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WL 51 June 2011 The emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class itself ISS N 1446-0165 No.51. June 2011 http://australia.workersliberty.org Bob Carnegie tells MUA “The union is the members” he job of officials is to serve and inform", It will campaign for the hiring of casuals to be declares Bob Carnegie in a leaflet for his regulated by agreed rotas and waiting lists, rather “T campaigning to become Secretary of the than employers’ arbitrary decision. Queensland branch of the Maritime Union of It will make the MUA a leader in the fight to win Austra lia. Balloting is currently underway. decent and secure employment conditions for workers Bob Carnegie has promised a number of measures to across the whole economy. ensure that officials are accessible and accountable to “Everywhere, privatisation means undermining members, and that members have opportunities to meet union strength and secure employment conditions. “When the Queensland state government privatised wholesale, the MUA responded passively. The “Queensland Not For Sale” fiasco, in which our union failed to take any leading or active role in combatting privatisation, showed the current leadership unworthy of our movement’s forefathers on whose shoulders we stand. Under my leadership the MUA Queensland branch will not involve itself in ALP “What the union says machinations over and does in the ALP the heads of the will be democratically and communicate about what they expect from the membership. discussed and decided union. It will use the by MUA members.” “For over a decade now our union leadership has union’s scaled down its aims to damage-limitation, and representation in trained the membership in the same poverty of the Australian Labor Party, both at state level and aspiration. Under my leadership the branch will nationally, openly to champion workers’ interests and reverse that trend. It will do that by harnessing all challenge the ALP leaders. the work of the branch officials to improving the The MUA will speak out in the same way that information and organisation available to members. South Australian unions are currently speaking out for By doing that we can defeat casualisation. the removal of Mike Rann as unworthy to be a Labor A casualised workforce is a workforce divided representative. It will not let issues drop once a token between permanents and casuals — inevitably so, to victory has been gained, as the NSW unions let issues some degree, despite the best efforts by delegates. drop once Morris Iemma had been ousted and his It is a weaker workforce. It is a less safe workforce, particular variant of electricity privatisation blocked. because workers dependent for their next pay on an My opponents in this election charge me with being employer’s favour must be less likely to raise safety a ‘Trotskyist’. I believe that can be no peace so long as issues than workers with permanent status. hunger and want are found among millions of working The branch will campaign to make Patricks and DP people, and the few, who make up the employing World accept interhire of casuals. class, have all the good things of life. It will campaign to make the database for seafarers “The working class and the employing class have open and transparent, so that employers are unable to noth ing in common. headpick. “Between these two classes a struggle must go on It will campaign progressively to force the until all the toilers come together on the political, as companies to accept stricter and stricter limits to the well as the industrial field, and take and hold that numbers of casuals they can employ, and to take on which they produce by their labour”. existing casuals as permanent workers. (continued page 2) 1 Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS): is this the way to win gained attention and new discussion in Australia. The debate that wasn’t: for or Students for Palestine argued that their campaign is against the Palestinian call for a BDS effective, against the Jericho shop in Melbourne CBD, which sells gourmet salt produced in the Occupied by Riki Lane Territories. This at least targets Israel’s occupation of debate organised by Melbourne’s New the West Bank rather than Israel’s existence. International bookshop at Trades Hall, was However, it could become anti-Semitic, targetting a billed as a friendly debate between long terms A Jewish run business rather than just settlement activists. Against BDS was Sol Salbe, long time Jewish products. leftist, former SWP member (parent of today’s SA and RSP), and active in the Australian Jewish Democratic Society. For the Palestinian/global BDS, was Kim Bullimore, an RSP member and Palestinian solidarity activist – working with Palestinian women’s and queer organisations. Sol Salbe spoke first, opposing “Palestinian BDS” specifically, but not BDS against settlement products. Solidarity movements should not be bound by the organisations they support. The non-Stalinist Australian left determined its own positions on South Africa and Vietnam, rather than slavishly following the ANC or the Vietnamese CP. He pointed to the The central 1 disagreement is on Palestinian BDS citing a UN resolution recognising what means will the right of return for resolve the refugees, as an implicit struggle for endorsement of a one-state Palestinian rights. solution. Sol Salbe said that no-one supporting the Palestinian BDS was for a two-state solution. Kim Bullimore’s strongest argument was that BDS is a Palestinian initiative, with widespread support amongst civil society organisations. It is an anti- colonial campaign, focused on colonisation, dispossession and ethnic cleansing. She was on weaker Two speakers raised questions about the pro-BDS ground citing Lenin from 1903 arguing that forming a position, but I was the only speaker from the floor to Jewish nation would be reactionary. She said Sol was seriously oppose BDS as follows... putting the needs of the citizens of the oppressor state Kim Bullimore’s claim about Lenin could also be ahead of those of the oppressed – implicitly a made about Trotsky who was scathing about Zionism, colonia list attitude. but changed in the later 1930s. Trotsky certainly A procession of speakers attacked opponents of the thought fascism made a difference. A state and nation BDS - Socialist Alternative (Cliffite) and RSP and were established in Israel – through blood, ethnic Socialist Alliance (Castroite). Some argued that cleansing and so on. Other nations formed like this but Israel did not have the right to exist and that “getting are not slated for smashing. Were the Eritreans “nice” rid of Israel” would be a great benefit to the working to the Ethiopians in their war for independence? class in the Middle East. Socialist Party councillors in Bob Carnegie Yarra were criticised for abandoning Marrickville (continued from front page) Council by not supporting the BDS. I want to replace the unequal dog-eat-dog society of The strongest argument for BDS was that it gives a capitalism by a cooperative commonwealth. That free focus to solidarity here, e.g. Marrickville Council cooperative commonwealth will be as distant from the stifling, unequal societies of the old Soviet Union and 1 1 See http://www.bdsmovement.net/call , which sets out three demands on Israel: Maoist China as it will be from market capitalism. 1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands That is the philosophy that guides me as a trade and dismantling the Wall; unionist. It is for MUA members to choose between that 2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab- Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and and the current policy of bureaucratic inertia and timid 3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of damage-limitation”. Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as More - http://bob2011mua.wordpress.com stipulated in UN resolution 194. Palestinian rights? Boycotts are not especially effective. As Kim unsuccessful Green candidate for the Marrickville admitted, the Palestinian call for BDS is an expression electorate in the NSW election, and Lee Rhiannon, due of weakness. As Sol Salbe pointed out, it was not the to take her seat as a NSW Senator in July. boycott that ended apartheid, but the decision of the The Australian’s campaign seemed motiva ted by a whites that they had to change. desire to embarrass and cause strife for the federal The academic boycott is so broadly written that it Labor government, which is dependent on Green obstructs attempts to win over Israeli middle ground to support. But The Australian’s campaign has had an a solution. Who determines which academics are effect. boycotted? Anything organised by an Israeli university On 18 April Fiona Byrne said that Marrickville is automatically boycotted. That stands in the way of Council would not carry out its boycott policy (adopted, winning people in Israel. with little publicity at the time and the support of When trade unions break links with the Histradut, Labor councillors, in December 2010), though she still does this further anything? Does it contribute to thought a boycott right "in principle". Both Green and building the forces within Israel that are open to Labor councillors in Marrickville had already said Palestinian statehood? No,: it prevents links between that they no longer backed a boycott. working class forces in Israel and Palestine. Federal Greens leader Bob Brown denounced the The central disagreement is on what means will boycott. Lee Rhiannon's website carried no response on resolve the struggle for Palestinian rights. Is it by the issue. forcing a reluctant Israeli Jewish population into a The campaign by The Australian centred round unitary state, or is it through a consistently democratic claims that the boycott policy is "radical" and "left- agreement between the two peoples, achieved by wing".
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