Nick G
The latest vicious attacks on the working class and their unions by Labor’s key Ministers Ferguson and Crean, and the Labor government’s attacks on the Greens upon whom Labor is dependent for its hold on office, illustrate more than ever the need for an independent working class agenda.
The fragility of their alliance came to the fore in the first weeks of July when Victorian State Opposition leader Daniel Andrews attacked the Greens and announced that Labor would be preferencing Family First ahead of the Greens in the by-election for the seat of Melbourne.
This came in the wake of the failure of the federal parliament to resolve the asylum seeker issue, with both major culprits – Labor and the Liberals – having a bipartisan bash at the Greens in the Senate for rejecting a so-called compromise. "I wouldn't want to find myself fundamentally compromised and being held to ransom and held hostage by a group of people who don't want to compromise and quite frankly don't live in the real world," said Andrews.
His comments set the tone for copycat comments by the NSW Right’s Sam Dastyari, the AWU’s Paul Howes, and the ALP’s federal parliamentary whip Joel Fitzgibbons. When Labor had sunk the Right boot into the Greens, it then started kicking with its Left foot: Doug Cameron and Greg Combet winning front page headlines and applause from the reactionary Murdoch media: “ALP Left joins Greens attack”.
Labor placing its credentials before the ruling class
Bourgeois media comment depicted this series of attacks as an attempt by Labor to win back its electoral base in the working class. There is no doubt that Labor is desperate to boost its popularity.
The bourgeois media failed to explain that what is really motivating Labor is the attempt by its leadership to curry favour with the ruling class, and to show that if supported at the next federal election and given the chance to govern in its own right, there would be no need to bring in the decidedly unpopular Tony Abbott and his mob of social vandals.
Abbott’s enthusiasm for intensifying the attacks on the people sits well with the ruling class, but he is a little too unpredictable and his lack of credibility with the people raises questions about his staying power and ability to deliver on what he promises. So Labor hopes that by attacking the Greens they can win backing for a second chance. That means showing that the Labor agenda is really in accord with the agenda of the multinationals and local big businesses.
Big business conducts its Labor orchestra
On June 7, the Business Council of Australia’s chief executive Jennifer Westacott told the ABC’s Lateline that economic activity in Australia was at risk from high costs and low productivity. A few weeks later Simon Crean and Martin Ferguson (“union veterans of the 1980-90s accord agreements - both former ACTU leaders”) “launched an extraordinary broadside on the current generation of union officials, accusing them of strangling the resources boom and threatening billions of dollars in projects by placing short-term wages gain over long-term wealth creation.”
Their comments immediately invited further demands by the ruling class, with mining giant Woodside’s chairman stating that the “Fair Work legislation represents the greatest threat to future productivity” and the Minerals Council of Australia’s chairman stating that “industrial relations laws were impacting both the sector and the wider economy”. Given the inch of a Labor focus on productivity, the ruling class sets out for the mile of open slather, unprotected exploitation of the people.
With a rabid Abbott in the wings and a subservient Labor government on centre stage, we can confidently predict that whoever wins the next federal election will demand that the people make further sacrifices for the enrichment of the wealthy.
Independent working class agenda
That is why we call for the development and promotion of an independent working class agenda, one that can be embraced by the unions and community organisations and around which the working class can mobilise to pursue its own objectives.
It must incorporate the immediate demands of the people for improved living standards and for the protection and extension of their rights and liberties. It need not at this stage be a formal document to which various organisations must commit, but there should be a central core of demands that are put forward in various ways comprising items such as those in the accompanying list. The people through their organisations must have the capacity to struggle independently of whatever party of capitalism is given the task of holding back and preventing such struggle.
Some immediate issues and priorities on which the whole union movement and communities can unite and organise to promote an independent platform for the rights of working people:
- Decent wages, conditions and living standards for working people. Liveable pensions, social benefits, welfare and unemployment benefits linked to raising cost of living. Link EBA battles to protecting living standards in Australia for all workers
- Workers’ and union rights to organise and take industrial action on the job and around important social and political issues, right of entry, OH&S
- Abolish the ABCC
- Jobs and job security – no offshoring of Australian jobs; jobs for local workers before importing overseas temporary guest workers. Develop sustainable manufacturing, agricultural and value adding (minerals processing) industries from the wealth created by the mining boom
- Proper government funding for public health, education, child care, community services, disability benefits, housing. No privatisation
- No tax cuts to big business; no increase in GST
- A mining super-profits tax minimum of the original 40% to pay for public health, education; develop processing and manufacturing industries that create jobs for Australia’s working people
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