Alice M.
The global capitalist economic crisis is hitting Australia’s working people hard. You need only to ask workers in the manufacturing, finance, retail industries and government public service. Multinational corporations and big banks are desperate to protect their profits and demand working people pay with their jobs and livelihoods.
It is no coincidence that company closures, slashing of tens of thousands of jobs and stepped up offensive on unions, workers’ rights and conditions comes at a time of increased company takeovers by overseas monopoly corporations and finance capital in Australia. Privatisation paved the way.
Tens of thousands of jobs are being wiped out from the Australian economy. Workers in manufacturing, food processing, retail and finance industries are in the front row of the falling axe. Many thousands more are thrown into precarious employment with contracts, casualisation, part time and other insecure and low paid employment.
Big business shuts down local jobs and outsources others to countries with high unemployment and cheaper labour. Giant mining monopolies dig out record volumes of Australia’s natural resources. The raw minerals are shipped out to other countries for processing and value adding, and imported back to Australia as manufactured products. Australia’s processing and manufacturing industries disappear, along with jobs, industrial and technical skills and sovereignty. Multinational globalisation and the capitalist economic crisis of overproduction is de-industrialising Australia, turning the country into a quarry.
The economic crisis and imperialist takeover of the Australian economy makes Australia more than ever a dependency of the overseas giant corporations and finance capital. We’ve become a slave to the global policies of giant corporations and finance capital. Profits made by the Australian workers are shipped to the head offices of the multinational corporations overseas. Not satisfied, the biggest foreign car monopolies and other multinationals incessantly demand tens of thousands of millions dollars in hand-outs from peoples’ taxes. They use government hand-outs to prop up their profits and then wipe out local jobs and industry anyway.
Imperialism imposes economic policies on the world to rescue their mega profits. It tightens control and power over national economies. Australia’s working people are hostages of the profiteering foreign corporations, banks and the dictates of the IMF.
Behind all this is the deepest capitalist economic crisis since the 1930s. A massive crisis of overproduction. Commodity markets shrink, production is wound back, jobs are slashed and the bigger monopolies take over the struggling smaller producers and manufacturers. Production and jobs are cut back further to maximise profits or shut down altogether to kill off the remaining competitors.
The capitalist economic crisis and takeovers by multinational corporations is eroding Australia’s industrial base and development. Dependency on foreign investments and takeovers will only worsen the economic conditions for the working people. It will not stop job slashings. Quite the opposite, sections of the local manufacturing, food processing and food production industries will disappear altogether.
Which way for the people
Workers have already started action to protect jobs and local industries. Manufacturing and construction unions are campaigning for building and expansion of local minerals processing and value added industries. They’re calling on the government to place conditions on the multinational minerals corporations to use locally produced materials in their operations. Unions are fighting for wages and conditions of migrant workers to be same as the Australian workers.
Calls are being made for big government investments in the building of local minerals value-adding processing and manufacturing industries to be paid from the minerals super-profits tax. Hand-outs of public funds to foreign car manufacturers, GMH, Ford, Toyota, should be conditional on the building of electric cars and public transport rolling stock.
Workers, unions, local small manufacturers, small farmers and producers and rural communities all have strong common grounds of interest around which to unite and campaign for major government investments in the development of sustainable local manufacturing and food production industries. Defending and extending workers’ rights and conditions is integral to this united campaign.
Nationalising key sections of mining, manufacturing, finance and food production industries will be a start in wrestling control of Australia from the grip of global corporations and building a truly sovereign and independent Australia.
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