Ned K.
The ACTU held an Organising Conference in Melbourne in February attended
by hundreds of Union Organisers from many different unions, including unions
from New Zealand and the USA.
ACTU leaders, Ged Kearney, Dave Oliver and
Tim Lyons all addressed the conference with an air of optimism about the
official trade union movement’s capacity to defeat the intense attacks on the
working class by big business and their current government of choice, the
Abbott led Liberal-National Party Coalition.
Ged Kearney said that despite declining
numbers of members, workers combined together in their unions were still a collective
force of about 2 million people. Dave Oliver said that despite the enormity of
the threat to workers by the reactionary Abbott Government and their big
business backers, the single biggest threat to the union movement is internal
and within our own hands to overcome through better organising and strategies.
Workers Winning Through Action
A recurring theme throughout the workshops
held at the conference was that unions were trying new ways to organise
workers. Combining online communication between workers with traditional face
to face meetings, holding meetings off site where workers could actually meet
collectively at the same time to plan how to organise internally on the
job , taking action both inside and outside the workplace, building community
organisations aligned with union organisation inside workplaces were some of
the experiences shared.
In New Zealand for example where the attack
on the working class and traditional union organisation has been more severe
than in Australia, workers were rebuilding their collective power by forming
community based unions where workers, their family members and other community
members could join for a small financial contribution. Forestry workers started
up the Forestry First Union and are building an alliance of forestry workers,
contractors who employ them and community members to create a fighting force
strong enough to force the big forestry owners to fund a contractor price
sufficient to enable the workers to be paid a living wage. Since privatisation
of the forestry industry in New Zealand, union membership had shrunk to less
than 20% of the 6,500 workforce and workers were being paid a flat $16 per hour
for up to 14 hour days starting at 4am.
In Australia, Organisers told inspiring
stories of workers fighting back. For example, nurses in NSW won better
staffing to patient ratios by holding a picket line at the Bathurst Hospital to
play off the local National Party state MP against the NSW Liberal leader Barry
O’Farrell. They also set up a “Nurse Power Fund”, voted on by members to
increase their own campaigning resources. Warehouse workers employed by labour
companies won equal conditions with directly employed workers. Finance sector
workers ran a “Save Mulgrave” campaign to force ANZ Bank to reverse a decision
to off shore 5,000 jobs. Framing the campaign as a community campaign to save
the town rather than framing the campaign as a fight against off shoring
succeeded in broadening the support base across the community. The finance
workers even ran a stall about their campaign in the local farmers’ market.
Workers
Will Find A Way To Organise
The many experiences shared at the workshops
of workers’ struggles across the country demonstrated that workers will and do
find ways to organise.. There was some discussion in the workshops and plenary
sessions of how best to combine online communication and messaging with
traditional ways of communicating. There were also some differing views on
whether there is too much emphasis by some union leaders given to organising
outside workplaces and not enough focus on building organisation on the job to
enable collective industrial action. Can workers build sustainable power
without building strength inside the workplaces?
If there was any weakness in the Conference
it was that while the main speakers spoke about the need to think outside the
square and do things differently, none of the main speakers talked about
building a union movement with a vision beyond imperialism. This is the gap in
ideological leadership that needs to be filled . Imperialism is ‘closing the
space’ for the social democrat/liberal illusion of a fair go for workers within
the system. Workers can see this and that’s why many have not joined a union.
However there was a clear message from all
speakers that workers need to build a movement with a strong voice and agenda
independent of any parliamentary party. That is a big step forward, given the
historical connection between official trade unions and the ALP.
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