BY PETER LEWIS
[The following comment appeared on Workers Online, the NSW Labor Council web site, on May 3. The author is the site's editor.]
Unionists watching the shambolic and violent affair that was the M1 protest could be forgiven for wondering what has become of the traditional workers' day?
Here were a couple of hundred political extremists making life hell for ordinary workers — be they the bank workers forced to get to work at 5am or the police officers facing physical danger from juvenile tactics. They have 365 days to choose from, why take ours?
These were not "May Day protesters" as portrayed in the media, they were the remnants of S11, who induced media attention on the threat of violence — including the outrageous message that they were being trained by the intifada.
The tragedy of M1 is that many in the union movement have sympathy with the issues driving the protests: we have taken a public stand of the plight of asylum seekers, we do work hard to blunt the excesses of the corporates and of course, we support trade union rights.
It's just that their tactics are so counterproductive. It's immature politics that only ends up marginalising the public; the actions of people acting without a constituency, thumbing their noses, not just to authority but to the history of the Australian working class.
There are no doubt many well-intentioned and motivated people within the M1 movement and they should not be condemned en masse. But they really need to think about what they are trying to achieve and how the orgy of self-indulgence.
If they want to smash the state, good luck. If they want to bring about meaningful change in a democracy, they should rethink their tactics.
The irony of the affair was that the M1 debacle took place as the union movement proper took further steps to broaden their appeal.
The union anthem contest, won by a 24-year-old rapper from Campbelltown, Swarmy G, was a successful attempt to find new ways of reaching people who are not in the movement. The media response was overwhelmingly positive.
Meanwhile, building unions joined forces to turn their back on generations of ideological differences and get their house together in the interests of their membership.
The choice is to mainstream or marginalise our message. Inducing media interest with the threat of violence is not what May Day is all about. Indeed, it is an insult to its history.
From Green Left Weekly, May 8, 2002.
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