Cheers,
Hugh
_________________________
A defeat is a defeat by any other name.
Picketing the High Commission is no way to build solidarity with the MUA [Maritime Union of Australia -- the wharfies]. Calling on the Australian government, whose Supreme Court found it guilty of conspiracy to sack the 1400 unionists, to reinstate the workers, is a joke. The decision of the High Court,to send the 1400 back to work is, as we have seen, conditional upon Patrick's being economically viable. Notice how this changes the Supreme Court's finding of conspiracy by separating the conspiracy which led to the insolvency and the mass sackings, from the ability of these companies to now survive under receivership.
Instead of ruling that Patricks had to reinvest the assets that he had stripped from these companies in order to make them viable, it is now the receivers who have to run the company, that is if they can persuade the banks that they are viable. They will only be viable in the eyes of the banks, if the workplace reforms that Patricks wanted in the first place are agreed to by the unions. To facilatate this agreement, the government has generoursly agreed to pay off redundant workers.( Isnt this an interesting instance of state monopoly capitalism?) Corrigan, the government and the farmers, having got their fingers burned in the court action, now get what they wanted with the complicity of the MUA leadership.
The union has got some jobs back but only if they agree to the things that they went on strike for in the first place! Accepting reform and redundancies, and working alongside scabs. The MUA leadership has already signalled their willingness to go along with this when they accepted 200 redundancies, and offered to work for two weeks without pay, and even to put some money into the insolvent front companies.
It would be easy for revolutionary Trotskyists to say we told you so . The point is why were we right about this? First, by making a clear distinction between the class interests of workers and the bosses, which meant never relying upon the bosses state, with its laws and cops, and second by identifying the special interests of the labour bureacuracy as agents of capital in the unions, who make their money by containing the militancy of the workers within the rule of law of the reformist, nationalist state.
The outcome is a classic confirmation of revolutionary Trotskyism. The law, while in part representing democratic gains of past struggles for union recognition and freedom of association etc, is in the last analysis designed to defend the property rights of the bosses. So the Supreme Court comes up with a decision which upholds the trade union right of freedom of association (which of course has been tightened up in relation to the freedom of association of scabs as well) while the High Court subordinates the freedom of association to the rights of property owners to hire and fire depending upon whether or notthey can extract profits from workers. Having found that Corrigan wrongly cooked his books to justify the sackings, he has now been instructed on how to play by the proper rules of commercial practice to get the same result.
Naturally, having refined the rule of law to recognise the rights of property in this situation, the union bureaucracy can only play along. They can no longer take the high moral ground and claim that Corrigan was a 'rogue' and look to the bosses courts to bring him into line. Now, it is the workers who will have to be 'rogues' and step outside the law. To defend their position against wildcats, the officials will try to hold back workers from wildcat strikes so as not to give Howard the opportunity to scapegoat commie workers and go to the country. The irony is that it is the ex-'commie' officials that would be trying to keep the lid on, not take it off.
I think Gary's discussion of the two electoral options, is lacking this aspect. The bureaucracy will want to do a deal with a new Labour Government.They will try to hold the lid on so as not to scare the middle class into Howard's arms. They will look forward to a Beazley government that 'manages' Australian capitalism by negotiating with the unions, keeping the officials in their jobs.
What we need now, is the reverse of this. An all out political teach-in across the world to drive home the lessons of this struggle, and to give real support to any militants who are prepared to wildcat to stop the scabs, reject redundancies, and are prepared to take on Howards's government without holding back in the hope that Labor will come to their rescue.
In this struggle it has to be the programme of revolutionary Trotskyists which offers the lead by breaking with the social democratic cum populist nationalism of the bureaucracy and the bosses state. But once you break with the rule of law to defend working class interests, there is only two ways to go. Either fight with honour and go down in defeat but still preparing the ground for the struggles to follow, or go from generalised wildcat strikes, to workers' councils and to the struggle for state power. If this seems utopian, look to what capitalism has got in prospect to offer to workers as the alternative.
Dave B.
> The wharfies are all returning to work this afternoon having been
> reinstated by the High Court. We have therefore cancelled picketing the
> OZ High Commission as our urgent demand was for reinstatement.
>
> I am meeting with High Commission Representatives at 2.30 p.m. BST to
> make known our concern at:-
>
> The apparent complicity of Patricks, The Howard Government and The
> National Farmers Federation in their attempts to break the Maritime Union
> of Australia.
>
> Our concerns regarding the legality of the sackings and the breach of
> human rights this represents.
>
> The apparent use of serving and ex military personnel in the Dubai
> debacle, and The Governments role in this through Reith's Office.
>
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