TROTSKYIST PLATFORM Issue 17 December 2014 cost of printing $5 T RO T SKYIS UNLEASH INDUSTRIAL ACTION NOW T TO REVERSE THREE DECADES OF ATTACKS PLA T ON WORKING CLASS PEOPLE FORM Melbourne, 12 June 2014: Tens of thousands of trade unionists march in opposition to the federal government’s anti-working class budget. The Abbott regime’s participation in the ISSUE 17 DECEMBER 2014 predatory U.S.-led war in Iraq and Syria is aimed, in part, at diverting working class hostility to the budget and other anti-worker measures at home in Australia. The workers movement must unleash its immense power to oppose the U.S./Australia war campaign in Iraq and Syria as part of building a militant class struggle fightback against the ruling class’ budget and anti-union attacks. (Story page 9) Front Cover (clockwise from top): Workers at the Ausreo site in western Sydney, members of the AMWU manufacturing workers union, picketed the site for 10 weeks after the bullying bosses locked out the workers and refused to negotiate a pay rise. The workers’ defiant struggle won solidarity from many other trade unionists. Class struggle methods are the Provocation BY VIOLENT Racists road to workers’ victory! (Story page 2) The march commemorating the 10th anniversary of the racist police killing of much loved 17-year-old Aboriginal boy, TJ Hickey, passes through CRUSHED IN BRISBANE Redfern. (Story page 39) “Drive out the fascist filth” chant protestors at the successful 2nd May anti-fascist counter protest in Brisbane which brought together construction workers from the CFMEU, BLF and ETU unions together with anarchists, Trotskyist Platform supporters, members of the Socialist Alliance and other anti-racists. (Story page 33) trotskyistplatform.com po box 1101 fairfield nsw 1860 MORE THAN TEN YEARS ON AND JUSTICE FOR TJ HICKEY CAN STILL +61417 204 611 BE Won BY THE UNITED FORCE OF ALL THOSE WHO ARE TARGETED [email protected] BY THE SAME racist, RICH PEOPLE’S State That MURDERED HIM Trotskyist Platform issue 17 december 2014 ISSN 2201-358X 2 Smash Abbott’s Budget. Rely on Class Struggle Not Campaigning for ALP/Greens Governments. Unleash Industrial Action Now to Reverse Three Decades of Attacks on Working Class People. 9 U.S./Australia: Hands off Iraq and Syria! Defend Syria against Western Imperialism & its “Rebel” Proxies! Workers Caught in the Crosshairs of Capitalism: Don’t Let the Jingoistic Beat of War Divert You from Justified Anger at the Exploiters & Their Budget. Abbott/Shorten’s War and “Anti-Terror Laws” are Bad for Working Class People. 20 Greetings for the October 1 Anniversary of China’s Great 1949 Revolution. Down with Yuppy, Anti-Communist Hong Kong Protests. 22 Suffering of a Public Housing Tenant. Fight for Proper Maintenance of Public Housing. Stop the Neglect and Stop the Sell-Offs. 27 For Working Class Action against the U.S. & Australian Rulers Backing Israel’s Genocidal Terror. Support the Palestinian Struggle for Self- Determination! Defend Syrian Self-Determination against NATO’s Proxy Armies! 33 Provocation by Violent Racists Crushed in Brisbane: Unions United with Leftists & Other Anti-Racists Got the Job Done! 39 Mobilise United Action of Aboriginal People, Trade Unions and “Ethnic” Communities to Demand: Justice For TJ, Jail for the Racist Murdering Cops! 43 Stop Capitalist Job Slashing through Class Struggle. Force Bosses to Increase Hiring at the Expense of their Profits! 49 Force the Ruling Class to Hold Back Their Cops from Killing Aboriginal People – Unleash Union/Black Action! Palm Island Aboriginal Hero Lex Wotton Joins Brisbane G20 Protests. 50 Freedom for the Refugees! No to Offshore or Onshore Detention! Build a Pro-Working Class Refugee Rights Movement. 54 Racist Cop Attack on Teen Gathers Protesters Outside Police Station. 58 The Main Enemy Are the Capitalist Rulers at Home. Lift Western Sanctions on Russia! Down with NATO/Australian Meddling in Ukraine! Abbott & Shorten Use Ukraine Plane Tragedy to Promote Support for Aussie Imperialism. Defend the Just Struggle of the People of the Donbass! For the Revolutionary Unity of the Ukrainian and Russian Working Class! 93 Anti-Fascists Give Violent Racists a Drubbing in Marrickville. Build Trade Union-Centred Mass Actions to Crush the Fascists! 99 Sydney Rally Opposes Entire U.S. and Australian Imperialist Intervention in Syria and Iraq. SMASH ABBOTT’S BUDGET Workers triumphant at the Ausreo site in western Sydney after learning that their struggle had forced the company to grant them a real wage increase. Class struggle methods are truly the road to workers’ victory! Sensing public sentiment, opposition parties class attacks. This capitalist system requires have come out against several budget that more and more gets squeezed out of the measures. Even greedy tycoon Clive Palmer and his conservative party have stated their intention to vote against some measures. ALP working class masses to satisfy the profit leaders have tried to restore their battered Thedemands worsening of the filthyof the rich position corporate of owners.working credentials with their working class base class people began not with the election Melbourne, 1987: Members of the Builder Labourers Federation (BLF) protest against their persecution. by denouncing the unfairness of the budget of Abbott but three decades earlier. This The BLF trade union was deregistered the year before by the then Hawke Labor government with the to low and middle income people. But let corresponded with the worldwide assault on assistance of the NSW Wran Labor government and the Victorian Cain Labor government. Governments us not forget that the previous government, workers and the poor associated with Ronald sent in police to raid union offices and to surround major building sites in order to violently prevent BLF for the most part a de facto Labor-Greens Reagan and Margaret Thatcher’s anti-union members from going into their jobs. The capitalists and their social democratic servants targeted the BLF coalition, also made life harder for the poor. offensive and Cold War anti-communist drive because it dared to use militant industrial action to fight for workers’ rights and other progressive social The former ALP/Greens government cruelly against the former USSR. In this country, justice causes. The ALP’s smashing of the BLF was criminal treachery against the ALP’s working class base. drove 84,000 low income single parents the Bob Hawke and then Paul Keating RELY ON CLASS STRUGGLE NOT CAMPAIGNING FOR ALP/GREENS GOVERNMENTS – mainly single mothers – into extreme Labor governments that came to power poverty when they threw them off the in 1983, privatized the Commonwealth parenting payment onto the much lower Bank and Qantas, ended free education for UNLEASH INDUSTRIAL ACTION Newstart Allowance. Furthermore, the last tertiary students, straightjacketed the trade government undermined public housing. In unions through an anti-strike “Accord” and 2010, then housing minister Tanya Plibersek smashed the militant BLF union that dared – a supposed “Left” who today is Labor’s to defy the Accord. From Hawke onwards NOW TO REVERSE THREE DECADES main spokesperson at anti-Abbott rallies every new government has heaped new – worked together with the then state ALP hardships upon the masses. The Keating government to plan the sell-off of public Labor government divided and weakened the OF ATTACKS ON WORKING CLASS housing from NSW’s biggest public housing union movement by opposing industry-wide 3 July 2014 - Over the last four months, tens of thousands of people have been marching estate at Claymore. Plibersek’s program, bargaining in favor of Enterprise bargaining. in large rallies protesting against the right wing Abbott regime. The first budget of which saw a large number of public dwellings Howard then followed with his notorious the Liberal-National government has rightly enraged working class people, students sold off, is now being carried through further attacks on unions, Aboriginal people and and leftists. In measures that will hurt the working class, retrenched workers and the by the present state Liberal government. “ethnic” communities. The subsequent Labor poor the most, Treasurer Hockey’s budget has slashed funding for public hospitals and government maintained most of Howard’s will make people pay a $7 fee for each doctor’s visit. The latter measure is likely to be Labor and Labor/Greens governments are right-wing measures and introduced new the thin edge of a wedge aimed at slicing up any semblance of universal health care. not fundamentally better than conservative ones too. The Gillard and Rudd governments Resources for Aboriginal services will be slashed, public funding for universities will governments because, while the ALP leaders not only continued Howard’s racist policy be cut by 20% and graduates will have to pay their tuition fee debts back when their would like to appease their working class of quarantining 50% of the social security incomes are lower. People on the Disability Support Pension are to face nerve-wracking supporters and the Greens have a kind of payments received by Aboriginal people “re-assessments” of their eligibility for the pension. Most cruelly, unemployed people liberal-progressive ideology, they are both in the NT but even extended the draconian under the age of thirty are to be thrown off payments for six months a year. This will committed to maintaining the capitalist measure to poor people of all ethnicities surely lead to even more homelessness, poverty and youth suicide. order - the root cause of the anti-working in others areas including Bankstown in 2 3 Sydney and the Brisbane suburb of Logan. class reforms. When the Fraser government Many are hoping that decisive The Rudd government Mark II also detailed sought to dismantle the Medibank universal sections of the budget will be blocked a plan to slash over 5,000 public service health insurance scheme - the predecessor to by the Senate.