BY SUE BOLTON
MELBOURNE — The case against 16 of the unionists charged over protests at the Johnson Tiles factory and the Skilled Engineering offices on June 15, 2001, was finalised at the county court on July 30.
The 16 unionists, members of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) and the Electrical Trades Union, were convicted of unlawful assembly and fined between $1000 and $3000 each and sentenced to good behaviour bonds for periods ranging between 12 months and 30 months.
Originally, 20 unionists had been charged over the two protests, but two of the unionists had all charges withdrawn during the committal proceedings. The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) agreed to drop all charges against another unionist, Zelko Curack, in return for his agreement to testify against the other accused.
In the beginning, the unionists had also been charged with very serious offences such as aggravated burglary, riot, criminal damage, assault and affray. However, the lack of evidence to sustain such serious charges meant that the DPP agreed to withdraw the more serious charges prior to the 16 unionists appearing in court.
Despite the lack of evidence to sustain the more serious charges, the DPP refused to drop the charges against the last of the accused, former AMWU state secretary Craig Johnston. He is contesting the charges and will face trial next May.
In his sentencing remarks, judge Joe Gullaci said that the court was constrained to deal with the facts relating to the specific charge of unlawful assembly and therefore he could not take into account other events which happened inside the premises.
Gullaci said that the unlawful assembly in which the accused had engaged was a breach of the public peace when they entered the factory gates. He also noted that the prosecutor had not been able to identify any of the accused as doing any particular thing in gaining entry to either the Johnson Tiles or Skilled Engineering premises or inside either premises. The prosecutor was only able to demonstrate that the accused were present as part of the group of protesters.
The judge also noted that for most of the accused, this was the first time that they had ever appeared in court.
The charges related to an industrial dispute at Johnson Tiles in 2001 provoked by the company's sacking of its maintenance workers without any warning and their replacement by scab labour from notorious labour hire company Skilled Engineering.
At a fund-raising function for the Skilled Six Defence Campaign on August 1, Johnston pointed out that the real violence in the Johnson Tiles dispute was the sacking of the workers and the removal of their livelihood. But the media doesn't regard that as violence and instead condemns the union protests to get those workers' jobs back as violent. Some 400 supporters from a cross section of unions attended the function.
The campaign is known as the Skilled Six case because initially there were just six unionists charged over the protest at Skilled Engineering. It was not until 12 months later that other unionists were charged over the protest at Johnson Tiles.
The Skilled Six Defence Campaign will continue campaigning for the charges against Craig Johnston to be dropped. The targeting of Johnston is politically motivated with the bosses, the state Labor government and tamecat union leaders having made it clear that they want to see him excluded from the union movement. If he is convicted, Johnston will be legally ineligible to become a union official for five years.
From Green Left Weekly, August 6, 2003.
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