Ron Perkins, Perth
Four blue-collar WA unions have resolved to organise a rally on June 28 as part of the nationwide protests against the Work Choices legislation, despite the refusal of UnionsWA to endorse it. The four unions are the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA), the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), the Communication, Electrical and Plumbing Union (CEPU) and the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU).
At the March 21 UnionsWA council meeting, the executive recommended "That a UnionsWA rally not be conducted on 28 June but that unions wishing to have a rally on that day be assisted by UnionsWA if required". CEPU secretary Les McLaughlin responded, "I'm very worried about what sort of message it would send if in the very week that the government enacts Work Choices the union movement in WA says we're not going to be part of the national day of action". UnionsWA secretary Dave Robinson reluctantly deferred the motion till April.
At the April 18 council meeting, the same motion was put without discussion and passed with around 38 in favour and 26 against. McLaughlin successfully moved to reopen discussion, and he and CFMEU assistant secretary Joe McDonald spoke forcefully in favour of organising a protest. Representatives of the Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union and the Civil Service Association spoke against, prompting cries of "bullshit" and "piss weak" from many of the blue-collar delegates.
CSA state secretary Toni Walkington said, "Growing the union and changing the government is the only way we will defeat these laws ... Having a rally doesn't extend your membership, it just mobilises existing members and in the process exhausts them." MUA state secretary Chris Cain, whose union's membership has increased by a third in just three years, called out, "No, I think it inspires them!"
Cain said that not holding a rally "would be telling the bosses that here in WA we're a pushover". He also dismissed efforts to counterpose the big rallies with other campaigning activities, and argued that the Victorian unions achieved such big turnouts at their protests precisely because they do all the other activities on the job and in the community.
Cain said that the campaign of mass strikes, rallies and civil disobedience seen in France was the direction needed for the campaign in Australia. AMWU president Steve McCartney explained that his union had made a national decision to participate in the June 28 protests and would hold a rally regardless of the UnionsWA position, and invited other unions to join them.
Robinson concluded discussion by saying, "We can't have this 'with us or against us' stuff. It's blackmail." He also claimed that UnionsWA did not have the resources to do a rally in June, saying that the last two rallies had cost more than $100,000. However there was no discussion about the fact that for the last rally UnionsWA spent tens of thousands of dollars renting satellite time and a wall of video screens for an ACTU presentation that went too long and that the majority of participants could not see or hear anyway.
The motion was then put again and passed.
Under Howard's new laws, the unions supporting the June 28 protest possibly face legal attack by employers and the Australian Building and Construction Commission, and have been meeting to discuss mutual self-defence strategies. In the face of anti-union lies and slander in the mainstream media, as the WA CFMEU has recently been experiencing, these unions must use every means available to put their case to the rest of the union movement and the wider community.
The more conservative section of the WA union movement initially resisted a CFMEU request to speak at the Perth May Day rally, with one union representative reportedly saying that a CFMEU speaker would be bad for the union movement's image and that blue-collar workers might say inappropriate things in front of children! This was resolved at the March UnionsWA meeting when a motion put by Cain was passed stating: "That the CFMEU speak at the May Day rally and any other union subject to legal action under the new legislation be also allowed to speak."
Commenting on the planned June 28 rally, MUA assistant branch secretary Ian Bray told 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly: "We want it to be open to all unions and workers who want to get involved, not just those that have initially sponsored it. We need to show the community that our campaign is alive and kicking and give them a way to participate in it."
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, April 26, 2006.
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