AMWU leaders charged

BY SUE BULL

MELBOURNE - The Victorian branch of the Australian Manufacturing
Workers Union has found itself under major attack from both its national
office and the state government, in what many of the union's supporters
believe is an attempt to smash its progressive Workers First leadership.
After months of speculation, on May 20 and May 23 the state police charged
AMWU state secretary Craig Johnston and a number of other union members
and officials with serious offences.

The unionists have been charged for an alleged break-in at the Box Hill
offices of Skilled Engineering on June 15, 2001, and alleged verbal and
physical attacks against scabs employed by Skilled Engineering at Johnson
Tiles in the same month.

At the time of the incidents, an AMWU picket line was set up outside
Johnson Tiles protesting the company's sacking of 29 workers, whom Skilled
Engineering subsequently refused to employ.

Johnston has been charged with threats to kill, unlawful imprisonment,
unlawful assault, affray, riot and riotous assembly. Sixteen other unionists
- five current AMWU organisers, a former AMWU organiser, two employees
of the Stork construction company and nine employees of Johnson Tiles -
have also been charged with riot, affray, unlawful assault and riotous
assembly over the incidents. Almost all of the summonses are to be heard
at the Melbourne Magistrates Court on June 12.

In addition to these charges, Johnston and five others have been charged
over the incident at Skilled Engineering which allegedly caused $200,000
worth of damage and intimidated staff. This will go to court on June 3.

When interviewed by the Age on May 23, Johnston and his lawyer both
said that they would "vigorously" defend the charges. Pointing to the
media's sensationalist coverage of the case, Johnston said: "When I'm
found innocent, I hope I get the same [number of] headlines as when I was
charged".

Far from actively defending the unionists against government attack,
the AMWU's national office has ordered its own inquiry into the incidents
and into the state branch. Former unionists Joe Riordan and Tom McDonald
are conducting the inquiry.

In a clear withdrawal of support, the AMWU national office decided that
no union funds would be made available to the Victorian unionists to defend
themselves. The state branch is disputing this decision.

As serious as the charges are, similar allegations are often made against
unionists by bosses during bitter and hard fought industrial disputes.
Such accusations, which provide bosses with a leverage point against unionists,
are generally dropped after the dispute has been resolved. In this case,
however, it appears that the companies are digging in. Some believe this
is because they are being encouraged to do so by state or federal governments.

These incidents may be being used, by the national union's bureaucracy
as well as state and federal governments, to undermine and attempt to destroy
the Workers First leadership. The use of the corporate media to inflame
public opinion against militant unions is not just damaging Workers First,
it is making struggle more difficult for all militant unions.

The Workers First leaders are vulnerable because they are militant unionists
outside the Labor Party and in conflict with their national leadership
and the state ALP government. They are being attacked because their success
has posed a threat to the corporate elite.

The Victorian AMWU has been able to win pattern bargaining agreements
throughout the manufacturing industry - delivering better wages and conditions
to their members than has been possible elsewhere in Australia. Despite
the many condemning the union branch, it has retained loyalty among its
membership.

Workers First has only been able to do this by proving that it is prepared
to take militant industrial action. In contrast to the strategy of most
unions, Workers First act offensively, not defensively, in furthering the
interests of workers. This approach has also been evident in their disagreements
with the national union.

The union's refusal to roll over, be co-opted or to make unnecessary
compromises, is what has generated the attacks against it and is what will
ensure those attacks keep coming.

In a similar way, the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union's
militancy has caused it to come under attack through the federal government's
royal commission into the building industry.

One of the points of conflict between the union's state branch and national
office has been the union's relationship to the ALP.

In a May state conference, the AMWU state branch decided to stop its
affiliation with the ALP for six months and to make a decision on its future
affiliation at a special conference in December.

AMWU national president Doug Cameron, however, argued that this decision
did not mean the union should not send delegates to the May 18 state ALP
conference. When the Victorian council clarified that the branch would
not send delegates, Cameron and the national council overturned the decision,
sending a Cameron-appointed delegation to the conference. The delegation
included non-Victorians and people who were not even members of the AMWU.

Although the state branch attempted to get a Federal Court injunction
preventing the delegation, it was unsuccessful. An attempt to overturn
Cameron's decision in the ALP's disputes tribunal also failed.

When the delegation arrived at the conference, however, ALP conference
delegates voted 178 to 145 to overturn the tribunal's decision and ejected
the union delegation.

Cameron is now taking legal action in the Federal Court to overturn
the conference decision. Legal advice provided to the Victorian ALP indicates
the conference decision may have been illegal and it is possible that the
national ALP will overturn the decision.

In the midst of this, the Victorian branch of the AMWU is still discussing
ways to implement their state council decision.

[Sue Bull is a national committee member of the Democratic Socialist
Party.]

From Green Left Weekly, May 29, 2002.

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From GLW issue 494