We were pleased with our members' turn out on November 15. Not only the well-organised areas came out; there were contractors, retail workers and mail officers, and night shift workers who came straight from work to the rally, and they were still there at midday!
In the postal industry, only 26% are full-time postal workers. We've got 9000 part-time workers and 9500 contractors/licencees. In Telstra we started with 96,000 jobs, then 60,000 were shed. John Howard did all of that by stealth, with full-time workers not really affected.
Now Howard is trying to impose contractors' conditions onto everyone. Other workers haven't noticed the growing number of contractors, but now they're going to feel the conditions. It's understandable that there's been a lot of interest in joining the union.
The campaign needs the local meetings which explain what the laws will mean. Then we need to go the next step and descend on Canberra when the laws are proclaimed. We've got to keep the mass action going. Then, when any boss tries to use the laws, we have to descend en masse to defend those under attack.
Joan Doyle, Victorian secretary of the Postal and Telecommunications branch of the Communication Workers Union
From Green Left Weekly, November 23, 2005.
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