Dick Nichols, Melbourne
The March 18 Victorian state conference of the Socialist Alliance, held in Melbourne's Trades Hall, focused on the fight against the Howard government's Work Choices legislation and its racist policies against Muslim and Indigenous communities.
The opening session brought together Australian Manufacturing Workers Union Victorian metals coordinator Garry Robb, Union Solidarity coordinator Dave Kerin, industrial lawyer Adam Bandt, National Tertiary Education Union branch president at Ballarat University Jeremy Smith and the alliance's national trade union coordinator, Sue Bolton.
For Kerin, the biggest issue was establishing "where we draw that line in the sand" — the point at which the union movement mobilises all its forces for a decisive fight. Bandt surveyed the range of employer reactions to Work Choices and warned against a simple expectation that the ACTU leadership was bound to cave in before employer and government pressure.
Robb described the loss of manufacturing jobs, which led to a discussion about how to fight this trend without scapegoating workers overseas for their plight.
Smith told of how his NTEU branch combined industrial and legal tactics to force the University of Ballarat to temporarily withdraw its implementation of individual contracts. Bolton warned of the "deadly" consequences of converting the fight against Work Choices into a simple campaign to re-elect the ALP.
The second panel centred on fighting racism. Ray Jackson of the Indigenous Social Justice Association stirred a passionate discussion around the continuity between the dispossession of Indigenous people and the current attacks on the Islamic community.
This panel, which included Tewelde from Melbourne's Eritrean community, was also a launching pad for the April 1 "Stand Up for Multicultural Communities" rally to be held in Moreland.
The conference closed with the adoption of resolutions on the two themes discussed and the election of a new state executive that includes, in addition to local SA branch and affiliate organisation representatives, refugee-rights activist Tony Dewberry, Victoria University NTEU president Jamie Doughney and Geelong environmentalist Chris Johnson.
From Green Left Weekly, March 29, 2006.
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