A-Infos (en) Australia, Melbourne, MACG, “The Anvil” #2 - We need action from the unions. The rank & file have to take charge!

The Howard government’s Work Choices legislation has been in action for over a 
year now, and the news is bad. Workers in many industries, but especially retail 
and hospitality, are being forced onto individual contracts (AWAs) that gut 
their conditions. Bosses sack workers and tell them to re-apply for their own 
jobs – for less pay. And despite the lowest unemployment in a generation, wages 
are barely keeping pace with inflation and the profit share of national income 
is at a record high. With things like this going on, we should be making this 
country ungovernable. ---- With friends like these, who needs enemies? ---- The 
ACTU’s “Your Rights at Work” campaign has disappeared, all wrapped up neatly and 
presented to the ALP to help them with their election campaign. The ALP, of 
course, returned the favour by getting stuck into some serious union-bashing 
ever since its National Conference. Even the Liberals would once have paused 
before coming out with the statements that Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard have made.

None of this is surprising. The ALP needs the approval of big business for all 
its policies, so it can be expected to give way to the Business Council of 
Australia whenever it seriously wants something. Even the right to strike, the 
most basic weapon of self-defence that the working class has, won’t be restored 
by a “Labor” government. And if they’re union-bashing even before the election, 
there’s no telling what they’ll do once they’re in power and they’re not looking 
for our votes.

We need action from the unions

Howard’s Work Choices laws might be vicious, but they’re not stupid. They’ve 
been put together with the clear purpose of ensuring that the entire union 
movement will be destroyed. Work Choices restricts our right to strike so far as 
to make it almost useless. The bosses now have the ability to force workers 
gradually onto individual contracts, either by making a job offer conditional on 
an AWA, or by saying you have to sign one if you ever want a pay rise again. The 
idea of Work Choices is to make unions so useless that nobody would waste their 
money on joining one.

The strategy is brilliant, but is has one weakness. It relies on us obeying the 
law. If we strike illegally, production stops. The Government can threaten us 
with all sorts of consequences, but production doesn’t start again until we go 
back to work. And if we strike in large enough numbers, their threats will be 
shown to be empty. Despite everything, their power is built on our obedience. 
The ALP won’t save us, so we have to act through our unions and save ourselves.

The rank & file have to take charge

The bureaucrats running the ACTU, however, would run a mile before striking 
seriously enough to defeat Work Choices. They don’t want to upset the ALP, while 
the ALP won’t upset the Business Council, and the Business Council likes Work 
Choices just the way it is. It’s a recipe for disaster, at least for those of us 
who don’t have a safe ALP seat to be parachuted into.

The only solution is for the rank and file of the unions to take matters into 
their own hands. We need to organise in the workplace and rebuild the unions 
from the ground up. We need workplace meetings to discuss strategy and give 
instructions to our delegates. And we need to have networks of delegates, 
organised both locally and industrially, so we can act independently of the 
officials if they won’t come along with us. It’s the only thing that will work.

The grassroots union insurgency is the only way to defend our wages and 
conditions and it’s also the inspiration for a workers’ revolution against 
capitalism. The liberty, equality and solidarity we build in the class struggle 
are the foundations of a world of voluntary co-operation, from which poverty, 
war and oppression have been eradicated. By organising in the workplace with 
grassroots democracy, we will build the new society in the shell of the old.

* This article appearred in the issue No 2 – June-July 2007 – of “The Anvil”, 
newsletter of Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group (MACG).
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