PM John Howard's new industrial relations laws will be disastrous for working people. The changes are not simply an attack on the wages and conditions of today's workers, they are an attempt to render workers powerless and allow bosses free reign in the workplace.
Howard wants the next generation of workers to grow up without job security and to be forced to cede to ever-more outrageous demands from the boss to avoid unemployment. Without safeguarded conditions, and with minimum wages to be set by a new, even more boss-friendly body, he expects us to work ever-longer hours to keep up with bills and mortgages. This legislation is not an attack on a minority lobby group: it threatens the overwhelming majority of Australians.
Yet where has the press outrage been? Where are the screaming headlines in the Daily Telegraph, or the Herald Sun, or the West Australian, warning us of what is coming? None of these papers have told the truth about what this legislation will mean.
Worse, the bosses' newspapers have been campaigning against unions for years — particularly the strong, militant unions, like the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union and the Maritime Union of Australia. When Howard's union-hating government tried to destroy the MUA in 1998, the corporate media told so many lies about the MUA that Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer must have had plastic surgery to cut their noses down to size afterwards.
In contrast, 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly joined the hundreds of thousands of working people who fought to defend the MUA. We gave a voice to the people on the picket lines, and stood alongside them. At every turn, we debunked the lies that wharfies were "lazy", or "overpaid", or "costing the country", in favour of pointing out who the real lazy, rich parasites were: Howard himself, and stevedoring company Patrick's boss Chris Corrigan.
When the Victorian branch of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union launched a pioneering pattern bargaining campaign, "Campaign 2000", to allow an industry-wide fight, we reported that, as a result, AMWU members in Victoria won the best wages and conditions of AMWU members in Australia, including winning a 36-hour work week. We interviewed leaders of the branch, including then-secretary Craig Johnston, to draw out how the fight was won, including the use of regular mass meetings, of both delegates and members.
When Johnston was charged as a result of an industrial dispute, we countered the media hysteria that branded Johnston as a "thug" and worse. We pointed out that, while bosses often lay charges during a blue to intimidate the union, these are almost always dropped once the issue is resolved. The fact that Johnston was not only prosecuted — but jailed — for standing up against casualisation, was because the state government, the bosses, and tragically the national union leadership, all wanted his brand of militant unionism to disappear.
When Howard unleashed his attack dog — then-industrial relations minister Tony Abbott — on the building unions, setting up a sham "royal commission" into the building industry, the Murdoch press spent more time attacking building workers than it did Osama bin Laden. In contrast, we exposed the commission for the undemocratic smear job that it was — another attempt to get rid of effective unionism.
Since our inception in 1991, 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly has sought to give workers a voice, in the face of a media owned by bosses, that defends the interests of bosses. Most of all, we have always sought to point out that it is working people, the overwhelming majority, who build, maintain and run this country. It is our work that provides the mega-profits that BHP, Telstra, the National Bank and other corporations "earn".
91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly is 100% behind the national campaign to defeat the government's onslaught against workers and unions. We attempt to provide the latest news on all aspects of the fight-back around Australia — which you simply can't read anywhere else — and to help build the momentum for a massive, united union and community movement that can stop Howard dead in his tracks.
Workers badly need a voice, and we can't rely on the bosses to provide us with one. If you like 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, why not subscribe? Better still, tell your friends about it, or buy them a copy. With the bosses' news shoved down out throats daily, we could all use the other side of the story — the workers' side.
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, June 29, 2005.
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