Ark Tribe trial: 'It's about standing up for your rights' By Leslie Richmond, Adelaide

Workers show solidarity with Ark Tribe outside the court on June 15. Photo by Gemma Weedall.

On June 15, around a 1500 people, representing nearly every union, gathered outside Adelaide Magistrate's court for the first day of a week of rallies supporting construction worker, Ark Tribe, in his battle to defend himself against the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC).

Tribe has been charged with refusing to attend an interview with the ABCC after an "unauthorised" meeting at his site over safety issues. He faces a possible six months in gaol and up to $22 000 in fines. Under Rudd Labor's industrial relations regime – a seamless continuation of John Howard's policies – construction workers are not considered worthy of the same legal rights enjoyed by every other citizen.

Since its creation in 2005, at least 92 (and possibly over 150) workers have been dragged before secret ABCC interrogations at a cost of tens of millions of dollars. In that same period, workplace conditions have deteriorated and construction sector deaths have increased 95%, yet employers go about their business remarkably free from any ABCC attention.

The rally began with a minute's silence to commemorate workers killed on site.

The first speaker, SA Unions Secretary, Janet Giles, declared the attack on Ark Tribe an issue of civil liberties for the general community. She questioned why workers taking action over serious safety issues - issues acknowledged by state authorities and the employer themselves – should find themselves facing gaol.

"It's an outrage, and it's something that we've got to get rid of," she said.

Rally MC, CFMEU State Secretary, Martin O'Malley then told the crowd, "It's about standing up for your rights. And if you have to go to gaol to do it, that is what you have to do to keep your rights. If you don't fight, you lose. We know that story."

Dave Noonan, CFMEU Construction and General Division National Secretary condemned the process that saw an ordinary worker "dragged before the court like a common criminal for standing up for safety, for standing up for his mates, for standing up for his rights at work."

Referring to the Howard government's long campaign to crush unions, he said, "And we knew clearly where the Howard government stood on this issue ... on the side of Capital, on the side of big business against workers.

"Unfortunately," he continued, "on the other side of politics – on the Labor side – we have seen a failure of nerve on the issue of the ABCC."

He called for the government to abolish the ABCC, and finished with the declaration, "If he [Tribe] goes in, the construction industry goes out! All across Australia!"

The greatest reception, aside from Tribe and his family, was given to Paddy Hill (of the Birmingham Six) and Gerry Conlon (one of the Guildford Four). Hill and Conlon spent over thirty years, between them, imprisoned in Britain after gross miscarriages of justice under an oppressive legal system saw them wrongly convicted of bombings in the 1970s.

Hill's rousing speech neatly encapsulated the realities of the ABCC, and succinctly pointed the way forward.

"As you've heard, these laws are not only oppressive, not only are they wrong, but it goes to show how hypocritical the people in power really are in this country," he said.

"They're sending young Australians over to Afghanistan and Iraq under the pretence that they're bringing democracy and freedom to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, and yet they're taking away the freedoms and rights of you, the Australian people. How hypocritical and two-faced is that?

"And if the people in power are not going to listen to us, then we want to let them know that there's a hell of a lot more of us than there is of them. And if they're not going to get rid of the laws, then the best thing for us to do is to get rid of them!

"We had the same problems in England twenty-odd years ago when they came out against the unions. And they started just like this. Picking off a small union and then bringing in laws. Taking them to court. Then they started on another union, and another union.

"Well, this is just the first step. And what they done over there, they're going to do it here"
And the only thing that is going to stop them is you the people!"

He concluded, "You'se haven't fought this far to get what you've got ... to sit back on your arses and give it back to them without a fight.

"If anything goes wrong with Ark Tribe, then let's bring Australia to a standstill!"

Before entering the court under an arch of union flags to the chant of "the workers united will never be defeated", Ark Tribe ended this first rally with his address:

"I'm here today to defend myself against one of the many unjust laws that have managed to seep into our wonderful society. The same type of oppressive laws that Australian heroes in the past - and to this day - have put their lives on the line to fight against so that we and others around the world can live in a free and democratic society.

"I would like to urge all true Australians to become aware of this disease that is seeping its way into our wonderful country, and do whatever they can to help repel it."

from Green Left Weekly

The campaign that unseated Howard, Review by Thomas Klikauer

Worth Fighting For — Inside the Your Rights At Work Campaign
By Kathie Muir
University of New South Wales Press
242 pages, $27 (pb)

Australians’ brush with radically conservative industrial legislation occurred very late, compared with much of the world. John Howard’s first attempt to annihilate unions came with the 1996 Workplace Relations Act.

Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs) gave employees a “take-it-or-leave-it” choice under FIFO: fit in or fuck off!. The 1996 act included an even more hideous and dangerous attack. Human rights of union officials were cruelly severed. The International Labour Organisation took an active interest in Howard’s industrial relations laws.

The second attack on unions came with the waterfront dispute of 1998 when Patrick Stevedores trained ex-soldiers to replace the unionised workforce. But the plot was uncovered, leading to a public outcry and a large union campaign.

The High Court ended the whole affair in a fiasco for the government. Meanwhile, Howard’s industrial relations minister, Peter Reith, claimed waterfront workers were lazy while he handed out government-paid phone cards to friends of the Liberal Party and family members.

When it was revealed he soon left parliament for a six-figure salary job in London.

The AWA and waterfront failures enraged Howard. But his popularity kept rising, largely by his manipulation of fears of terrorism. Supported by the corporate mass-media, Howard’s last election victory in 2004 gave him control of the Senate.

Industrial relations law was up for a substantial change. The Workplace Relations Act amendment bill of November 2005 gave Australia Work Choices (Worst Choices!). Conservative media owners and the conservative government worked hand in hand allowing Howard to challenge the union movement once again.

Work Choices presented trade unions with a stark future. They had to consider a response to the most brutal assault by Howard and his friends in the media. Unions had to “meet the communication challenge”.

Here lies the strength of Kathie Muir’s book. It presents a detailed account of the unions’ anti-Work Choices campaign. The book is also about what unions can learn from this successful fight.

Unions need to be aware of the difficulties they confront when faced with two strong enemies: conservative governments and the might of the corporate media.

The only access to the public on a large scale is through the corporate media. With most of the world’s media being privately owned, unions faced three choices.

Muir describes the three things unions did, but remains short on what the ACTU leadership did not want to do.

First, they did not organise strikes. Generalised stoppages were organised to coincide with mass rallies. But, despite significant pressure from sections of the left of the union movement, the campaign was never converted into an industrial struggle. The impact that such a concerted assault on profits might have had on employers’ willingness to continue to back Howard can only be imagined.

Second, unions organised mass rallies against Work Choices, but also offered something positive in their campaign. They offered “Your Rights at Work!” People understood this.

The unions’ TV, radio, internet, and newspaper campaign prevented what former US- ice President Al Gore called The Assault on Reason. Muir’s chapters four and five on “Mobilising to Win” and “Winning Them Over One By One" outline this.

The union campaign cornered Howard. But Howard retaliated as outlined in “Campaigning on the Other Side: Selling Work Choices”. Howard’s counterattack was financed through the misuse of tax money for a political public-relations machine.

But unions successfully countered it as described in “Staying on Message Despite the Difference”. The final chapter on “Doing Politics Differently” outlines the core lessons that Muir feels have to be learned.

By following the implicit advice of Muir’s book, unions can use the media’s power against conservative governments, change governments, unseat prime ministers, and abolish toxic and inhuman IR laws. Worth Fighting For presents a case for short-term success.

On the downside, the ACTU decided to go down the bureaucratic-organisational route rather than the movement route.

We know that in the long run it is the movement that counts and not large union bureaucracies and media campaigns. Muir fails to address this point.

From: Cultural Dissent, Green Left Weekly issue #801 6 July 2009.
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Support Dave Kerin

Dave Kerin

A call has come to support Dave Kerin, who’s facing prison for refusing to “rat” on fellow union solidarity campaigners.Dave is the co-ordinator of Union Solidarity, a network set up to organise solidarity for workers and unionists targeted by the Howard government's "Work Choices" legislation.

In the wake of the recent successful strike action by Boeing workers at Port Melbourne, in which Union Solidarity played an important role, the Australian Workplace Ombudsman has come after Dave Kerin and Union Solidarity.The ombudsman is demanding all documents relating to Union Solidarity's support for the striking Boeing workers be handed over. Dave is refusing to do so.

For breaking the law he could go to jail for 6 months.These laws are unjust, they're designed to crush workers’ right to organise collectively and give practical solidarity. We must support Dave and his fellow Union Solidarity campaigners.You can sign up to an online solidarity list by going to http://www.unionsolidarity.org/irnews/2008/05/defend-dave-kerin.html

Messages of support for Dave Kerin can be sent to: defenddave@unionsolidarity.org

New IR system to enshrine 'flexibility' and 'productivity' by Graham Matthews

A key aspect of PM Kevin Rudd’s IR agenda is the creation of a national industrial relations system that would cover all private sector employees. Work Choices, introduced by the Howard government in March 2006, relied on using the corporations’ power given to the Commonwealth in the Australian constitution, to allow it to cover all employees working for incorporated businesses (around 85% of the private sector workforce). By bullying or bribing state governments to agree to refer their IR powers to the Commonwealth, the new federal Labor government wants to create a universal national system. The reason for the government’s haste in wanting to bulldoze through its new system is clear.

As federal IR Minister Julia Gillard told Sky News on January 24, “our new industrial relations system [will be] focused on building productivity”. In the lead-up to its election win in November, Labor promised to “tear up” Work Choices. More honestly, it might have said that it proposed to tinker with Work Choices — to cut some of the most draconian aspects such as AWAs (Australian Workplace Agreements) and the abolition of unfair dismissal provisions, while refining and extending other aspects.

The creation of a new national industrial relations system is a central part of the government’s strategy to advance big business’s agenda. As Rudd himself told journalists on January 28, “Well the key request I have got from the business community, all throughout 2007 is, they want a national system for the private economy. And pardon me for being old fashioned but my commitment to them in the election period was to do that.”

What’s wrong with a national IR system? In and of itself, working people need have no opposition to a national IR system. In terms of our rights at work, it doesn’t matter whether they are enshrined in state or federal law — so long as they are as strong as they should be. But the government’s proposal is not just about cutting a little bit of red tape. The proposal is to extend the new federal IR system to all private sector workers (and ultimately public sector as well). The hallmarks of this new system are “flexibility” and “productivity”.

Rudd wants to smash industry-wide (pattern) bargaining, contain wage increases to productivity only (as measured at the enterprise level) and mandate “flexibility” clauses in all awards and collective agreements. The “flexibility” clause would allow bosses (with the consent of an individual employee) to roll all overtime and penalty payments into an average annualised salary; “exempt” the employee from specific award conditions; or change their normal hours of work (supposedly to allow time for picking the kids up from school). Award restructure What the Howard government tried to achieve through AWAs, the Rudd government brings back under the guise of a mandatory “flexibility” clause to be inserted into all awards and collective agreements from 2010. So much for its promise to “tear-up” Work Choices.

Along with the creation of a national IR system, the government also wants to “modernise” and “simplify” awards. It wants allowable conditions in awards reduced to 10 general categories (covering minimum wages, maximum hours, leave entitlements, superannuation, termination and redundancy requirements, dispute resolution procedures and “flexibility”). It will mandate the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) to review all existing awards over 2008-09, wanting it to both strip other matters from existing awards, as well as amalgamate awards where possible. The AIRC’s award restructuring is part of a plan to reduce awards to the status of (threadbare) safety nets. Any increases above minimum wages or conditions would have to be negotiated through a collective agreement (at the enterprise level) or on the basis of individual negotiation between boss and worker — “flexibility” indeed. Referral of IR powers Rudd wants the states to refer their IR powers to the federal government, to allow it to make any and all legislation affecting workers’ rights.

In 1997, the Victorian state government under Liberal Premier Jeff Kennett did just that for the Howard administration. The result gutted the Victorian system of awards, severely limiting the conditions of workers who were unable to secure coverage under the federal system. It also meant that Victorian public sector workers, unlike public employees in all other states, were covered by Work Choices from 2006, the provisions of which the Brumby Labor government in Victoria used to dock the pay of the state’s nurses in October.

A NSW government proposal, released in a report titled Working Together: Inquiry into Options for a New National Industrial Relations System on January 25, argues for an alternative means to harmonise the state and federal IR systems. Rather than referring their IR powers to the federal government (and leaving the state open to any Work Choices II the next time a Coalition government is elected federally), the report argues that states should simply introduce mirror legislation to the federal government, harmonising their IR systems, while retaining state control. While this proposal sounds safer, it doesn’t offer a much better deal.

Allowing the states to maintain formal control over their IR systems might provide some protection to some workers the next time a Coalition government is elected, but not most. A genuinely fair industrial relations system would maintain awards, and not just as a bare-minimum safety net. Awards should provide a fair minimum set of wages and conditions for workers in all industries. They should also be regularly adjusted to ensure that gains made in strong workplaces or industries flow on to all workers.

Only a system, that guarantees decent wages and conditions to all workers, regardless of their “productivity”, could really be said to be “fair”. Labor’s plan to restructure awards and create a national IR system moves in the opposite direction.

From: Comment & Analysis, Green Left Weekly issue #738 6 February 2008.

Triton Crew Statement from Maritime Union of Australia News

We the crew of the RV Triton would like to put on record ourdisappointment at Gardline for sacking us because we are members of aunion.

They have used WorkChoices to undermine the wages and conditions ofAustralian workers, even after the Australian people overwhelminglyrejected the anti-union laws and dumped the Howard Government fromoffice on the strength of fighting for our rights at work.

MUA crew members have over 100 years of combined experience on thisvessel and our work and performance on the Triton has been abovereproach. Australian seafarers are the most highly trained andqualified seafarers in the world. We are proud of our contribution inmaking this operation a success.

We have the highest levels of security clearances available to workersand we are concerned that Gardline are undermining Australia's bordersecurity by using untrained and unchecked foreign labour to replace theunionised crew.

We are determined to stay on this vessel as long as it takes until weget our jobs back. We understand that the bosses from Gardline are coming to Australia toattempt to fix this problem that they have created.

We say to them the ball is in their court.

If Gardline can agree to the following we will get this ship working asit should be, patrolling our waters and looking after the interests ofthe Australian people.

All we want is:

• Our jobs back

• A union collective agreement which is our democratic right

• We want to sail this vessel out of Darwin harbour and have an ironclad commitment the company will not replace us while overseas.
We want to thank our wives, families and the community for their loveand support of us in this difficult time.

12:30pm today, 31st January

Fort Hill Wharf, Darwin

This article can be found on the Web at: http://www.mua.org.au/news/general/triton5.html