BY SUE BOLTON
MELBOURNE — At the national Socialist Alliance conference, held on May 10-11, the delegates included a high proportion of trade unionists.
These included former Victorian secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) Craig Johnston, Maritime Union of Australia activist Chris Cain, who is standing for MUA WA secretary, and WA Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) journal editor Ian Bolas.
Other conference delegates included activists from the National Tertiary Education Industry Union, the Community and Public Sector Union, the Transport Workers Union, the Australian Education Union and the Health Services Union of Australia.
Conference delegates debated and overwhelmingly voted for a trade union resolution that will be produced as short pamphlet. This resolution explained that "active, organised and militant trade unions are important in giving workers a sense of their own power when they are organised collectively."
The resolution outlined the principles of Socialist Alliance's approach to unionism: solidarity, democracy, unity in action, independence from the state and the bosses, militancy, preparedness to break the law when necessary, internationalism and adoption of a working class position on all political issues.
The conference discussed unions disaffiliating from the ALP, deciding it would "argue for rank and file debate and conscious, democratic choice by the union membership instead of intra-bureaucratic factional manoeuvring" around such questions. It also decided to encourage individual unionists, including militant union officials, to join the alliance.
The alliance also decided that it would attempt to: provide serious leadership on day-to-day workplace issues; propose campaigns such as for a shorter working week, for the repeal of the Workplace Relations Act and against the Medicare cuts; promote solidarity with unions and unionists who are under attack; propose that unions adopt pattern bargaining; consistently take an internationalist, working-class approach to issues such as racism and refugees; help its members in non-militant unions develop as workplace delegates.
In order to achieve this, the conference decided to: establish local, state and national cross-union committees, such as the Victorian Trade Union Solidarity Committee; establish Socialist Alliance networks in individual unions; consider printing workplace and/or union-wide bulletins; set up a sub-committee to construct a trade unionists' education program; and consider a national conference of union militants
Conference delegates overwhelmingly rejected an alternative resolution presented by the Melbourne-based group Workers Power. The Workers Power resolution argued that the Socialist Alliance should argue against unions disaffiliating from the Labor Party and against unions giving any support to the Greens. It advocated that the Socialist Alliance should argue for a "new workers party" as an alternative to Labor.
During the conference, very warm greetings were received from Victorian CFMEU secretary Martin Kingham, the first unionist charged as a result of the building industry royal commission. Kingham congratulated the alliance on its strong practical support for the CFMEU.
The huge applause that greeted Kingham was indicative of the respect alliance members have for the militancy and solidarity of the WA and Victorian CFMEU branches.
The conference also decided to run a strong campaign in defence of the construction unions, and in defence of Johnston and the other unionists targeted in the Skilled Six case. The campaign includes producing a free broadsheet exposing the federal government's anti-union campaign, broad-based public meetings in each city, and a lobby of the ACTU congress.
Militant AMWU faction Workers First hosted a fundraising "welcome" for conference delegates on May 10. Workers First then showed its appreciation for the alliance by donating $500 to it.
From Green Left Weekly, May 28, 2003.
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