BY MARGARITA WINDISCH
MELBOURNE — It was a dark and foggy morning, making the CBD's skyscrapers seem even more alien, but the air was filled with excitement and anticipation. By 6am, a solid number of protesters had gathered outside the Australian Stock Exchange on Collins Street and by 7am, the streets around it were declared "liberated zones" and "people's power space".
The police had already blocked off the entrances to the ASX and had effectively shut the building down, so M1 Alliance marshals concentrated on deploying new arrivals to various blockade points. When the Global Action student contingent arrived from RMIT and Melbourne University, the crowd started to block off traffic at adjourning intersections.
The M1 Alliance chairpersons, the Democratic Socialist Party's Felicity Martin and the International Socialist Organisation's Hamish McPherson, welcomed the crowd, telling them they were participating in an historic event, a day of protest which linked the new global anti-corporate movement with the labour traditions of May Day.
As protesters defended the people's spaces around the ASX with their bodies, and as songs and speeches began, a contingent of La Trobe University students marched in from Spencer Street railway station, boosted soon after by contingents from Geelong and Ballarat.
By about 8.30am the sun lifted the last remants of fog and numbers swelled to about 2000. As the ASX was successfully blockaded and shut down, contingents of protesters moved to close a nearby McDonald's, blockading the entrances and redecorating the building and windows.
High school students, around 150 of them, marched in as a group from Flinders Street station at 9am, and got a loud and warm welcome.
School student Tom O'Connell, a member of the socialist youth group Resistance, explained "we have to continue the fight against corporate bullies like McDonald's to stop them from exploiting young workers".
At 9.30am the blockade spread further along William Street to protest outside Yallourn Energy, the company which runs several power stations in the La Trobe Valley east of Melbourne and which has sought to cut workers' conditions and break their fighting spirit.
They were soon joined by about 200 activists from AWOL, the anarchist-influenced Autonomous Web of Liberation, who arrived with a sound system and a truck playing music, creating a festival atmosphere with people dancing and chalking slogans onto the streets. AWOL had organised autonomously from the M1 Alliance, building its own actions on the day (such as "Celebrate sick leave") separate from the ASX blockade and unity march.
While one AWOL activist sought to lead Yallourn Energy blockaders back into the city, blockaders chose to stay, in anticipation of the large, planned union march, scheduled to arrive at 11.30am.
At the same time as the blockade of the ASX, various smaller actions took place around the city, including a protest by around 20 people outside Western Mining and an action against privatisation by the group Telstra Exposed.
At 10.30am around 7000 workers, including strong contingents form the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union and the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, gathered outside of the Victorian Trades Hall Council building on Lygon Street and marched to the Nike store in Swanton Street, where they met up with a CFMEU contingent from south of the Yarra river.
Workers carried the banners of various unions, as well as placards calling for the cancellation of Third World debt and a boycott of a new round of World Trade Organisation talks.
The union rally then marched to Yallourn Energy, where the CFMEU's Greg Hardy and Luke van der Meulen, both from the La Trobe Valley, spoke of the impact of the company's anti-worker actions and the strength of union resistance to them.
When the union rally finally merged with the ASX blockaders on the corner of William and Collins streets, there was an enormous cheer and thunderous applause, as the crowd chanted "The workers united will never be defeated", and "One struggle one fight, workers of the world unite".
The unity march then swelled to between 10,000 and 15,000, stretching for three city blocks, as it meandered through the city in a loud and colourful mix of workers and students. Socialist Alliance banners were interspersed with anti-uranium placards, student groups were mixed with union contingents, and drumming and chanting echoed through the streets.
At the offices of Thai Airlines, Australian Council of Trade Unions president Sharan Burrow and a leader of the Federation of Trade Unions of Burma spoke of the continuing abuse of human rights by the military dictatorship in Burma.
From there, the unity rally marched into the "Paris end" of Collins Street to what was once BHP Petroleum, now relocated to Bourke Street. Undeterred, AMWU secretary Craig Johnston and Australian Workers Union secretary Bill Shorten condemned BHP's attempt to force its Pilbara workers onto individual contracts.
Outside the office of mining giant Rio Tinto, CFMEU national president John Maitland spoke of the treatment meted out to the company's workers across the world and Australian Conservation Foundation anti-nuclear campaigner Dave Sweeney spoke of Rio Tinto's involvement in the dispute over the controversial Jabiluka uranium mine, in Kakadu National Park.
After Rio Tinto, the Trades Hall contingent left the march and disbursed in the Treasury Gardens.
The M1 march continued on and hit its high point at the headquarters of oil giant Shell, where Friends of the Earth's Al Hoban spoke of the company's attempts to frustrate action on climate change and the M1 Alliance's Marcel Cameron condemned Shell's complicity in assassinations of opponents in Nigeria. A defiant and angry crowd began shouting "Shell, Shell, go to hell".
The M1 protest then marched past Parliament House, where a small group of Liberal students quickly retreated behind police lines, and on to the offices of the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, where Iraqi refugee Surma Hamid condemned a system which allows money to travel freely around the world, but won't allow people to do so.
The unity march ended outside the giant Nike store in Swanston Street, which was closed for the day and totally barricaded up. There, Pamela Curr from the anti-sweatshop group Fairwear led a massive anti-Nike sing-along and Felicity Martin urged people to stay angry and stay active after M1.