Is blockading a democratic right?

COMMENT BY ROBERTO JORQUERA 

PERTH — According to countless media commentators and letter writers,
the M1 protesters who blockaded stock exchanges around the country were
violent, undemocratic and hypocritical because they were denying workers
the right to work. You don't have the right to stop people going about
their lawful business, the chorus sang.

The argument even found some resonance within the labour and social
movements. Unions WA, for example, while officially supporting the M1 protests,
did have many reservations about backing the blockade, because it would
stop union members from going to work.

Even some of those who participated in the blockade have since wavered,
arguing that the M1 Alliance didn't have the right to raise the issues
which were concerning it by stopping people working. There were even those
who said that, by doing so, we were hurting those we were supposed to be
fighting for.

But rights are rarely complementary and frequently clashing. The exercise
of one right involves the subordination of another. Companies' rights to
turn a buck frequently conflict with communities' rights to not suffer
exploitation or environmental devastation, for example. Whose rights should
have priority?

In the case of M1, the blockaders believed that their right to stage
a militant protest against corporate greed was more important than business's
right to operate normally or the right of ASX workers to sit at their desks.

How do you judge which rights should have priority? That's a political
decision, based on whose interests you support. If you support capitalism,
you believe the right to make a profit is more important than anything
else; a committed trade unionist, however, would believe that workers'
rights to decent pay and conditions should take priority over the rights
of their employers.

The struggle against the injustices that are committed against people
by this system will utilise many different tactics, and many of them will
undoubtedly affect people's work and lives.

The task of a movement like M1 is to explain to those looking on why
our action is in their interests and why they should make the same choice
about rights that we make.

During the MUA dispute in 1998, for example, thousands of people helped
in the community pickets to defend the wharfies. In doing so, they denied
the rights of Chris Corrigan to run his business how he wanted to and they
denied the rights of those who scabbed.

They took such action because they believed, rightly, that the right
of the wharfies to keep their jobs, and the rights of other workers which
would be threatened in the future if the company won, were far more important.
That message was understood by many people in the community.

Opponents of the logging of old growth forests have also taken militant
direct action, stopping timber workers from cutting down trees. They too
have been attacked for being anti-worker, for denying the right of loggers
to perform their “lawful work”.

The blockaders' answer was that the rights of those who wanted to protect
the forests and to stop environmental vandalism should take primacy, because
that was what was in the interests of the majority of people and of the
ecology.

They also argued that the interests even of the logging workers wasn't
in supporting the timber companies, and that their right to work would
be better protected by joining campaigns for alternative industries in
rural areas.

Those trade unions which have argued against people blockading the ASX,
or other venues, are doing themselves a particular disservice: because
if community groups don't have the right to blockade, then neither do unions
have the right to strike.

Strikes invariably affect other people in some way. When public transport
workers strike, for example, the media and the government invariably hits
them with accusations that they are denying others the right to get to
work in the morning.

An essential component of all community and union campaigns, strikes,
pickets or blockades must be educating the public about why such action
is necessary, so that working people make the choice that they would rather
exercise their right to live free from exploitation and injustice than
their right to dutifully file in to work each morning.

[Roberto Jorquera was involved in organising the M1 blockade of the
Perth ASX and is the Democratic Socialist
Party's Perth district secretary.]

From GLW issue 451