By Anthony Benbow
PERTH — Anyone driving down Harvest Terrace past WA's parliament lately has been greeted by a blaze of light and colour. Day and night there is movement and activity, music, people talking, a welcoming fire against the cold and shelters to keep off the rain. Flags and banners are everywhere; posters and stickers cover noticeboards and the sides of a caravan.
It's hard to believe this is the most dangerous structure in Perth at the moment — so dangerous that Premier Richard Court threatens daily to send police in to tear it down.
This "dangerous place" is the WA Trades and Labour Council's official Workers' Embassy. It was established on April 29 in the midst of the biggest rally for workers' rights in WA for decades.
That rally was part of the campaign against the Court government's latest round of anti-union laws, the so-called "third wave", which the government rammed through parliament before new members elected at the last poll in December were allowed to take their seats. The embassy was to act as one of the focal points for the ongoing campaign.
Twenty-four hours after it was established, the embassy was broken up by police, who arrested four members of the WA BLPPU (Builders' Labourers, Painters and Plasterers Union).
Eight hours later, the embassy was re-established in a slightly different spot, with workers present in number to prevent any re-eviction. The TLC also decided to peg the area as a mining claim — called "No ticket, no start" — as a basis for a longer stay.
Since then, workers have built a brick barbecue (dedicated in honour of Mark Allen, a young union organiser killed trying to make a job safe last year) and pergola, laid down brick paving, erected shelters, planted trees, made a sandpit for children and provided portable toilets and a caravan for the night shift to sleep in. A wall of sandbags is between the embassy and parliament, and there is a gate and letter box.
Each union takes a 24-hour shift from 6pm. Smaller unions combine on shifts, and so do community supporters. The mix of people meeting and working side by side has built much solidarity. Unions have had mass meetings at the site, and nearly 1000 attended the "work boots ball". Each time a shift changes, a tree is planted as part of "mine rehabilitation".
Court has demanded that unionists leave the site and "return it to its original condition". Vital by-laws are being breached, apparently. Far from causing damage, the embassy has made many improvements to the site.
Whatever happens, the embassy has been a useful tactic in the ongoing campaign to maintain the freedom of workers to organise, which the "third wave" aims to take away.