BY JAMES CRAFTI & JODY BETZEIN
MELBOURNE — Around 250 people participated in the "regular" Friday evening Nike superstore blockade on Swanston Street on May 11. The Nike superstore was successfully shut-down by protesters for the eighth week in a row.
The protest, highlighting Nike's shocking work practices and the company's union busting strategy in Third World countries has attracted growing support over the last eight weeks.
During the early weeks of the protest, Nike and the Victorian police begrudgingly tolerated the "shut-down" of the store. Their strategy in the past two weeks has changed markedly.
At the Nike blockade on May 5 police used horses to charge the blockade while police on foot pushed the demonstrators away from the entrance. Although police managed to disorganise protesters, the commotion caused ensured the store was closed anyway.
On the same evening Melbourne City Council officers fined one protester $500 on the spurious pretext that MCC by-laws "did not allow a person to display a handbill without a permit".
The Victorian Trades Hall Council executive meeting on the morning of May 11 passed a motion calling on the MCC to repeal the repressive by-law. It also called on Nike to sign the home-workers' code of practice.
Protesters assembled in larger numbers at Nike on May 11. They were addressed by VTHC secretary Leigh Hubbard spoke at the rally, as did Fairwear activist and Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union organiser Annie Delaney. Jacqui Lynch from the Socialist Alliance also spoke.
The police blocked off the entrance to the store, forming a line between protesters and the store. In addition, there were 16 mounted police.
While the police were unable to make their way through the protesters' lines, they punched, kicked and grabbed protesters by the hair. Two protesters were dragged by police into the store. One was soon released while the other was arrested and charged with assaulting police.
By 7.30pm Nike finally conceded defeat and locked up early. On ensuring Nike's early closure, protesters marched to the Victorian police centre on Flinders Street to give solidarity to the one protester kept in custody. Around 100 protesters maintained a vigil on the police centre until the detained protester was released three hours later, sporting a cut above his eye, bloodied nose and other injuries, that police claim he sustained on "falling-over".
By unanimous acclimation, a decision was taken by protesters to return to the Nike superstore again on Friday May 18. For more information, call Resistance (03) 9639 8622.