Oz Unions (Vic) oppose ALP WorkChoices-lite

[chebol]

We can no longer accept the fact that workers in Australia are denied
the right to strike. What sort of system is it that accepts that
neither of the political parties that can reasonably expect to form
Government will guarantee one of the most internationally recognised,
basic human and democratic rights for workers, and that is the right
to strike?

This cannot be tolerated. Some of the most vocal critics of
totalitarian systems in various parts of the world, places where
unions and the right to strike have been crushed, are suddenly
enthusiastic supporters of the "no strike" policies in Australia. The
right to strike is ultimately the most fundamental right
distinguishing whether a worker has dignity, rights, and a reasonable
standard of life, or must live on their knees begging for fair treatment.

The employers have the right to invest or not invest, the right to
introduce or not introduce new technology, the right to hire and fire,
the right to create conditions of fear and insecurity at work, the
right to establish and continue with unfair, unrealistic and bad
health creating performance, measuring and enforcement systems, the
right to refuse to negotiate with or recognize workers unions and so on.

Without the right to strike workers have few rights at all and must
ultimately submit. What sort of a system is this?

The right to strike in Australia must be won. It will be won by public
opinion, direct action, or both.

To this end the Victorian Branch Committee of Management of the CEPU
(T&S) has decided to take the initiative in organising a "Right To
Strike Coalition" to pursue that goal.

It has been agreed, by the Secretaries of each of the Victorian
Branches of the CEPU, that a meeting of interested unions be organised
for:

10 AM THURSDAY 10th MAY 2007

ETU OFFICE (Old Mill Building)

200 ARDEN ST, NORTH MELBOURNE.

The objective of the meeting is to establish a "right to strike
coalition" from interested unions initially, and then move to enlist
wider support from the general community following this.

We see this as a long term campaign which should begin immediately.
The objective is to build such widespread public support for the
principle, that it can no longer be ignored by the major political
parties.

Looking forward to your attendance at this important meeting,

Please also find attached a brief discussion paper on related subject
matters which had a limited distribution to unions in 2006,

Yours in solidarity

LEN COOPER Branch Secretary CEPU Communications Div M. 0439 389 302

DEAN MIGHELL Branch Secretary CEPU Electrical Div (ETU) M. 0418 354 362

JOAN DOYLE Branch Secretary CEPU Communications Div M. 0419 345 134

EARL SETCHES Branch Secretary CEPU Plumbing Division M. 0418 348 799

CURRENT CAMPAIGN IS GOOD

There is no doubt that at many levels in the "your rights at work
campaign", individual unions, the union movement and the union
solidarity organisation are doing a great job.

The workplace exposures, the publicity, the community/union activities
helping to defend workers, the mass "stop the city" rallies, the
alternative industrial relations policies and the marginal seat
organisation are all excellent and very necessary parts of the
struggle against the Howard Government's unfair, oppressive
anti-worker legislation.

IS IT GOOD ENOUGH?

However will it achieve what we want? We surely want to restore
workers' rights at work - the right to unionise, the right to strike,
the right to collectively bargain; however can we afford to just rely
on the hope of re-electing the Labor Party to Government? Even if the
Labor Party is elected will it restore those desperately needed rights?

Even if a Labor Government exceeds all our expectations it is not
likely to restore workers' rights in their entirety and it may well be
that the Senate majority after the next election could still be in the
hands of the Tories. Thus the worst aspects of the current IR
legislation could still be in place until 2011 at the earliest.

WHAT THEN IS NEEDED

What then do we need to do to ensure that workers rights are restored
in this country?

We need to prepare to use the combined industrial and organising
strength of the work force to fight these vicious laws. I am not
arguing for a general strike because I think that the difficulties
facing the working class make such an all-out response extremely
difficult at present and for the foreseeable future. I would not rule
out a general strike sometime in the future if it becomes absolutely
necessary and the conditions relevant.

USE OUR INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH

Rather we should aim to use the industrial strength of groups of
workers with significant industrial impact in selected industries.
This would have the advantage logistically of making it easier to
organise, of making it easier to sustain financially and more likely
quicker to organise. It also has the advantage of being able to
financially support the strikers through the wider working class and
community and retaining the capacity to widen the strike action if
necessary.

In my view we should begin by establishing a coalition of supportive
unions, and begin the preparatory work necessary (e.g. deciding on the
groups of workers who should consider striking, establishing,
publicising and building of a fighting fund, examining and working on
the difficulties that stand in the way etc).

Even the process of organising and preparing for such a strike
campaign will have a major impact on the political process and public
debate. Preparing for such a response will take a considerable period
of time. However serious planning for such a response should begin
immediately.

LEN COOPER, Secretary CEPU (T&S) Vic, M. 0438 389 302

[the-red-under-the-bed]

Good SHIT! Shame all unions arnt this militant. What do ya recon the odds are of the "right to strike" co-alition leaving the ACTU and endorsing socialist alliance?


probly fuck all but i like to dream

[chebol]

At the moment it's pretty much fuck-all. But the unions made a major fuck-up at the ALP national conference on the weekend, by not opposing Rudd's (and calling for a better) IR policy.

They now have toi fight furiously for any leverage, which gives us an added hearing. Add to that our consistent work over the past few years, and we are well placed. We are close with people like Dean Mighell, and Martin Kingham; Chris Cain (MUA sec WA) is a member, Craig Johnston (former AMWU sec Vic) and Jamie Doughney (NTEU Vic) are too, and more, plus many many close allies.

However, the immediate project is to build the strongest *fighting* alliance of militants and socialist activists, including those who hold political positions opposed to the SA. When (if?) the ALP gets elected, then we have the real space to argue for a real aternative.

I suspect many or most Oz comrades on this board don't remember the effect of the last ALP federal victory, when Hawke got in, and the immensely constructuve fallout on the left. It's worth looking into....

Onwards with the struggle (and always ready for a sell-out)...

[Cheung Mo]

If "leaders" like Tony Blair, Gerhardt Schroeder, Bob Rae, Lionel Jospin, and Gary Doer are anything to go by (all came to power a few years after Hawke), I think you're being too charitable to Labour. To me they seem just a smidge left of Stephen Harper...lol...They''ve come across -- under both Beazley and Rudd anyways -- as being bigoted, warmongering, anti-worker, and pro-Washington.

If you can't endorse the SA, at the very least throw your weight behind the Green Party: If you're not in a position to support a revolutionary plaform, you can at the very least support sustainable development, civil libertarianism, social justice, and anti-imperialism (in short a coalition of bourgeois radicals/ultra-liberals, left-wing social democrats (in the Keynesian rather than the Marxian sense), stray Trots and anarchists, and democratic socialists) over a party that favours an openly reactionary platform.

Supporting Labour because it was a mass workers party back when most (as oppsed to a handful of) union bureaucrats actually gave a flying fuck is like supporting Andre Boisclair because one of the Parti Quebecois' 6 or so founding political currents had Marxists in it 35 years ago.

[chebol]

I think you misunderstand - I'm not being charitable to the ALP. If I were to be any less charitable I'd hand them the noose myself. They've never been as *left* as, say, the British LP, and even the heydays of Gough were pretty shitty.

I am actually very active in the Socialist Alliance, but the point I was trying to make above is that the unions here are still tied to the apron-strings of Another Liberal Party. To cut those ties, we need to build up strong alliances, based on action more than necessarily a shared platform or program.

The point about an ALP victory is this:
SA will be running in the elections, as well as fighting in the campaigns, and criticising the neoliberal policies of the ALP. But AFTER the election, we will have even more space to move, as the illusions many people have in the ALP come shattering and clattering down. That is what happened after Hawke and the Accord, and it is likely it will happen this time too, in one way or another.

The better placed we are to get a hearing in the organised working class and help organise an alternative to the ALP now, the better we will be able to build it then. In the short term, however, we are still far too small, and the urge to get Howard out at any cost far too strong, to see any unions affilliating just yet (although it's been tossed around from time to time, I'm sure).

On the Greens, well, they just junked most of their policy on Israel/ Palestine, and Bob Brown opposed Howard sending more troops to Afghanistan by saying that the US should send more instead. Parliamentarism without a healthy approach to the mass movements makes you a cretin.