BY SUE BOLTON
Why would Australian Manufacturing Workers Union national secretary Doug Cameron be trying to get rid of Craig Johnston, the AMWU's Victorian branch secretary, when this branch has been more successful than any other branches at increasing its membership, reactivating members, and improving wages and conditions?
You would think that any national secretary who was loyal to the interests of his union's members would be trying to replicate the successes of the Victorian branch in other parts of the union — not destroy them.
Instead, ever since the militant Workers First team won the leadership of the Victorian branch in 1998, Cameron has been plotting and scheming about how to get rid of it.
Initially, Cameron tried all sorts of undermining tactics. Because union staff funds are controlled by the national office, this was a problem for the Victorian branch. But the branch still won some substantial industrial achievements.
When the position of state secretary of the AMWU became vacant in 2000, Johnston won the position by a clear majority against a candidate backed by Cameron with enormous financial resources. The industrial successes of the Workers First leadership had made Johnston very popular among AMWU members.
When Johnston and six other AMWU members were charged in 2001 for allegedly vandalising the offices of labour hire company Skilled Engineering, Cameron and his cronies started spreading unsubstantiated rumours of thuggishness about the Workers First leadership. Skilled Engineering had sent its employees to cross a picket line and take the jobs of 29 maintenance workers at a company called Johnson Tiles.
In November, Victorian Labor Premier Steve Bracks wrote a letter to Cameron, calling on him to bring into line the supposedly "rogue" Victorian branch of the union.
Complying with the request, Cameron used an AMWU national council meeting on December 4 to establish an internal union inquiry to determine if Johnston was "bringing the union into disrepute". The inquiry is wide-ranging and sought submissions from other unions and employers, as well as AMWU members.
When, almost 12 months after the event, enough political pressure had finally been put on Johnson Tiles to press charges against Johnston and 16 others over alleged vandalism and abuse of scabs, and when Johnston and three other AMWU members were committed to stand trial over the incident at Skilled Engineering, Cameron went to the media with a call for Johnston to stand down from his position — implying that Johnston should be considered guilty unless he proved his innocence.
Australian Council of Trade Unions assistant secretary Greg Combet also joined in the chorus of employers and politicians calling for the Workers First leadership to be ousted. The July 4 Sydney Morning Herald reported Combet as telling other union officials that Workers First should receive no support. He accused Workers First of encouraging the Howard government to introduce anti-union legislation and of tarnishing the Labor Party.
Federal workplace relations minister Tony Abbott has already claimed, in parliament where he is protected from a defamation charge, that Johnston was guilty of the incident at Skilled Engineering. The comments by Cameron and Abbott are likely to prejudice the court proceedings. Many of the Skilled Engineering witnesses only identified the unionists after being presented with newspaper reports linking Johnston with the incident.
However, it seems that the legal process over the Skilled Engineering and Johnson Tiles cases is not going fast enough for Cameron. It appears that Cameron is trying to oust Johnston from the state secretary position before the Victorian branch of the AMWU has a chance to fully formulate its plans for Campaign 2003.
Most enterprise bargaining agreements in the manufacturing industry in Victoria run out early next year, giving the AMWU the opportunity to run an industry-wide campaign to improve wages and conditions for its members. The car companies have recently been spitting chips about the likelihood of widespread industrial action.
In an outrageously undemocratic move, Cameron called an emergency national council meeting on July 9 to hear a report from the internal union inquiry. The meeting voted to immediately stand Johnston down from his position as state secretary and ban him from attending any union meeting or any union office while the internal inquiry hears new charges of "gross misconduct". The new inquiry is meant to report to an AMWU national council meeting on August 14.
On July 8, the Victorian state council decided to appoint AMWU food division secretary Bronwyn Halfpenny as acting secretary for the Victorian branch if Johnston is absent for any reason. Cameron decided to ignore this in favour of inserting a national official, Dave Oliver, into the job — indicating that the inquiry is a power grab for Cameron.
This is not the first time that Cameron has intervened to overturn democratic decisions by the Victorian branch. After the April state conference of the AMWU decided to stop paying ALP affiliation fees for six months, Cameron took the state branch to court to force it to send a delegation to the May state ALP conference.
AMWU members and other Victorian unionists are furious that a democratically elected state secretary could be stood down in such spurious circumstances. There is a widespread view that the internal union inquiry is simply a kangaroo court, and that it is putting enormous pressure on members to come up with allegations against Johnston. AMWU shop stewards are circulating a petition opposing the national interference in their union.
When you look at the differences in the pay and conditions of AMWU members in Victoria and NSW, you can see why the employers want to get rid of the Johnston leadership — it has redirected a portion of profit away from the employers and toward the workers who create those profits.
For example, day-shift workers at Unilever's Knoxfield plant in Victoria earn at least $12,000 more than day shift workers at Unilever's plant in Sydney. It is a similar story for workers at Simplot's plants in Victoria have won average wage increases of 20-29% in the last three years of agreements compared to 12% in NSW and Tasmania.
The inclusion, in many of the Victorian AMWU's agreements, of a ban or severe limitations on the use of labour hire and casuals has been one reason for the branch's massive growth. In many agreements, the union has been successful in getting casual jobs converted into permanent jobs. Casual workers in Victoria can see the value in joining a union which tries to get them permanency.
Victoria is now the largest branch of the AMWU, with more than 50% of the national membership — and it is still growing.
Employers are worried about what Campaign 2003 might extract next. For example, the AMWU has been canvassing the opinion of members about whether to include a claim for reducing the working week to 35 or 36 hours.
The ALP machine has clearly enlisted Cameron to help ensure bosses don't have to share too big a percentage of their profits with manufacturing workers.
From Green Left Weekly, July 17, 2002.
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