, working people who are down on their luck and working people who've had no opportunity. It's unusual for us to get someone who's involved in a case that's been so politicised. And I say that because when Craig was involved in the campaign at Johnson Tiles to protect the entitlements of the various maintenance and electrical workers at that plant, he was not doing it by himself.
He was a person who was engaged in traditional trade union values, collective action with his comrades, the other organisers and rank-and-file members in trying to protect those jobs. But Craig Johnston was singled out. When he entered the Johnson Tiles factory with 40 or 50 other people, there were 16 other people who were nominated as being involved in that campaign, and those people rightfully got the benefit of a bond and a small fine when the judge who heard the case said they were involved in a legitimate industrial grievance.
They then went on to the second premises, Skilled Engineering, to occupy the office, and funnily enough, the only people who got charged, even though there were 40 or 50 people who went to those premises, were people who the police could identify as either being organisers or officials. That included the president of the union, John Speight, other organisers, and a number of shop stewards. All those people got the benefit of the good behaviour bond — the one person who didn't was Craig Johnston.
He got a suspended jail sentence in the county court. He got charged with additional offences, primarily because he was the one person that they could identify more clearly than anyone else who was involved in that campaign.
But one thing that the judge said at that [county court] hearing was that whatever you say about the actions that Craig was engaged in, Craig, in a selfless way, had been engaged in the betterment of the conditions and wages for working people within his union. He said that Craig, again in a selfless way, had looked after the interests of the families of injured workers and fatally injured workers and in doing so had never sought accolades or never sought acknowledgement of the work he'd done for those families. The prosecution at no stage sought to challenge any of that evidence. When the judge weighed up all of those factors, he said, it would be inappropriate to give this person a jail sentence.
The director of public prosecutions wasn't happy about this. There was plenty of pressure exerted from all sorts of sources that said "We've got to appeal the leniency, the inadequacy of that sentence". And so the director of public prosecutions appealed that sentence, and we went before the court of appeal and lo and behold, we get the most conservative court of appeal imaginable. The main focus [of the appeal] was that if you damage property, you're going to pay a price.
So what was the main sentence? The main sentence that laid the basis for Craig being jailed was the fact that there was the criminal damage of a little bit of office equipment. And so the court of appeal increased the sentence for Craig for the property damage six-fold, from four months' imprisonment to two years' imprisonment. They said that was the most heinous of all the crimes that he committed.
We said that that's ridiculous. The property damage was completely incidental to the occupation of the premises. Those workers were there to occupy the premises of Skilled Engineering who had occupied the jobs of the workers at Johnson Tiles. And [the judges] said "No. We're going to jail him."
In 23 years of practice, this is the first court case that I've had that was heard on Friday afternoon at 3 o'clock, at which they said "We're going to pass judgement and we're going to jail this bloke."
This conduct should be seen in its proper context. It's an industrial campaign. If the employers want to sue Craig for damage to their property, then sue him, but also sue the other 40 people who were directly involved. Don't single out one person. I think there's an important principle.
I'm a criminal lawyer. I don't usually deal with industrial cases. I'm a supporter of the labour movement but I don't deal with industrial cases in which workers are trying to secure their rights and conditions and their entitlements, or their campaigns against people who recklessly kill other people like James Hardie.
To see Craig dealt with in this way, it is a terrible injustice, because he's not a person who's a risk to the community. He contributes to the community.
You comrades here today understand the vilification of Craig that's taken place, not just by the mainstream media, but in some sections of the trade union movement. And to have the organiser who was responsible for Johnson Tiles inform on Craig, with the full endorsement of the AMWU's national executive, is a complete disgrace and is completely contrary to every trade union principle that I'm aware of.
We can challenge this at the legal level, and that's only one part. But I'm not naive — I know these things have to be challenged at a political level and a community level, and that's where you're going to play a very important role. So I urge you to support the organisers of the Free Craig Johnston Committee, and to continue to be as staunch as you have in that support. I know that it has provided Craig with a lot of inspiration. He's told me that on more than one occasion and he's asked me to thank you on his behalf.
[To contact the Free Craig Johnston Campaign phone Sue on 0413 377 978 or email <sueb@dsp.org.au>.]
From Green Left Weekly, October 13, 2004.
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