Sue Bolton, Melbourne
In the largest nationwide demonstration for workers' rights, up to 600,000 people mobilised across the country on November 15 to oppose the federal government's unprecedented attack on the entire work force. The following day, another 1000 rallied in the Victorian coastal town Portland. Further demonstrations are planned in Hamilton, Victoria, and Hervey Bay, Queensland.
An unknown number of workers wanted to join the November 15 demonstrations but faced the sack if they attended because they are casual employees.
The extraordinary size of the November 15 protest indicated that the previous nationwide demonstration against the industrial relations legislation on June 30 and July 1 of 350,000 people was not just a one-off. Despite the government's multi-million dollar advertising campaign to convince working people that its misnamed "WorkChoices" legislation will be good for them, opposition to the legislation and distrust of the government has grown significantly since then.
In Melbourne, the march stretched for more than 18 city blocks, with the head of the march reaching Exhibition Gardens in Fitzroy more than 30 minutes before the tail end of the march left Federation Square.
In Sydney, 45,000 people joined the two marches in the centre of the city, with thousands joining protests at various suburban locations. Between 35,000-40,000 mobilised in Perth, a similar number in Adelaide, 25,000-30,000 in Brisbane, 6000 in Hobart, 5000 in Canberra and 3000 in Darwin.
Marches and rallies were also held in regional centres in all states and the Northern Territory. The largest regional march and rally was in Geelong, where around 30,000 people mobilised. Newcastle and Wollongong mobilised 10,000 each. In total, around 28,000 people protested in Victorian regional cities, including Ballarat, Bendigo, Shepparton, Warnambool, Portland, Hamilton and Albury-Wodonga.
Other parts of the country had big regional rallies as well. Around 95,000 protested in NSW outside of Sydney.
In Queensland, 35,000 people rallied outside the Brisbane metropolitan area, 10,000 in regional South Australia, 5000 in regional Tasmania, 10,000 in regional Western Australia, and 2000 at protests in Katherine, Alice Springs and other NT locations.
Many workers had to brave vindictive bosses in order to attend. Three tugboat operators employed by Adsteam in Queensland were sacked for attending the protest. Every building industry worker who attended the protest in any part of the country faced $22,000 fines under the laws brought in to specifically target building workers.
Australia Post workers faced heavy intimidation to prevent them attending the protests. All requests by postal workers for leave were refused. At some Australia Post work sites in Sydney, workers had to run a gauntlet of managers and supervisors in order to leave work. In Melbourne, Australia Post night-shift workers came to the rally straight from completing a shift, stayed all day at the protest, got only a couple of hours sleep and then went back to work another night shift.
All sectors of the work force are concerned about the legislation — there were good sized contingents from white- and blue-collar workers and retired workers nationwide.
Among the demonstrators were many who had voted for the Howard government in the last election. They felt especially betrayed. They had no idea that Howard planned to wield the hatchet against workers because the Coalition parties never made industrial relations a prominent part of their campaign, and they are unlikely to forget this betrayal in a hurry.
Public opposition to the "Work Choices" legislation increased when it was tabled in parliament, because the final legislation was far more draconian than anyone had anticipated. This prompted some of the less active union leaderships to made a last-minute push to mobilise more members on November 15.
Although the government is talking about some minor amendments to the legislation to guarantee the support of Queensland National Party Senator Barnaby Joyce and Family First Senator Steven Fielding, it is not going to get rid of the draconian penalties for union activity.
Under the legislation, unions are allowed to exist but almost every aspect of union organising has been made illegal. Someone can be jailed for revealing that another person's Australian Workplace Agreement (AWA) trades away conditions. Even the workers staffing the hotline for public queries about the legislation were threatened with jail if they continued to reveal that they have been receiving more complaints than questions about what the laws mean.
The draconian nature of the laws, and the fact that the government has made it clear that it will not be negotiating a compromise with the more conservative wing of the trade union movement, has pushed moderate trade union leaders to take a more radical stance than initially.
At the beginning of 2005, Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) secretary Greg Combet argued against the campaign including mass union mobilisations. The success of the June 30/July 1 mobilisations, initiated by Victorian and Western Australian unions, created the momentum for the November 15 mobilisation.
In his November 15 speech, which was broadcast to all of the rallies, Combet explained how the new laws are "abuses of democratic rights", declaring, "... we will not be intimidated. Unions must continue to stand up for people. As a union leader let me make this clear. I will not pay a $33,000 fine for asking for people to be treated fairly. Because the government has gone too far. On such a fundamental issue, we must look the government in the eye and stare them down. I will be asking other union leaders to do the same."
Until the November 15 rally, the ACTU had been reluctant to take up the issue of the government's targeting of building workers as part of the campaign. Perhaps in response to motions from mass, all-union delegate meetings in Melbourne and Perth that had declared a preparedness to take solidarity action in support of building workers, Combet called on protesters to support building workers."Just as we supported the maritime workers when they were targeted, we will support the building workers and their families."
At the AMWU pre-rally mobilisation in Melbourne, the union's Victorian president, Chris Spindler, and printing division secretary, Jim Reid, told the 30,000 AMWU members present that the purpose of the government's "anti-terrorism" laws was to crush dissent, especially union activity, and that "tackling terrorism" was just a flimsy excuse to get public support for the laws.
Postal union state secretary Joan Doyle received the best applause from the crowd at the Melbourne rally when she said that Howard might have overplayed his hand. "In the past, Howard had picked off one particular union to attack, now he's attacked all of us. That means that we can all be united and we can win. You can't defeat people power", she said.
The overwhelming message from all of the rallies is that even though the government will ram the laws through the Senate in the next couple of weeks, that will not be the end of the campaign.
A motion was passed by the Geelong rally calling on the ACTU and the Victorian Trades Hall Council to organise a national stoppage and protests early in the New Year as the next step in the campaign against the legislation. There were also calls for a 24-hour national strike at the Portland and Gympie demonstrations, although this was not moved as a motion.
The Townsville and Armidale protests also passed motions calling on the ALP to abolish AWAs, and pledging solidarity action with any unionist who is jailed or prosecuted under the anti-union laws. Similar motions have also been passed by mass delegates' meetings in Melbourne and Perth, as well as by the Geelong November 15 rally.
There are now discussions about the next phase of the campaign. Some of the Victorian unionists want to organise another national mobilisation on March 1, when the Work Choices legislation is proclaimed.
Meanwhile, Victorian unions are keen to develop grassroots community campaigning through the Union Solidarity Group and other networks. So far, there have been public meetings in around 10 Melbourne suburbs, with more planned.
Unionists and supporters have been leafleting at the football, shows, railway stations and markets — the first time in many years that unions have taken to the streets to campaign. While not all unions are doing this, the momentum is growing. Similar campaigning is beginning in other states.
Following the lead of NSW, Victorian unions are going to organise a country bus tour around regional Victoria to build the campaign.
Meanwhile, many unions are experiencing a surge in membership. The Victorian branch of the National Union of Workers has joined 1000 extra members to the union in the last six months. Every time Howard announces a new attack on workers, the NUW experiences a surge in enquiries about joining. Many other unions are having a similar experience.
We are witnessing the beginning of a mass movement. This time, Howard has taken everyone on, not just one sector. Many unions have no intention of abiding by the new laws; they know that if they do they won't have a union left.
The fact that many unions intend to resist the legislation means that there will be unionists jailed under the new laws. The entire union movement will need to mobilise in response, as happened when tramways union leader Clarrie O'Shea was jailed in 1969, but if that happens we have a good chance of winning.
From Green Left Weekly, November 23, 2005.
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