BY SUE BULL
MELBOURNE — The Victorian office of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union remains in limbo, awaiting a resolution to the dispute between the AMWU's national office and elected Victorian officials. By September 14, most Victorian officials had not been paid for the previous week, and were not expecting to be for another week.
The officials are waiting for Federal Court Justice Goldberg to hand down a decision regarding the AMWU state council's right to appoint an acting state secretary.
The Dargavel versus Cameron case began on September 11. Steve Dargavel is the acting secretary of the Victorian AMWU branch, appointed by a state council on September 2. The state council had to take out an injunction to stop AMWU national secretary Doug Cameron and the national council from overturning his appointment on September 5.
The trial goes to the heart of a dispute over democracy within the union. Dargavel is challenging the right of the AMWU national office to overturn all state council decisions — industrial, financial, employment related or of any other type. If he is unsuccessful, the right of state branches to run their own affairs, including industrial campaigns, will be seriously under threat.
The trial should determine whether the state council had the right, under union rules, to appoint an acting secretary after the state secretary had resigned. If this right is upheld, the employment of a number of other officials appointed by Dargavel and the state council will continue.
This trial takes place in a politically charged environment. Just last month, Victorian officials demonstrated outside their own office for 20 days to protest the sacking of national industrial officer Denis Matson. It is only a fortnight since Craig Johnston was forced to resign as state secretary in an attempt to stop the attacks from the national office on the Victorian branch.
In the midst of this battle for democratic control, the Victorian branch has been attempting to formulate an industrial campaign for the next 12 months. The union branch intends "Campaign 2003", carried out through industry-wide "pattern bargaining", to win Victorian manufacturing workers the best deal anywhere in the country, and manufacturing bosses are extremely worried.
The militant leaders of the Victorian branch are also under attack from the bosses and their media. "I'm no robot, says new union boss", commented a headline in the September 7 Weekend Australian. An interview with Dargavel, the article claimed that Johnston was still running the Victorian branch.
The most outrageous media coverage was two full pages in the September 14 Age. Flagged on the front cover as, "Craig Johnston: The making of a middle class revolutionary", the article went back to Johnston's mid-teenage years to paint him as a street fighter and "raging bull".
The corporate media attention is fundamentally hostile to Johnston, Dargavel and the Workers First group. The Weekend Australian article, after noting that Cameron has likened Workers First to a bikie gang, says: "Employers in Victoria have welcomed the demise of Mr. Johnston whose aggressive industrial tactics included what one union source described as a "jihad" against a labour hire firm."
The article continues: "National officials believe Mr. Dargavel is under Mr. Johnston's thumb and beholden to the extremists in his own faction — particularly a group of Geelong based construction workers, members of which have been likened to extras from a Mad Max film."
Presumably such comments are meant to make every responsible, "average" Victorian worker fear and despise these militants. The attraction that Johnston has for workers who have seen conditions and pay improve under his leadership is rarely, if ever, mentioned. Instead, the Age article outrageously describes Johnston as "not so much Red as Clockwork Orange" and a "shoulder in search of a chip".
Goldberg's decision was expected on September 13, and it is easy to imagine his dilemma. With most Victorian industry bosses hoping for the demise of the Victorian leadership, he likely would have been tempted to support the national office. But most of the 70,000 Victorian AMWU members are showing no signs of giving up their elected state leadership. At one stage in the trial, Goldberg wryly commented: "I'm prepared to accept that there is internecine warfare in this union."
Goldberg ruled that the "status quo" would remain until September 17. National-office appointed administrator Dave Oliver will remain for now, but the national council cannot implement any decisions that overturn state council decisions. Which means that Dargavel stays put as well.
While Victorian officials continue to work for no pay, the national council has undertaken not to press disciplinary charges against any of them yet. Some state office phones are working again, after initially being cut by the national office, others aren't.
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, September 18, 2002.
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