BY SUE BOLTON
The torrent of media speculation generated by the November 18 assault on Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) national secretary Doug Cameron has all the hallmarks of a good old-fashioned political stitch-up.
The media empires of Rupert Murdoch, Kerry Packer, Kerry Stokes and the Fairfax family, as well as the ABC, all reported from an identical script on November 20-22 — that "ultra-militant" unionists within the AMWU who are opposed to Cameron's leadership were likely to have been behind the assault.
At this stage, there is no indication what the motives of the assailant were. If it was politically motivated, it seems strange that the assailant failed to give Cameron any indication of the purpose of the assault.
However, the lack of evidence of the assailants' motive did not stop journalists who spoke to Cameron and his union allies from telling the media that the assault was likely to have been carried out by Workers First, a militant grouping which led the Victorian branch of the AMWU from 1998 to 2002, and which still has majority support on the Victorian AMWU state council.
When ABC Radio's PM reporter asked Cameron on November 20 if the assault might have been connected to Cameron's criticisms of Labor MP Mark Latham's economic program and therefore could have been ALP-related rather than union-related, he immediately ruled out the idea, replying "I doubt it".
The common thread through all of the media coverage is to smear militant unionists as being violent and intimidatory.
Some of the headlines reveal the attempted frame-up by declaring union militants as being guilty despite there being no evidence to back up this claim. A November 22-23 Australian article carried the headline "Militants under suspicion as union displays its fractures". The Melbourne Age's November 21 report of the incident was headlined "Anti-violence union official bashed 'to scare family'". A November 21 article on the News Ltd web site declared: "We'll weed out thugs: ACTU".
Cameron told the November 21 Australian on November 21: "Everybody knows I took on elements in the union movement who were opposed to the union's position that you cannot resort to these type of tactics."
ACTU secretary Greg Combet and AMWU national president Julius Roe have made similar statements. The clear implication is that militant unionists who disagree with Cameron over the future direction of the union are violent.
To cover up the lack of evidence to back up this assertion, the corporate media reports juxtapose assertions about the likely guilt of Workers First or union militants in the AMWU with comments about heated union meetings and unrelated charges against Victorian AMWU members over supposedly "violent run-throughs" of the Johnson Tiles factory.
However, the reports deliberately ignore the fact that all charges against the unionists were dropped other than the minor charge of unlawful assembly, although one unionist still has to face court over the politically motivated charges.
Roe and Cameron speculate that the assault was intended to intimidate Cameron into not standing for re-election in 2004. However, this is a farcical allegation given that the most likely group to stand a candidate against Cameron — Workers First — has already publicly announced that it won't be fielding a candidate against him in the election.
The blaming of militants for the assault could backfire on the union movement. Statements by Cameron, Combet and Roe blaming union militants have handed a golden propaganda opportunity to newly-appointed federal workplace relations minister Kevin Andrews.
In a November 21 media release, Andrews stated: "[Combet] has been trying to get rid of thuggery for years now. I can't understand then why he and the union movement in Australia won't get behind our bill to stamp out once and for all this thuggery and violence and intimidation which is occurring in the building and construction industry."
Articles in the November 20 and November 22-23 Australian provide an idea of why the bosses' media, and some in the union movement, are out to frame Workers First as being responsible for the assault on Cameron.
In the November 20 article, Michael Bachelard wrote that Cameron and Combet "have been battling for three years against the spreading influence within key Left unions of a Victorian-based group called Workers First".
A article by Bachelard and Stefanie Balogh printed in the November 22-23 Australian paints a picture of Workers First having a "galvanising effect on other parts of the Victorian Left with its militant rhetoric, grassroots participation and hatred of 'corporate unionism'".
According to Bachelard and Balogh, "the allure of aggressive rhetoric has seduced other rank-and-file union members in Western Australia and Victoria, who have deposed their leaderships and installed radical candidates".
They point to the new leadership of the Western Australian branch of the Maritime Union of Australia, the fact that some members of Workers First and the new WA MUA leadership are members of the Socialist Alliance, and the establishment of a new group in the Queensland branch of the AMWU called Workers Unity (which stood candidates in recent union elections), as evidence of the spreading influence of Workers First.
Employers, including the media owners, are very afraid of the potential for principled militant unionism to spread to other unions and other states, and any increase in the ability of workers to fight for their rights means that some of the employers' profits could be forced to be redirected to improved wages or conditions for workers.
The employers are also nervous about union leaders linking up with the socialist movement instead of remaining in the pro-capitalist Labor Party.
Both Workers First and the Socialist Alliance have made statements condemning the use of violence to deal with differences within the union movement. It is not in the interests of either organisation to carry out or support such acts.
But it is in the interests of the employers and the factional opponents of Workers First and the Socialist Alliance to tar these organisations with the suspicion of violence in an attempt to make workers fearful of a more democratic and militant unionism.
The attempt to brand militant unionists as being violent is not new. In fact, the federal Coalition government is using exactly this sort of smear campaign to justify its attacks on building workers.
Over the last 200 years, there have been many examples of employers embarking on media campaigns describing militant unionists as being violent in order to dent their popularity. The difference in this case is that the media have found union officials who are willing to help them spread the smear.
The worry now is that there will be an attempted witch-hunt directed against militants in the union movement.
Combet told AM on November 21 that the assault on Cameron had "only hardened the resolve of people in the union movement to ensure that if anyone in the unions has any association with these type of tactics, that we are going to be steely in our resolve to see them run out of the union movement".
Given that Combet preceded this remark by accusing Cameron's factional opponents in the union movement of being responsible for the assault, Workers First members are unlikely to get a fair hearing.
It is important that all unionists unequivocally condemn the use of violence to sort out disputes within the union movement, but at the same time, not get conned into supporting a witch-hunt against union militants on the basis of totally unproven allegations.
From Green Left Weekly, December 3, 2003.
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