Sue Bolton, Melbourne
The conservative wing of the union movement and the Victorian Labor Party machine are exerting massive pressure on union officials to withdraw support from Australian Manufacturing Workers Union activist Craig Johnston, in the lead up to his May 10 trial.
Johnston's trial is a result of an industrial dispute at Johnson Tiles in 2001. Twenty-nine maintenance workers were sacked without warning and replaced overnight by labour-hire workers from Skilled Engineering.
Some of these workers had worked for Johnson Tiles for more than 25 years. Johnson Tiles and Skilled Engineering refused to negotiate reinstating the sacked workers.
The picket outside Johnson Tiles hadn't succeeded in preventing scab workers from entering the factory, so on June 15, the protest moved inside the Johnson Tiles factory and the Skilled Engineering headquarters at Box Hill.
Each spontaneous protest only lasted around 10 minutes. From the evidence presented in the court case, it is clear that no protester intended to hurt anyone or damage any property.
Skilled Engineering, a company notorious for its inhumane treatment of workers and its anti-union record, pressed charges against six unionists because of the action.
Political interference has marked the court case ever since.
During the committal proceedings in 2002, it was revealed that witnesses from Skilled Engineering did not begin identifying the accused until a month after the incident. In the meantime, they had seen newspaper articles and photos which connected Johnston to the case.
In November 2001, Victorian Labor Premier Steve Bracks wrote to AMWU national secretary Doug Cameron asking for help because the AMWU's Victorian leadership was "having a negative impact on ... investment decisions of companies".
Cameron immediately complied with the request by using the December 4 AMWU national council meeting to establish an inquiry to determine if Johnston was "bringing the union into disrepute". The inquiry sought submissions from employers and other unions as well as AMWU members.
After Johnston's election as state secretary of the AMWU's metals division in 1998 and then as AMWU state secretary in 2000, he began to attract opposition from the AMWU national office, employers and the state Labor government.
Under Johnston's leadership, the Victorian branch ran a successful pattern bargaining campaign across the industry in 2000. This agreement began to lift the wages and working conditions in weakly organised as well as strong workplaces, and began the process of converting casual jobs into permanent ones. However, the manufacturing bosses didn't want to give anything away and wanted to reverse these gains for AMWU members, hence their complaints to Bracks, and Bracks' letter to Cameron.
When the May 2002 AMWU state conference decided to suspend its affiliation to the ALP for six months and the state council confirmed that it would not send delegates to the May 18 state ALP conference that year, Cameron and the AMWU national council overturned the decision appointed a delegation to the ALP conference, including non-Victorians and non-AMWU members.
Immediately after the ALP state conference, on May 20 and 23, almost 12 months after the Johnson Tiles dispute, Johnson Tiles suddenly decided to press charges against AMWU and Electrical Trades Union members over the June 15, 2001, protest. Altogether, 18 rank and file union members and officials were charged, including nine Johnson Tiles workers who had lost their jobs in the original dispute.
By the end of 2002, the AMWU national office's campaign of rumour and court cases, supported by government and corporate media, succeeded in imposing unelected state secretary Dave Oliver on the Victorian branch.
The media campaign extended to the popular television program The Secret Life of Us which featured two episodes in 2002 based on the Skilled Engineering/Johnson Tiles court case.
When the Skilled Engineering/Johnson Tiles case came before the county court in July 2003, judge Joe Galluci dismissed the serious charges against all of the accused except for Johnston, who will face a jury trial on May 10.
Johnston's co-accused were sentenced to good behaviour bonds and fines on the minor charge of unlawful assembly. Many believe that Johnston is the sole person facing serious charges because a jail term would bar him from standing for an official position in the AMWU for five years.
The Defend Craig Johnston Campaign is also worried that Johnston's trial will be further prejudiced in the coming weeks as the ACTU pressures labour councils around Australia to pass a "criminal and violent conduct policy". The policy is so broad-ranging that, if implemented, it would prevent the union movement from supporting any unionist charged with breaking any law, such as attending a picket line, or holding a stopwork meeting with members when the courts ban such meetings.
In the House of Representatives on March 29, workplace relations minister Kevin Andrews referred to the Construction, Forestry Mining and Energy Union's and Electrical Trades Union's opposition to the ACTU motion as evidence that construction unions are thuggish and violent and need to have their industrial rights restricted.
The March AMWU national council passed a motion that leaflets advertising the rally in support of Johnston should not be displayed or distributed in any union building and AMWU officials and employees are not to distribute them.
The Defend Craig Johnston Campaign has begun collecting statements of support from unionists and social movement activists. A rally in support of Craig Johnston will be held on May 10 outside the County Court, corner of William and LaTrobe Streets, city. For more information, phone Simon Millar on 0413 630 369, or visit <http://www.defendcraigjohnston.info>.
From Green Left Weekly, April 7, 2004.
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