May Day this year was something special.
In France, workers and students celebrated their tremendous victory against the French government's attempt to give employers the right to sack young workers at will.
In the United States on May 1, more than a million workers marched in Los Angeles, with hundreds of thousands more taking to the streets on other cities, led by an immigrant rights' movement that has erupted in the last few months.
In Bolivia, the new government of Evo Morales used May Day to nationalise that country's gas industry, fulfilling the demand of that country's mass movement.
And in this country, working people joined May Day rallies and marches in much larger numbers than for many years, united in saying "No!" to the Howard's government's new wave of attacks on workers and trade unions.
Right now, the struggle in Australia to turn back Howard and his business mates' attempts to destroy working people's standard of living is at a critical stage. If they get away with implementing Work Choices, they will (as finance minister Nick Minchin let slip) push on with even more attacks on workplace rights.
We have to stop them now. If we wait until the next federal election it will be too late; our jobs, working conditions and trade unions will have been decimated and the ALP, even if it wins the election, will be able to get away with leaving the laws in place, just as they have with secondary boycott laws.
France shows us that Howard can be stopped - solidarity and militancy are the keys. Public opinion in Australia is clear - a large majority want Work Choices overturned - and where workers and their unions have been prepared to fight, the employers and the government have already been forced to retreat (such as at the Cowra abattoir and at Finlay Engineering in Melbourne).
The Socialist Alliance is playing an important role in the struggle for a real fight-back, one that can overturn Work Choices. Our trade union members were central to the push to get the ACTU to call the next national round of protests on June 28. We are organising in dozens of unions and hundreds of workplaces. Student members have called a solidarity student strike on June 1. Members in Queensland have set up a United Casual Workers Alliance and others are building strong community-union networks in various states.
But all this campaigning costs money, and right now we need your help. The Socialist Alliance has launched a May fight-back fund appeal, calling on all supporters of the alliance's campaigning work to make a special "fight-back" donation. This will allow us to keep campaigning, reaching out to as broader networks as possible and keep initiating public meetings and protests.
Donations to the Socialist Alliance of $2 to $100 are tax deductible, and every cent will go a long way towards strengthening the campaign to stop Work Choices, and also to rebuilding democratic, fighting unions.
Donations can be made securely online at If you can help us in any other way too - getting our material out, helping to organise fundraising events or anything else - please get in touch with the local Alliance branch, email Your contribution will make a difference. United in struggle we can beat Howard back!
Lisa Macdonald
[Lisa Macdonald is a member of the Socialist Alliance national executive.]
From Green Left Weekly, May 10, 2006.
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