By James Vassilopoulos
"Historic strike wave defies penal system: the long struggle of Australia's organised workers against insidious Arbitration laws devised to steal away their only truly defensive weapon — the strike — has exploded into unprecedented, nationwide direct action", reported the May 21, 1969, issue of Tribune, the newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia. The strike wave followed the jailing of Clarrie O'Shea, Victorian secretary of the tramways union, who had defied anti-union laws. The events surrounding the jailing of Clarrie O'Shea show that repressive anti-union laws and penalties can be defeated.
One of the first actions of the Howard government was to introduce the Workplace Relations Act. Under the act, it is illegal for a union to strike or impose bans in support of another — action termed a "secondary boycott". Unions engaging in such strikes are liable to a $10 million fine, and unionists can be sent to jail if the fine is not paid.
The goal is to prevent collective action and atomise working people, creating the best conditions for big business to increase profits by increasing exploitation.
Unions have so far tried to skirt this law. The Maritime Union of Australia in its recent dispute with International Purveyors in Cairns organised a picket line, but did not stop trucks going through it. International solidarity by US unionists helped the MUA to win that dispute.
The miners' union, in support of its long battle with Rio Tinto in NSW's Hunter Valley, launched a 72-hour statewide stoppage but cut it short after less than a day.
Secondary boycott laws have become an excuse for not supporting other workers under attack. This is what happened in Britain under the Tories. In 1984, when the miners where in a life or death struggle, they were not supported by other unions.
Today, the dockers in Liverpool have been on strike for two years, fighting for their jobs, yet their own union has not supported them for fear that the union will be destroyed in the courts.
Penalties for strikes
In Australia, unions have always faced penalties for taking industrial action. The first Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act of 1904 included penalties for participating in strikes. A person found guilty of not complying with a court order could be fined £300 or jailed for three months. An unrestricted right to strike has never been part of Australian law.
Before 1904, the United Kingdom Master and Servants Act of 1837 ruled. The Sydney Gazette in 1837 warned that a worker absent for one hour without permission could face prison. In 1843, a painter who got lost in the bush overnight was reported absent by his employer; all his due wages were taken, and he worked in chains in a treadmill for six weeks as punishment.
Clarrie O'Shea went to jail on May 15, 1969, for contempt of the Industrial Court after he disobeyed a court order that his union pay huge fines, under the penal sections of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act. This triggered the biggest postwar stoppage — 1 million workers stopped work to demand "Free Clarrie and repeal the penal powers".
Other developments prior to O'Shea's jailing heightened workers' consciousness about penal laws and the anti-worker bias of the Arbitration Commission. Metalworkers at the time were fighting for wage increases not to be absorbed into over-award payments. Bosses used penal laws against the metal unions. Metal unions received 405 fines totalling $185,000.
History of militancy
Over the previous five years, the Victorian Tramway and Omnibus Union had militantly defended and improved the conditions of its members. The bosses' courts responded by imposing 40 fines on the union, totalling $13,200.
The court tried to force the union to pay the fines, but O'Shea didn't turn up in court. The court kept on issuing summonses, and O'Shea kept ignoring them.
Having educated and prepared the membership about the issues at stake, and won guarantees of support from other unions, O'Shea appeared in court on May 15. That morning, 27 unions rallied in his support at Festival Hall. Before O'Shea entered the court at 10.30am, he led a march of 5000 workers.
Laurie Carmichael, then Victorian secretary of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, told a seminar in Melbourne last December that the unions had a plan to force repeal of the penal laws and had been campaigning for their repeal for many years.
Before Justice John Kerr, now best known as the governor-general who sacked the Whitlam government, O'Shea stated that he disagreed with the laws and would defy them. Kerr found him guilty of contempt and sent the 63-year-old union leader, suffering from a heart condition, to Pentridge prison.
The next day 500,000 workers struck across Australia. The Western Australian Trades and Labour Council, the Queensland Trades and Labour Council and the United Trades and Labour Council of South Australia all called statewide general strikes. In Queensland, mass meetings or strikes occurred in 20 cities.
In Victoria, there were two 24-hour stoppages, involving 40 unions. All trains and trams stopped, delivery of goods was severely restricted, the power supply was cut and TV and radio broadcasts were disrupted.
Ken Carr, secretary of the 27 "rebel" unions which had two years earlier broken from the conservative Victorian Trades Hall, described the events: "Not even the heavy rain could dampen the enthusiasm of those who attended Friday's [May 16] demonstration, chanting 'all the way with Clarrie O'Shea'.
"Flanking the main mass of marchers were men distributing pamphlets in the streets. When they reached the court they battled with scores of police who were guarding this holy of holies of the establishment."
Bosses surrender
The growing conflagration shocked Australia's rulers. On May 20, Dudley MacDougall, a former advertising manager for the Australian Financial Review, acting on "behalf of a public benefactor", paid the union's $8100 in fines. O'Shea was released and the workers' movement scored a historic victory.
Although the penal laws were not repealed, they were not used again. In 1977, the Fraser Liberal government introduced even harsher anti-union laws, particularly laws outlawing secondary boycotts, which are still in operation.
It is not only conservative governments which have used penal laws. The laws used in 1969 were mostly those introduced by the Chifley ALP government in 1947. The Hawke and Keating Labor governments refused to repeal Fraser's repressive sections 45D and 45E of the Trade Practices Act, which outlawed secondary boycotts.
Clear strategy
The lessons from 1969 are clear. The unions had a clear strategy to defy the unjust laws and were not prepared to just cop them. There was consistent mobilisation of members over at least a two-year period, which changed the balance of forces between worker and capitalist.
When the tramways union was attacked, other unions supported it. Facing the power of solidarity, the government could not victimise or crush the union.
Pat Clancy, NSW secretary of the Building Workers Industrial Union and a leader of the Communist Party, explained later: "Planning and strategy of action against penal powers [needed to include] stepping up the ideological campaign to explain the anti-democratic nature of these laws. The important thing was to develop struggle against these laws on every occasion they were used. Tactics needed to start from the basis that united action was essential, that circumstances required a more militant and forthright confrontation."
Unions didn't accept the lie that the arbitration commission is a "neutral umpire", as seems to be the consensus these days. Clancy explains that "penal laws were a logical development of the system of compulsory arbitration, which itself was a denial of democracy. Compulsory arbitration is a pernicious system designed to tie the unions to the capitalist state."
Such a strategy is again needed to defeat the secondary boycott laws. Union officials may have to be prepared to go to jail and take measures to protect union funds and assets from the state. Unions must stand with other unions facing attack and be prepared to take united industrial action.
If this is not done, workers will face some serious defeats.
The final word must go to Clarence Lyell O'Shea, who stated on his release from Pentridge on May 21, 1969: "My release is a great victory for workers. I am certain that all workers remain adamant in their opposition to the penal powers, which are designed to suppress the workers. The infinite power of the workers when they are really aroused has frightened the life out of the government and the employers ... I am certain the workers will continue the struggle for the abolition of all penal powers."