BY KATHY NEWNAM
ADELAIDE — Following the overwhelming success of Adelaide's M1 blockade of the Australian Stock Exchange, more than 500 people joined the annual May Day parade here on May 5.
A spirited contingent of Socialist Alliance members and other activists fresh from the M1 blockade led lively anti-corporate chants, rivalling (in impact if not volume) the Mount Barker Pipe Band which led the march through the city streets to a festival at Rymill Park.
Speakers at the festival, including long-time solidarity activist Andy Alcock and Cheryl Scopazzi from the May Day committee, spoke of the struggle against corporate tyranny, which was the theme of the day.
Inspired by the "mass protests such as Seattle, Melbourne, Prague, Davos, Quebec and M1 May Day", the United Trades and Labor Council secretary Chris White was full of hope.
While the UTLC endorsed the M1 actions, it was conspicuous by its absence on the day itself. Nevertheless, White made the global struggle against corporate greed the centrepiece of his talk and warmly congratulated the organisers of the M1 action.
Attacking "governments who pander to the corporate agenda", White called for a strengthening of "globally connected alliances of unions, progressive political activists, churches, environmentalists, NGOs and social movements".
While backing the union movement's "Fair trade not free trade" campaign, which includes support for tariff barriers which would discriminate against the Third World, White acknowledged that there was debate within the movement about protectionism, and that this was a positive. He also strongly advocated support for a "Tobin tax" on speculative capital flows.
"With the optimism of the will and thousands protesting all throughout the world on M1 and May Day," he concluded, "there is hope for a better future."
White's speech was well-received by M1 organisers, who expressed the hope that the trade union movement would participate fully in future movement activities, including the planned protest outside the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Brisbane in October.