Tens of thousands of trade unionists took to the streets across the country on August 27 to show their opposition to Labor’s new anti-Construction Forestry Maritime Employees Union (CFMEU) law and the Australian Council of Trade Unions’ (ACTU) support for it.
What did the “left” of the political and media establishment, Labor and the ABC, take from that? They decided to try to take down the Greens, along with the CFMEU.
They have focused on Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather’s speech to the rally in Magan-djin/Brisbane and what they called “offensive” placards of “Albanazi” (depicting Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with a Hitler comb moustache) in the crowd, and a “Bury the ALP” coffin propped up at the front of the stage.
Ministers Richard Marles, Tanya Plibersek, Katy Gallagher, Bill Shorten and Murray Watt all immediately tried to link the Greens to purported CFMEU “thuggery” and “misogyny”.
Albanese raised it in response to a question in parliament from Chandler-Mather on September 10.
The ABC took up this line. 7.30’s Sarah Ferguson conducted an “interview” with Chandler-Mather after the rally which, eventually, he had to call out as “offensive”.
Ferguson opened with this question: “Do you think that potential Green voters will warm to the image of you giving full-throated support to a militant union that has enabled the infiltration of organised crime into its business?”
Within days, Insiders host David Speers published an piece for the ABC where he suggested Chandler-Mather had probably given Labor a weapon to use against the Greens.
Speers compared the coffin and placards to banners behind the former Coalition leader Tony Abbott at a 2011 anti-carbon tax rally where banners included “Ju-Liar, Bob Brown’s bitch” and “Ditch the Witch” aimed at then Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
The 2011 slogans were, of course, anti-women put-downs, born of patriarchy, and irrelevant to the carbon tax except as an attempt to belittle its proponents.
Calling Albanese a “Nazi” is wrong, because Labor doesn’t (and probably never could) have the storm troopers needed, as well as the state, to crush a serious workers’ movement, as the Nazis did.
But a lot of people, emotionally, express their opposition to undemocratic moves in anti-fascist imagery and terms. What Labor has done to the CFMEU is anti-democratic and, indeed, not dissimilar to what the Nazis started with against the unions.
To quote Wikipedia: “On 2 May, 1933, trade union headquarters throughout Germany were occupied, their funds were confiscated …”
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Chandler-Mather responded to Ferguson by sticking to principles. Mostly, this involved upholding legal fairness and justice.
He pointed out that the government had passed laws allowing it to seize control of the CFMEU and give its administrators the power to sack officials and organisers, and permanently ban them from working for a union without a fair trial and the presumption of innocence. This was done to union officials who did not even have allegations of a criminal or corrupt nature against them.
Only at the interview’s end did Chandler-Mather manage to make his point that “we should have solidarity with those workers, because they deserve a free and democratic union and let’s be clear [about] the precedent this sets now: any worker organisation in this country could have this done to them”.
He went on: “This could be [done to] workers … that do stand up to governments, do engage in mass strike action to protect their rights and conditions.”
Ferguson’s question about why the Greens would support “a militant union” is revealing.
Union militancy is critical for members’ involvement in a union. That is what enables the defence of workers’ conditions and rights — the business of any decent union.
It is also one of the ways in which workers stand up for themselves against employers and the state. In terms of the class struggle, militancy is not a crime, it is a necessity.
Potential Green voters, including militant workers, may well warm to Chandler-Mather having their backs in this fight with Labor.
The Australian, reflecting a range of employers’ views, has been running articles foreseeing this possibility.
Ferguson’s question is not yet fully answered.
There is a hint at an answer, however, as the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union has disaffiliated from the Australian Council of Trade Unions and various unions are debating withdrawing financial support from Labor to help fund a legal challenge led by sacked CFMEU officials.
[Join the rallies in support of the CFMEU on September 17 and 18. You can also support the CFMEU in other ways, including attending rank-and-file meetings.]