The class struggle heats up

Vanguard July 2012 p. 1
Ned K.

The ruling class continually discusses its tactics in the war against the working class and its allies.

On June 2, The Australian contained an article headed “Abbott told to keep powder dry on workplace reform”. The article claims that whilst Western Australia Premier Colin Barnett believes that Tony Abbott must hurry up and reveal “what he stands for”, big business has a contrary view.

It reported that 350 Perth business leaders at a Deutsche Bank Business Leaders Forum were of the view that Tony Abbott should not reveal any plans to strengthen anti-worker industrial laws until after the next federal election, so as to avoid “an anti-Work Choices campaign by Labor and the unions.”  Wesfarmers, the biggest private sector employer in Australia, also urged Abbott and his “Opposition” to wait until after the election before proposing changes to Fair Work Australia laws.

Dare to struggle

The working class in Australia is already under severe assault on wages, conditions and living standards. As the crisis in the globalised economy deepens, the monopoly bosses and multinational corporations will be demanding even more austerity cut-backs in services and greater exploitation of Australia’s resources and working people.

The working class has no choice other than to fight against these continual attacks. Workers, unions, communities need to prepare for the next onslaught, need to look at tactics, need to build alliances.

To win any lasting victory, the struggle must go further than economic demands; it must embrace political demands to establish Australia as an independent country where the working people are in command, not imperialism, not multinationals and not the monopoly bosses.

Pulling the strings

A few months ago, Wesfarmers, Westfield and other large retail employers were openly calling for a reduction in penalty rates in award minimum rates for weekend work in particular. They also joined other multinational dominated industries, particularly mining, in demanding that the almost non- existent right to strike laws be changed to further restrict workers’ collective action, as part of their submissions to the review of the Fair Work Act.

So, the biggest and richest sections of the multinational corporations in Australia, represented by the Business Council of Australia and the Minerals Council, are on the one hand, impatient for change to the industrial laws to make bigger profits unhindered by workers’ action. On the other hand they have nightmares at the thought of another Your Rights At Work, Worth Fighting For mass mobilisation by workers and local communities across the country, the very force that brought down the Howard Government in 2007.

Alarm bells for the ruling class will have gone off with the massive public outcry against Employee Migration Agreements (EMAs) being used to lower pay and conditions in the mining industry, and no doubt other industries to follow.

 So will Abbott heed the “advice” of the likes of Wesfarmers and wait until after the federal election before announcing and implementing any substantial policy changes on industrial laws? Apparently at least one of his advisers is well versed in the anti-union, anti-worker laws that exist at state level in the USA. These laws allow an employer to hire a new worker for 12 months on less than the pay and conditions of the rest of the workforce of that employer.

12 month contracts in the wind

Transferring this scenario to Australia, it would mean that the current Individual Flexibility Agreements that exist in enterprise agreements and awards could  be ‘tweaked’ by an Abbott Government, perhaps by regulation, to allow an employer to make them a condition of employment, and to undercut minimum conditions in awards and agreements for a 12 month period.

These would then become the “offer of employment” to sacked workers in one part of Australia due to economic downturn, who would then be “persuaded” to take up new employment in other parts of Australia such as mining in WA, under the guise of giving Australians first option of jobs before using EMAs.

It would enable employers to lower the minimum wages and conditions in an EMA, so both Australian and migrant labour would become cheaper for the first 12 months. Workers who dare to rebel against this would no doubt be sacked before their 12 months is up.

The organised working class must take the lead in developing its own independent strategy and tactics to deal with new and intensified attacks.