The emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class itself ISSN 1446-0165 No.69 Summer 2017/2018 http://australia.workersliberty.org Photo: ETU Vic The (un)Fair Work Act has to go Union leaders are counting on Labor INSIDE THIS ISSUE winning the next Federal election and then fixing the “broken” industrial rules. • Marriage equality: right routed Ged Kearney, Dave Noonan, and other • Queensland MUA global solidarity officials, speaking at the Queensland MUA • Fake housing shortage conference in November acknowledged that • British Leyland shop stewards the ACTU failed the Your Rights @ Work • Catalonia: rights and unity campaign, by ending it once the Howard • Zimbabwe: no choice for workers government lost the 2007 election. A further • Seize their wealth: Paradise papers flaw was that YR@W was silent on union • Capitalist disease, Australian politics rights to organise and strike, yet employment and a Marxist response rights and conditions depend on them. That let the Labor Government get away with There are other big topics that the Change replacing Work Choices with Work Choices the Rules Campaign cannot afford to be silent lite. This time, the campaign will continue on. they said, after the election until unions have The Liberals and Nationals, the shock jocks, the right to organise, bargain and strike. employer organisations and the Right in The ACTU is collecting ideas from unions general will scream about economic disaster, about what should replace a repealed Fair union power and Labor being captive. Work Act, said Ged Kearney. Workers’ Shorten will distance himself, ask the unions Liberty believes critical points should be: to be quiet, go softly and wait till after the • Right to strike. No fines or gaol, for election. Will our union leaders stay firm or industrial action, including in solidarity go quiet for uncertainty that Labor could lose with any other workplace, union or the election? cause. No compulsory ballot process Whatever rights we demand, or win, the before industrial action. employers will claim that they will cause • Right to organise. Delegates and unemployment to rise. It is possible that workers can meet and communicate on unemployment will rise, whether or not it’s site using workplace resources, and because some employers calculate they’re union officials have right of entry. cutting investment because of increased • A living wage. The minimum wage labour costs. How will we stand up to this should be part of union wage blackmail from employers, that workers bargaining, with demands backed by either submit to work under their terms industrial campaigning. There should without industrial rights, or else we don’t get be a fresh assessment by unions of to earn a living at all? We need to work out our answers. We need further demands to workers needs, to set a dollar figure to solve those next problems, such as shorter campaign for. The benchmark for hours on same weekly pay, increases should be transparent, so (re)nationalisation, and expanded public that workers know exactly how it services. stands up to increases in the cost of living and community standards. Change the Rules is silent on two major controversial political issues, refugees and The Change the Rules campaign talking climate change. The least that Change the about an independent umpire. A tribunal that Rules should do is to circulate different can enforce workers rights against employers points of view, and to encourage education is not the same as the old Arbitration and debate on these issues in the trade union Commission that made union officials into a movement. double-edged sword. Historically the Commission made decisions based on its Change the Rules needs more than launches assessment of what would be accepted by and rallies, it also needs to be run in a both sides, taking account of investment, democratic and accountable way. If members employment and inflation. Union officials and delegates debate and endorse demands, ended up having to choose between helping this will raise commitment and energy, and workers who want to keep fighting for their unionists will be ready to stand up and fight full demands, or being enforcers of the back against attacks on these demands, and Commission’s orders. Arbitration is not a so members and delegates can discuss and substitute for union strength against the vote on any offers before they are accepted employers. by the union movement, to ensure we win no less than we are prepared to fight for. 2 Bill Shorten winning over design process. CLASSIC Laborism. That is, business? they will be on an equal footing with the union negotiators. This is the process that led by Janet Burstall to the “broken rules” of Labor’s Fair Work An Australian Financial Review (22 2009. The process is as broken as the rules. November) article posed Bill Shorten as a How do we prevent employers from having Jekyll and Hyde, obviously reversing the so much control over the negotiations for the good and evil positions as trade unionists next Act?” would see them. The article is ludicrous about Shorten’s class struggle credentials, his Launching Change the Rules “natural instinct for class conflict” and praise by Janet Burstall “for the militant construction and maritime unions.” Whatever mistrust corporate I heard Ged Kearney at Qld MUA employers have for Labor, they are bracing conference say that ACTU leaders won't for a Labor government. “The Chamber of make the same mistake as they did letting Commerce and Industry has been working to Rudd and Gillard off the hook with UnFair improve relations in recent months, a Labor Work Australia, after Your Rights @ Work. source said, and that effort culminated in last But at the CTR launch I went to in Western week's lunch at Sydney's Grand Hyatt” where Sydney, Sally McManus urged us all to Shorten gave a speech to the ACCI. campaign for Kristina Keneally, without any recognition of the need to be ready to fight a The article is succinct yet mild in explaining Labor government. The whole event was so business motives and power. “Companies totally stage managed, there was no don't vote. But political leaders always want discussion from the floor at all. the confidence of the business community to encourage investment. Companies are also We won't get a genuine grass roots big political donors and can influence media movement within Change the Rules as it is. coverage.” But I do see CTR as an opening for socialist trade unionists to raise the questions that are The need for investment to create jobs in a being left unanswered and educating around capitalist economy is the bottom line of them. blackmail by capital. Labor politicians and the ACTU have a record of caving in to this. Religious right routed in We can count on Shorten to be trying to accommodate business demands and placate marriage equality “vote” unions with sops on industrial law reform. by Riki Lane This ought to be an impossible task for The “postal survey” on same-sex marriage Shorten, if unions commit to hold out for saw a resounding victory for lgbtiq equality: genuine rights to organise and strike. 61.6% said yes to marriage equality and over Thanks to Don Sutherland for highlighting 12 million people (79.5%) participated in this the AFR article in Unions Australia facebook voluntary, non-binding poll – a higher rate group: “Here we have an insight into Shorten than the Brexit vote. All states had a yes LABOR’S relationship to the big business majority, and 133/150 electorates voted yes, organisations. Union members and activists including almost all regional and rural ones. need to be paying attention to this, all the However, 12 electorates in Western Sydney time sifting the wheat from the chaff. Key voted no, mostly ALP held, with working ALP figures have already said that in class, largely immigrant populations. These designing a new Fair Work Act they will were systematically targeted by right wing replicate the role of the employers in the religious organisations, and not so thoroughly 3 worked by the Yes campaigners. This pattern seat for 90 years, but there has been an not replicated in similar areas – e.g. only 2 ongoing process of gentrification and swings similar electorates voted no in Melbourne. to the Greens in inner city suburbs in the This points to need for systematic work to large cities. State ALP figures are seriously make links between the struggles of concerned they could be forced into a oppressed lgbtiq and migrant/refugee people. coalition or minority government at the next The strange beast that was the ABS postal election. survey – not a plebiscite, not really a survey – The left have generally been inspired by her came about as a sop to the right wing victory as Lidia has a strong record of conservatives of the Liberal/National activism around environmental and coalition, who hoped that young people indigenous issues. She becomes the first would not participate and a no vote would indigenous woman member of the Victorian sneak through. Instead, 100s of thousands of State parliament in its 161 year history, young people enrolled and voted, energised which highlights the entrenched racism that by the campaign for equality. has been directed toward indigenous peoples. Conservatives are on the back foot on the legislation to follow. Religious exemptions A working class charter are unlikely to be too extensive, although Workers’ Liberty proposes a platform to they are already bad e.g. religious schools unite working class people to fix our have the right to sack teachers or expel problems. students. The religious right are correct to • Union rights, the right to strike and take fear that this legalised discrimination is likely solidarity action, for organising the to be wound back in future; hence their unorganised in workplaces and educating attempt to entrench it further now.