Imperialist globalisation turning workers into fringe-dwellers

Vanguard July 2013 p. 8
Bill F.

Fringe dwellers are people who live on the outside, cut off from the main centres of activity and social enjoyment, isolated and chained down by poverty and lack of opportunities to change their situation.

This is what is happening across Melbourne as the ‘losers’ in the globalisation game are pushed further out. As manufacturing jobs are wiped out and the building industry slows, lesser skilled workers find it harder to get secure employment.

Low wages, casualisation, temporary work contracts, unemployment and pitiful welfare benefits have meant that many can no longer meet housing costs in the formerly working class inner suburbs.

These are now rapidly being taken over by a higher paid class of educated and skilled workers and professionals, managers and small business owners. This is not to say that their future is all that secure either, as out-sourcing and off-shoring is now cutting a swathe through white collar jobs in the banking, finance and legal areas, while on-line shopping is hitting the retail sector.

In suburbs such as Altona North, Yarraville, Coburg, Preston, Newport, Thornbury and Fawkner the demographic balance is shifting towards higher income groups and higher levels of debt.

At the same time, the sprawling outer suburbs and towns such as Cranbourne, Tarneit, Romsey, Koo Wee Rup, Melton, Bacchus Marsh, Somers and Whittlesea have seen an influx of lower income workers, young families and arriving migrants.

Traffic chaos

(Peak hour in Hoddle Street)

Adding to their struggle to make ends meet is the need to spend hours in traffic every day just getting to work and back, as these suburbs are poorly served by public transport.

Melbourne’s radial network of roads means that traffic converges at bottlenecks that used to be in just a few inner suburbs but now occur all the way through the middle suburbs. If people manage to get to work on time, they arrive stressed out, and that’s even before the boss has a go at them!

This chaos is most apparent in the poorly planned growth areas to the south and west of Melbourne. According to a state government report, the Wyndham Growth Corridor around Werribee, Point Cook, Tarneit and Hoppers Crossing will generate 226,000 vehicle trips a day by 2021. It is the fastest growing municipality in Australia. Much of this traffic will converge on the main Yarra River crossing at West Gate Bridge.

Currently, at least 170,000 vehicles, including 24,000 trucks, travel over West Gate Bridge each day, and this is increasing at more than 2% each Year.

Instead of building another river crossing, whether bridge or tunnel, all that has happened is the emergency lanes on the bridge now carry traffic and the other lanes are narrower. Don’t get crook or have a bingle on West Gate Bridge, because the ambulance just won’t get through!

So, all this chaos and misery isn’t just down to short-sighted politicians. It’s part of the restructuring of the local economy in the interests of the global imperialist agenda – the de-industrialisation of Australia; just have mining and resources and a few service industries. Everything else can be imported.

The main ones to benefit from this will be the foreign multinationals and their lackeys – the same mob that makes huge profits from the cars, fuel, road-works and insurance that we all need and rely on.