BRISBANE — “What [federal industrial relations minister] Kevin Andrews is going to do to union rights after July 1 will make what [Joh] Bjelke-Petersen did to us in Queensland 20 years ago pale into insignificance”, Bernie Neville, a leader of the struggle by SEQEB electricity workers in 1985, told a film night dedicated to militant workers' struggles on March 8 at the Activist Centre.

Neville, who has recently rejoined the Electrical Trades Union after being blacklisted from the power industry for many years, said that unions “need to fight these new federal laws in the streets and on the shop floor ... not relying on the courts”.

The Dare to Struggle night featured films highlighting militant workers' campaigns — a video of an 8000-strong rally last November in defence of jailed Victorian manufacturing workers union leader Craig Johnston, and a film about the successful fight in December and January by workers to take control of the Venezuelan oil industry.

Jim McIlroy

From Green Left Weekly, March 16, 2005.
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