The Maritime Union of Australia, on March 2, condemned the United States and Israeli attacks on Iran as “reckless, illegal acts of aggression that drag the world closer to a wider war and nuclear catastrophe”.
It said the strikes are “an assault on Iranian sovereignty” and directly undermine “the already fragile framework of multilateral diplomacy”.
“Workers in Australia know that war is not an accident; it is the brutal expression of an imperialist system that puts corporate profit, arms dealers and Great Power rivalry ahead of human need.”
The MUA said wars from Palestine to the Gulf kill, displace and silence ordinary workers, their families and communities “while the war industries, their shareholders and their political agents cash in”.
“For maritime workers in particular, every billion dollars poured into missiles, submarines and bases is a billion dollars denied to building a sustainable, job-rich maritime future.
“Instead of feeding the war machine, Australia should be funding a publicly-owned fleet of Australian-crewed coastal trading vessels, rebuilding our shipbuilding capacity, and guaranteeing secure, union jobs on the waterfront.”
The MUA described the US as “the biggest and most aggressive military power in history” and said it was “using the same lies and manufactured threats that justified the invasion of Iraq and countless other interventions”.
“Israel, armed, financed and protected by Washington, is acting as a regional attack dog, escalating conflict and attempting to redraw the map of the Middle East through force, assassination and collective punishment.
“These actions are not self defence; they are offensive operations designed to secure US domination of the region and to crush any state that resists that agenda.”
The MUA called on the Australian government to pull back from “this program of permanent war”. It said successive governments have tied foreign policy, military infrastructure and “now hundreds of billions of dollars under AUKUS to US war fighting strategies”. They have turned the country into “a southern base for operations that threaten peace both globally and within our own region”.
The union called on the Australian government to condemn the war and demand US and Israeli immediately stop their attacks and withdraw all Australian political, military and logistical support.
It said US bases must also be removed and called for “a decisive turn to diplomacy, disarmament and respect for international law.
“Peace is union business, and the union movement has both the responsibility and the power to mobilise against this drive to war.”
The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) steering committee said on March 12 that as its members build and maintain Australia’s defence capabilities it has a “unique responsibility” to speak out about how the fruits of its labour were being used.
It said the war on Iran, after the “ongoing catastrophe in Palestine”, is not about “democracy” or “liberation”. Instead, they are the “violent byproduct of imperialist interests seeking to secure resources, markets and strategic dominance”.
It said it rejected any attempt to “drag” Australia into “wars of choice” or “foreign interventions that serve only to destabilize regions and line the pockets of global arms giants.
The AMWU said workers in Iran and Palestine are “not our enemies.
“Like us, they want stable jobs, safe homes and a future for their children. We refuse to see our craft used to shatter the lives of fellow working class families.”
The union said Australia’s defence policy should be “determined by the needs of the Australian people, not by the strategic demands of foreign powers or the profit margins of multinational corporations who treat war as a growth market”.
It said while there is a need for a defence industry, “every dollar wasted on aggressive escalation is a dollar ‘stolen’ from the social wage – from schools, hospital and housing”.
It also called on Labor to “use every diplomatic lever to prevent war and demand a permanent, just peace in Palestine.”