BY MELANIE SJOBERG
MELBOURNE — The Victorian Trades Hall Council will endorse and participate in three events associated with protests against the September 11-13 World Economic Forum (WEF) summit here — but the major event, the start of the three-day mass community blockade, is not one of them.
Trades Hall has not responded to a letter from the S11 Alliance asking for its endorsement and assistance for the blockade. Nor has it answered an invitation that its labour rights rally, scheduled for September 12, march to the Crown Casino site to join blockaders.
The events deemed worthy of trade union officials' support are the September 12 rally (which will take place on the opposite side of the river to Crown Casino), a September 8 union forum, designed as a media event, and a September 10 community and union conference titled "Other Voices, Other Values", which is also sponsored by the Australian Council for Overseas Aid, the Australian Conservation Foundation, the National Union of Students and the Uniting Church.
Trades Hall has written to labour councils in other states explaining the reasons for its policy. The letter states, "We will not endorse or be involved in events where we cannot be assured that the outcome and message will be positive".
Trades Hall charges that the Melbourne-based S11 Alliance has "no clear protocols in relation to non-violence". However, the S11 Alliance has repeatedly stated that the mass community blockade will be non-violent.
Representatives from the S11 Alliance have been meeting with Trades Hall secretary Leigh Hubbard and with Victorian police to establish the procedures for the three-day event. One member of the team is Cam Walker, the national liaison officer for Friends of the Earth, an organisation with years of commitment to non-violent protest.
Alliance activists have also argued that active trade union involvement in organising the blockade would be the best way to ensure its outcome is safe, peaceful and "positive".
Australian Services Union assistant state secretary Ingrid Stitt told Green Left Weekly that the ASU would participate in Trades Hall's September 12 rally, would be organising buses to transport its members and would recommend its members stop work from 10.30am to attend. She said the union has decided to make September 12 its focus so it as not to "spread itself too thin".
The National Union of Workers is also publicising the rally on September 12, while the Victorian divisional executive of the National Tertiary Education Industry Union has agreed to promote all protest events targeting the WEF.
The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union national secretary, Doug Cameron, who was present at the Seattle anti-free trade protests and has been a prominent proponent of "social tariffs", refused to comment to Green Left Weekly on his union's plans. However, the union's Victorian branch, which is run by the militant Workers First team, has endorsed S11 as well as the official Trades Hall events.
Unions from NSW, South Australia and Western Australia are organising contingents of union and community activists who will be present for the protest on September 11.
The chairperson of the South Australian United Trades and Labor Council's international committee, Stephen Spence, who is also the state secretary of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, has endorsed S11 and will speak on the opening platform of the S11 blockade.
ACTU president Sharan Burrow will attend parts of the WEF summit, as will Victorian Labor Premier Steve Bracks. They will be in the company of corporate notables such as Microsoft chairperson Bill Gates, National Australia Bank CEO Frank Cicutto, Rio Tinto managing director Barry Cusack and BHP chief executive Paul Anderson.
The S11 Alliance says it will encourage the widest democratic involvement in all activities, including the Trades Hall events.