The CFMEU car-bomb hypocrisy

A former CFMEU insider writes:

So my old workplace was attacked with a car bomb last week. There are not many people in this country who can make that statement! The attack occurred in suburban Western Sydney, missing by less than an hour a community group meeting in the building.

A group of people stole a car, loaded it with canisters of petrol, smashed it through a three-metre high wrought iron gate and crashed it into the front doors of a three-storey office block. I had a look at the damage myself less than 12 hours after the attack. The picture to my eyes looked very Baghdad indeed.

Amazingly, since the attack, not one state or national political figure has come out and condemned the violence. The reason? The target was the NSW headquarters of the construction division of the CFMEU.

Imagine for a moment, if such an attack had been perpetrated on any other part of civil society. A church. An RSL. A scout hall even. Our political leaders would have been racing each other to the scene of the crime. Jostling to inspect the damage, crunch over the broken glass, comfort the staff, condemn the violence.

It would have been (mis)named as a terrorist attack. Bi-partisan condemnation would have come from all levels of government. The papers would be full of it for days.

Instead we get this ... silence.

The attack got good electronic media coverage Friday but major papers such as the so-called "paper of record" in my home town, the Sydney Morning Herald, literally ignored the attack. For the readers of the SMH and The Australian, the attack just simply never happened. Not worthy of being reported on it seems. Middle-class indolence at its most revealing.

But I am mostly angry at Kevin Rudd and our political leaders. Rudd and IR minister Julia Gillard have shown their true colours here. They are fakes. Shallow fakes. A serious attempt to terrorise and intimidate a key plank of our civil society and they are mute. Too busy seeking reflected glory from Jessica Watson, in Rudd's case. For these people, including Kristina Keneally, the puppet in NSW, condemning outrages must clearly never be about principle. This incident has demonstrated how there must always be a cynical political calculation behind every expression of sympathy or outrage. Some hollowman down in Canberra must have just done the calcs on Rudd or Gillard coming out on this and decided it didn't fit the government's "narrative." Or something. Best ignored.

Clearly our political leaders are happy to associate themselves with a disaster when politically expedient, but run a mile when its not. That's not what leadership is in my book. What a bunch of frauds.

The hypocrisy revealed in this incident is sickening. A bit of blue language on a building site and there are screaming headlines, a politicised Royal Commission (which could not find any of the corruption and organised crime in the building industry because it was only looking for it among the unions) and an industrial police with powers and an agenda that would make the Gestapo proud. But drive an improvised explosive device into a union office? Somewhere a cricket is audible in the silence.

The shocking explanation is that what happened at Lidcombe simply does not fit with the anti-CFMEU agenda of the political and media elites in this country.

The CFMEU has all sorts of problems, I should know I used to work there. But the reason a terrorist-style attack on its NSW headquarters can be ignored in this manner is because the union represents a danger to the political and media elites. Along with just a handful of other effective unions, it remains an example, an imperfect and flawed example, of ordinary people having a little bit of power in their working lives.

That's why the CFMEU is fair game.

Rights on Site - Ark Tribe Prosecuted

From Rights On Site

Ark Tribe is a construction worker from South Australia facing six months in jail. He has been charged with not attending an interview with the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC).

Ark was working on the Flinders University site in Adelaide. Conditions were so bad that workers drew up a petition calling for safety improvements, on a handtowel.

It took an intervention by the union and the state government safety regulator to get the most pressing problems fixed and finally, after several days, things began to get back on track.

One by one workers from the site were called before the ABCC.

The penalties for those who don't cooperate with ABCC investigations are frightening - fines of up to $22,000 for things like stopping work to make sure workers are safe and jail for up to 6 months if you don't answer their questions. Even the police don't have the powers the ABCC have.

In Ark's words, "If I've done something wrong, I'm prepared to cop it, but I won't be treated unfairly."

We need to get the Rudd Labor Government to get rid of these laws, before another construction worker faces jail.

Five reasons why the ABCC must go...

Via Rights on Site:

---

Dear Wombo,

Did you know that you are one of nearly 10,000 activists who support Rights on Site?

Thousands of you responded to our survey with ideas for how to win the campaign

You told us you wanted to write blogs and send letters to politicians by email and snail mail, and take to the streets to demonstrate at big rallies all around the country.

But you also told us you need to know more about the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

So we've made a video about the five reasons why the ABCC must go. You can watch the video here.

You can arm yourself with the facts about the Australian Building and Construction Commission and tell your mates, write blogs and send letters to pollies.

It's going to be a big year for the Rights on Site campaign and we are going to have lots of ways for you to stay connected with the campaign and let the pollies know it's time to get rid of the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

Click here and start by hearing academics and construction workers giving 5 reasons why the ABCC must go.

As electrician Brett Walker says, "Five reasons, do you want to stop there?"

We're not going to stop there.

You can write to us as info@rightsonsite.org.au and tell us why you think the ABCC must go.

At the next Rights on Site rally we'll get up on stage and tell the crowd your reasons why the ABCC must go. Send me your reason to get rid of the ABCC at info@rightsonsite.org.au

Thanks

Dave Noonan and the Rights on Site Campaign Team.

P.S The Rights on Site campaign survey is still open. If you have 30 seconds in your day to help us, you can tell us your ideas about how we can campaign to get rid of the Australian Building and Construction Commission. Take the survey here for Rights on Site.

Unions rally, pledge not to co-operate with ABCC

Nick Hamilton, Melbourne

Green Left Weekly, 9 December 2008

Over 5000 workers attended a protest rally outside the headquarters of the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) in Melbourne on December 2.

The rally was initially called to defend Noel Washington, a Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) official who faced the possibility of a six-month jail sentence for refusing to attend a compulsory interview with the ABCC.

He was due to appear before the Melbourne Magistrates court on December 2. The federal Labor government has committed to keeping the anti-worker building industry watchdog until 2010. The ABCC has wide-ranging powers that breach Australia’s human rights obligations as set by the International Labour Organisation. The legislation that set up the ABCC takes away construction worker’s right to silence, their right to choose their own lawyer, and their collective bargaining and free association rights.

Mysteriously, on November 20, perhaps fearing an all out shutdown of Melbourne’s major construction sites along with national protests, the Department of Public Prosecutions dropped the charges against Washington on a “technicality”.

The December 2 rally focused on the fact that the dropping of charges was a victory for Noel Washington and all unionists but also called for the abolition of the ABCC immediately.

Noel Washington’s lawyer, Marcus Clayton, told the rally that the ABCC was “a complete outrage. It’s one law for building workers and another for everyone else”. He also cautioned that as long as the ABCC existed it could continue to issue further notices against other unionists.

Electrical Trade Union Victorian secretary Dean Mighell, who himself had been subjected to a vicious smear campaign by the mainstream press and the ALP, gave a rousing speech and mentioned that the Greens have tabled a bill in the Senate to abolish the ABCC. He invoked the Eureka stockade as a fine example of rebelliousness and the need to fight bad laws.

Dave Noonan, National Secretary of the CFMEU Construction Division told the rally: “Dropping these charges is the first step forward. There is a will for more and more people to confront these unjust and undemocratic laws. While we do not have equality we will not respect these laws. No more co-operation with the ABCC!”

Assistant National Secretary of the CFMEU Construction Division, Martin Kingham, pointed out that the ABCC has endangered the lives of construction workers. He said: “It’s absolutely criminal! Workplace deaths have been going down in every industry except one — construction. There has been 34 construction deaths from July last to June this year. If we can’t get on the job [site] to enforce and improve workplace health and safety more people will get killed.”

The biggest cheer was given for Noel Washington, whose principled stand in defying the ABCC has highlighted its draconian powers and encouraged many to take up the fight. “These laws that were introduced are bad laws, they have to be defied and defeated - and they will be. What happens at a union meeting is nobody else’s business! These laws must be smashed”, he told the crowd.

The rally was also addressed by officials from the Maritime Union of Australia, the Australian Workers Union, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Victorian Trades Hall Council.

The mood of the protest was very defiant and the theme of non-cooperation struck a big chord with workers.

Many workers and some union officials, however, also raised concerns that the protest was downgraded and the venue changed once the charges against Washington were dropped. As one worker told Green Left Weekly, “We should have stuck with the initial plan and mobilised everybody. Noel’s charges have been dropped but the ABCC is still here making our lives hell”.

From: Australian News, Green Left Weekly issue #777 3 December 2008.

Dean Mighell on the ALP's "Fair Work Bill"

In this video Dean Mighell, secretary of the Electrical Trades Union (ETU) southern states branch, gives a good short analysis of the new "Fair Work Bill", the much-vaunted "replacement" for WorkChoices. Mighell is currently under attack [ again!] by the ALP for his dedication to workers' rights over the frequently dodgy interests of the ALP, as this article explains.

Socialist Alliance leaflet for Dec 2 rallies against the ABCC available for download

Download this Socialist Alliance leaflet for printing/distribution

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Rallies against the ABCC, Dec 2

Mass rallies will be held in cities and towns across Australia and the world in support of the Rights on Site campaign and to celebrate the DPP dropping the charges against Noel Washington. Noel had been charged with refusing to attend an ABCC interrogation about a union meeting and was due to face court in Melbourne on 2 December 2008.

Look below for details of where you can show your support for rights on site and join the global day of action on 2 December 2008.

UPDATED RALLY DETAILS

Melbourne
Time: 10:00 am
Assembly Point: ABCC Headquarters, 553 St Kilda Road,

Sydney
Time: 11:45 am
Assembly Point: Sydney Town Hall Square
March Route: Town Hall Square to ABCC, 255 Pitt Street

Brisbane
Time: 9:30 am
Assembly Point: Queens Park – Brisbane City
March Route: through the CBD to Kevin Rudd’s Office.

Click here for the Brisbane Rally flyer

Newcastle
Time: 11:45 am
Rally Assembly Point: Civic Park, Corner Auckland and King Streets

Wollongong
Time: 9:00 am
Rally Assembly Point: Amphitheatre, Crown Street Mall, Wollongong.

Darwin
Time: 12 noon
Rally Assembly Point: Unions NT at Raintree Park, The Mall, Darwin City.

Adelaide ***Dec 3***
Time: 12:00 noon
Rally Assembly Point: Victoria Square.

Click here for the Adelaide Rally flyer

Wellington, New Zealand
Time: 12:00 – 1:00pm
Where: Australian High Commission , 72 Hobson Street, Thorndon. Wellington.

Click here for the Wellington Rally flyer

Charge against Noel Washington dropped

Workplace Express
26 November 2008 1:58pm
Six days before the start of his trial for refusing to attend an ABCC interview, the Commonwealth DPP has dropped its charge against the CFMEU's (construction division) Victorian senior vice president Noel Washington.

The head of IR at Slater & Gordon, Marcus Clayton, who is representing Washington, confirmed to Workplace Express that he'd received a letter from the office of the CDPP this morning advising that it had withdrawn the charge.

He said the CDPP, as was typical in such circumstances, did not give reasons for its decision.

Washington was facing a possible six months jail for allegedly breaching s52 of the BCII Act, and the union's national secretary Dave Noonan received the news while marching to Parliament House in Canberra as part of series of nationwide protests coinciding with the trial, which was set down in the Melbourne Magistrates Court for Tuesday and Wednesday. He announced it to cheering building workers.

The charging of Washington had become a flashpoint for the strained relationship between the union movement and the ALP over the Government's decision to keep the ABCC and BCII Act until January, 2010.

The VTHC secretary Brian Boyd predicted a turn-out of 30,000-to-40,000 at next week's planned Melbourne rally alone.

Noonan said it was too early to decide whether next week's protests would go ahead, though the unions' Rights on Site campaign would continue until the ABCC and BCII Act were gone.

Slater & Gordon's Clayton told Workplace Express that he could "only speculate" why the CDPP had withdrawn the charge six days before the trial.

He said Washington's counsel, Robert Richter QC, had told the court that he would argue that the prosecution was an abuse of process, and that the ABCC's former deputy Nigel Hadgkiss would be required to attend to give evidence.

Asked whether the dropping of the charges would encourage more people to breach the BCII Act, the CFMEU's Noonan said that "bad laws would be broken". With more than 100 people already "dragged" to appear before the ABCC, there could be more who decided that the principle of fighting unjust laws outweighed the prospect of jail, he said.

Washington was the first person to be charged under s52 of the BCII Act.

Dec 2 Global Day of Action against the ABCC

Mass rallies will be held in cities and towns across Australia and the world in support of Noel Washington, a CFMEU official facing the possibility of a 6 month jail sentence because of the ABCC’s extraordinary powers.

Noel has been charge with refusing to attend an ABCC interrogation about a union meeting and faces court in Melbourne 2 December 2008

Look here for details of where you can show your support for rights on site and join the global day of action on 2 December 2008. More locations to come soon!

Sydney
Time: 11:45 am
Assembly Point: Sydney Town Hall Square
March Route: Town Hall Square to ABCC, 255 Pitt Street

Newcastle
Time: 11:45 am
Rally Assembly Point: Civic Park, Corner Auckland and King Streets

Wollongong
Time: 9:00 am
Rally Assembly Point: Amphitheatre, Crown Street Mall, Wollongong.

Melbourne
Time: 9:00 am
Assembly Point: Trades Hall, cnr Victoria and Lygon Streets, Carlton South
March Route: March to Melbourne Magistrates Court, cnr William and Lonsdale Streets City

Click here for the Melbourne Rally flyer

No co-operation with the ABCC!

Dear Comrades,

These new penal laws that the ABCC rely on have been around for over two years and nearly 12 months of the current Government. Now there is a real risk that workers will start going to gaol for being unionist and organising workers. I think it's time to start putting words into action. Now is the time to decide which side you're on.

I am standing beside Noel Washington and pledging no cooperation with the ABCC.

These are bad laws and are only designed to weaken the union movement and conditions for workers. I cannot support a Government that supports these laws and allows workers to be dragged before the courts for being unionist.

Please sign up and let the Government know we are serious. There can be only one outcome to this and that is workers win the right to organise the way we want to. Not the way that makes the bosses and the Government happy.

We are not slaves and our organisers are not criminals.

Yours in Solidarity
Tim Gooden
Secretary Geelong Trades Hall Council

Labor Omnia Vincit

Text of sign-on statement:

No co-operation with the ABCC

The Australian Building and Construction Commission is an ideologically driven organisation and was set up by the Howard Coalition government in October 2005 to destroy the effectiveness of the unions in the building industry. These unions have led the way in setting benchmark wages and standards of health and safety that have benefitted all working Australians. The ABCC operates like a police force with extensive coercive powers and secret investigations. There is no right to silence- refusing to attend hearings or answer questions can lead to a six-month jail sentence.

The ABCC's predecessor, the Building Industry Task Force, was set up after the $60 million Cole Royal Commission into the building industry. Contrary to the claims of some bosses and media, the Commission found that there is no "endemic lawlessness" perpetrated by the unions in the building industry. We are asking for nothing more than what employers already have; the right to meet with our members and representatives, before, during and after work and the right to defend our working conditions.

Penalising unions for representing workers' rights using hefty fines and threats of imprisonment has to STOP NOW. If the powers of the ABCC remain all Australian workers will have their right to organise and seek representation in a union undermined.

We, the undersigned refuse to cooperate with the ABCC and to pay fines imposed. We are inspired by the fine example set by CFMEU member Noel Washington in refusing to bow to the ABCC's intimidation. We pledge support for all union officials and members who are subject to the ABCC's powers.

We call on all unions to join a campaign of industrial action if any unionist is convicted for not cooperating with the ABCC

Name/Union/Signature

Dare to struggle - dare to win! If you don’t fight, you lose!

---

Download sign-on statement and return, with signatures, to: GTHC, 127 Myers St, Geelong. Tel 03-52211712, or 0438 088 112 and fax 03-52231115. See ACTU's television ad opposing the ABCC

Defend Dave Kerin! Union Solidarity Coordinator Faces 6 months jail.

Union Solidarity Coordinator Faces 6 months jail.

Union Solidarity Coordinator Dave Kerin is now facing up to 6 months jail for supporting striking workers at Boeing.

The Australian Workplace Ombudsman has issued Dave with a "Notice to produce documents" [see attachment] in relation to the recent strike at Boeing. Dave is being asked to supply a government agency with all information and documents concerning Union Solidarity, the AMWU and rank & file members by May 8. Basically Dave is being asked to "rat", he wont.

Union Solidarity will not comply with laws and government agencies whose sole purpose is to prevent workers having the ability to strike and organise. In the last election the Australian people voted overwhelming to get rid of anti-union laws, Union Solidarity operates within the spirit of that intention!

We are asking you to indicate your public support for Dave Kerin and Union Solidarity.

Online:
Please go here and indicate your public support for Dave Kerin and Union Solidarity. At a later date we will publish the names (but not phone numbers) to show the Workplace Ombudsman how much support Dave Kerin has within the movement.

Download for printing:

• Sign up list to be printed and distributed, a return postal address is on the bottom.
• Copy of the summons served on Dave Kerin
  

Messages of support for Dave Kerin can be sent to Dave: defenddave@unionsolidarity.org

Yours in Solidarity

Union Solidarity.

Don’t wait until 2010 – Abolish the ABCC now!

Don’t wait until 2010 – Abolish the ABCC now!

Since it was set up in 2005, the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) has operated as an all-powerful secret police in the building industry, attacking unions, unionists and the right to organise. The ABCC has been handed dictatorial power to secretly interrogate and intimidate workers, to jail and levy huge fines, all in the interest of defending profits in the building industry. The new Rudd government must honour its commitment to abolish the ABCC, not in 2010 but now! Any proposal to introduce a new “tough cop on the beat”, as proposed by deputy PM Julia Gillard in the lead-up to the 2007 federal election, must also be dropped.

The ABCC was set up as the Howard government's special weapon against the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, especially after its critical role in defeating Howard's attack on the Maritime Union of Australia in the 1998 Patrick's dispute. It was formed out of the Cole Royal Commission into the building industry – a trumped-up kangaroo court, which failed to find any evidence of any corruption by building unions. It aims to intimidate union members, bankrupt and split unions, and destroy all workplace solidarity. $32 million a year of taxpayers' money goes to keeping this special cop shop running.

The Commission’s extraordinary powers allow it to operate in secrecy, deny workers the right to silence and impose hefty fines and prison sentences for non-cooperation. No other group of workers in Australia has been singled out to face the draconian and unjust force of the law to such an extent. Already three reports by the International Labour Organisation have been issued outlining how the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act, the Howard government legislation which formed the ABCC, is in breach of international labor law.

The ABCC has been involved in around 38 prosecutions targeting workers and unions who have taken industrial action over occupational health and safety concerns, in particular, including life-threatening workplace issues. Under the current laws the building industry is defined so broadly that it also includes transport and manufacturing workers, making them targets for the building industry’s attack dog. The ABCC’s target list includes the CFMEU, the Electrical Trades Union, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and the MUA.

Since the election of the Rudd government in November, the ABCC has been pursuing building workers with an increased frenzy. This points to a broader campaign by big business to create the impression of “industrial chaos” in the building industry in order justify the ABCC’s existence beyond Labor’s stated end-date of January 1, 2010. In particular, the charging in Geelong of CFMEU delegate Craig Johnston–former state secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union – is a cynical attempt to revive anti-union hysteria by stirring memories of "unionists on the rampage" (when Johnston's "crime" as a union official was trying to defend unjustly sacked AMWU members!).

The bitter truth is that–contrary to election promises and much empty rhetoric–the Rudd Federal government wants to keep most of the previous Coalition government’s anti-worker laws. While promising to abolish the ABCC, Labor will replace it with a special section of its “Fair Work Australia”, which may have similar powers to the ABCC. This is an outrage. The ABCC needs to be completely abolished and discrimination against building workers ended once and for all!

No secret police for the building industry!
No more kangaroo courts – abolish the ABCC now!
Defend the right to organise!
Defend the right to strike!

Rally Against the Building Industry Attack Dog - 4pm April 9

*Rally against Howard's Building Industry Attack Dog - The Australian Building & Construction Commission (ABCC)*

When: 4pm Wednesday 9 April

Where: 255 Elizabeth St, Sydney, opposite the War Memorial

*Speakers: *

*Peter McClelland, NSW President CFMEU Construction Division *
*Maree O'Halloran, President NSW Teachers' Federation*
*Associate Professor Drew Cottle, UWS*
*Council for Civil Liberties Representative*

*Plus Street theatre *

Since the ABCC was set up in 2006, building industry workers have been under surveillance by a task force of more than 100 police, secretly interrogated, compelled to answer, compelled to keep interrogations secret, all under threats of gaol and fines.

Unions have been fined up to $40,000; officials fined thousands. 91 workers in WA have recently been fined $10,000 each.

Get Rid of the ABCC
Building workers' rights
Worth Fighting for

WorkChoices and Neoliberalism by any other name...

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard donned the dark frocks for a funeral today - the (hopefully) final laying to rest of the Bad Boy of WorkChoices: Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs). The Governor-General gave the things their lethal injection la night, and they were put to sleep, and then - on the second anniversary of WorkChoices - they were finally relegated to the dustbin of history.

Well, new ones, that is. There are still apparently upward of 1 million of the little bastards floating around, and many may not end until 2013. Worse yet, the ALP's "Forward With Fairness" policy replacement isn't really so different to WorkChoices itself, leading many unionists and those on the left to call it "WorkChoices Lite" - and with good reason. The wombats are waiting for many a bubble to burst on that front. Hopefully it won't take too long (although it could be helped along in a couple of ways).

The ALP is making no immediately obvious moves to get rid of the ABCC either - the star-chamber empowered secret police for the building industry, which has already been responsible for gross violations of civil liberties, not to mention being a centrepiece in the ongoing attacks on workers' rights in general. It won't be scrapped until 2010. And even if they remove it, they are likely to replace it with something not too dissimilar (if a little cuddlier).

You might be forgiven for thinking that, what with the ALP in power in all states and federally, we might be set for some meaningful changes. Well, maybe there'll be some changes, but it depends what kind of changes you are looking for. And with NSW Labor's heart set on privatising the state's energy supply (soon to be followed by the ferries, the lottery, perhaps the oxygen?) the true stripes of Labor can be seen.

Against around 80 percent public opposition to the sell-off, against their own party platform, and against the rebellion of the unions and over a dozen of the Government's own MPs, Iemma and Costa insist that come hell or high-water (and let's not get started with the idiocy of a desalination plant, and all the back-room deals involved in that one) they will follow through with the sell-off.

Fortunately, we have a new federal Labor government, which can remind the state government what the "party of labour" should be all about. Right? Well, apparently not. Rudd has also come out in support of Iemma and Co, which must feel relieved to get some kind of support after all the sex-scandals and exposure of dodgy developer deals in Wollongong, and pedophile ministers, and collapsible tunnels, and so on and so forth, which have plagued Premier Iemma since he was handed the poisoned chalice by Bob Carr as the latter trundled off to his retirement job of running NSW from Macquarie Bank proper (instead of just its political wing - the NSW ALP).

So ok. Maybe Rudd isn't the white knight some might have hoped for (even if he is going to inject money into the Murray). But Labor got in on the back of a genuine tidal wave of support, not a small part of which was around the opposition to WorkChoices, organised by the ACTU and others in the form of the "Your Rights At Work" campaign. So surely the hero of the labour movement, the real "people's champion" of the election - former ACTU Secretary Greg Combet - can be relied upon to see what's right and what's not, and stick up for the people, for common sense and for the planet (given the likely need for government control of energy production in order to prevent runaway Climate Change).

Ummm. No, actually. As even Bob Gould points out, Combet has counted his cards, and is relying - along with the rest of the Labor Left - upon a friendly deal from Poker-face Rudd to land the right bums on seats in cabinet. So, not a lot has changed in the "bump-me-into-parliament" world of the ALP's stranglehold on the unions and labour bureacracy. And not even the fact that his own electorate will be hard-hit by the sell-off can make him budge. "Angry voters" about as non-metaphysical as it gets for politicians, yet even that apparently wasn't enough of a carrot.

The shining light - if it can be called that - is the staunch opposition of the Unions NSW leadership to the coming privatisation, to the point of taking it to the floor of the NSW ALP state conference in early May, where they are planning to win. What is less clear, however, is what they plan to do if they win on the conference floor, and Costa then goes ahead with the sale. Gould has been railing of late against the demons he sees lurking in every left-wing critique of the ALP of calls for the expulsion of Iemma and Costa from the ALP.

Now, the wombats have no illusion that that will happen, but we wonder, then, what will happen when (if?) the vote goes against the government, and they still go ahead. It certainly challenges the logic of those (such as Gould, who certainly sees this fight as important, vital even, in the fight for the ALP) on the left in the ALP - and who see it as a vehicle for socialists - if even when the party conference, the party platform, AND the unions are on your side, you can't make the bastards budge.

Over a hundred years ago, the Australian Socialist League (ASL), and other socialists, put their hopes in elected representatives of the labour movement to bring about socialism in short order. Time and again they were disappointed by their elected Labor MPs, who took any and every opportunity to sell out - fast. Against all reason, however, they maintained a faith that it was a matter of individuals, not of the larger socialist strategy of the day, that was at fault, and that if only the "right people" were elected, all would be fine. And it got worse once the ALP-proper was set up.

Little appears to have changed in the interim, and socialists in Australia are faced with an unpleasant choice of working within the ALP - the perceived "real party of labour" - and having your efforts marginalised and your representatives bought off, or working outside Labor, in a party or a manner that doesn't mean apologism for neoliberal governments, but with the popular, and well-funded, monolith of the ALP to contend with.

And for those of us outside Labor - in the Socialist Alliance, in other socialist groups, in the Greens, the unions and elsewhere - we are faced with the equally daunting task. The task of overcoming a neoliberal ALP's hegemony over the Australian working class, of acheiving the kind of political and organisational unity necessary to create a viable alternative political vehicle of the working class in Australia. A vehicle which will be capable of bringing about something which has seldom - in the century since the ASL, SDF, ASB, VSP and other early socialists thought it so inevitable - seemed so far away as it does today: "socialism in our time".

This challenge is one which requires us all to rise above sectarianism and personal spite, and honestly appraise the situations before us when searching for answers - the right-wing nature of the new federal ALP government, the very real success of the Your Rights At Work campaign (and the expectations this has sown in many people), the limited but still tangible success of the Socialist Alliance, and the rise and rise (and worrying contradictions) of the Greens coupled with the importance and surging vitality of the struggle to prevent runaway climate change.

One good place for us all to start would be the Climate Change | Social Change Conference in Sydney on April 11-13, which will feature many of the key players in the various struggles mentioned above - both from Australia and from around the world. But the question of revolutionary strategy, of how to go beyond the limitations of the current juncture, is an ongong one. It is one which the Socialist Alliance was formed to help answer, but we certainly can't (and certainly don't intend to) answer it alone. We need your assistance in that, dear reader.

Rip up ALL anti-worker laws! Motion calling on Rudd government

Motion calling on the Rudd government to repeal all anti-union laws
[This motion was put to the AMWU Brisbane delegates meeting, held on Tuesday, February 26. The motion will go to AMWU National Conference later this year]

Preamble
The Rudd Labor government came to power on the back of a massive upsurge of working people who took mass action on the streets and campaigned tirelessly through Your Rights at Work and other community groups for the repeal of all of Work Choices.
The backlash was so great that the Howard government was voted out and even John Howard lost his own seat.
Now is the time for the Rudd-led ALP government to deliver on its promise to workers and get rid of all of Work Choices and all anti-union laws.

This [name of union or community group] calls on the federal Labor Government to:

1. Abolish Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs)
- Backdate the abolition of Australian Workplace Agreements to the date of the ALP’s election victory, November 24, 2007
- No AWA clones! Abandon legislation for Interim Transitional Employment Agreements (ITEAs).
- Allow workers covered by existing AWAs to opt out and to move onto union negotiated Enterprise Bargaining Agreements (EBA) awards.
2. End “prohibited content” in EBAs
3. Reinstate strong awards for all workers (no award stripping)
Awards must include:
- The protection of all penalty rates, loading rates and allowances
- Full wage indexation
- Protection of shift arrangements and rosters
4. Reinstate unfair dismissal laws for all workers immediately. No delay until 2010
- No watered-down system of “conciliation”
- Restore all lost rights
5. Guarantee that all legislation abide by ILO conventions on workers’ rights to freedom of association including
- Union officials right of entry to workplaces
- Workers right to elect workplace delegates
- Workers right to strike, without the threat of fines
- Repeal the ban on industry-wide (pattern) bargaining
6. Abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC)
7. Abolish the anti-union powers of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC)

MOVED……………………………………………………………………………………..

SECONDED………………………………………………………………………………..


To download the Socialist Alliance's leaflet "Now really rip up WorkChoices", click here.