About 100 unionists packed the Unions NSW Atrium on May 14 to discuss the right to strike campaign, at a fringe event of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) Congress that began the same day.

Titled “Advance Australia Fair? Australian jobs and the right to strike”, the forum was sponsored by the Victorian Trades Hall Council. VTHC secretary Brian Boyd said it had not generally sponsored or organised ACTU fringe events, but this campaign warranted it.

The VTHC launched the Right to Strike campaign after it was first raised at the December 2010 Union and Community Summer School.

The forum was opened by Unions NSW secretary Mark Lennon, who said that in NSW “there is no right to strike … and with Barry O’Farrell’s new laws, there is no right for unions to even affiliate to a political party of their choice any longer in NSW”.

Victorian Electrical Trades Union secretary Dean Mighell discussed what was happening to jobs of his members while their ability to take industrial action was restricted. “Jobs are being offshored to Mexico, where capital can get cheaper labour costs … Free trade is cut-throat.” He said the current mining boom was concerning: “We need to think beyond the quarry.”

ACTU president Ged Kearney discussed the union movement’s campaign around insecure work, and said the right to strike is a fundamental right.

Len Cooper, Victorian secretary of the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union said: “We live in a country that is described as democratic – yet the basics of international labour laws are excluding both federal and state law.

“This is not a small issue – this affects 11 million workers. This is about the right to strike, the right to picket, the right to take solidarity action.”

Cooper said that in the capitalist crisis, many militant unionists were being sacked or seeing their jobs outsourced or offshored.

We need to defend the right to strike. And the right to strike will only be won by striking,” he said to cheers from the crowd.

Chris White, former secretary of the South Australian Trades and Labour Council and a union activist for 30 years, told the meeting that all penal powers needed to be repealed, including “all restrictions in Fair Work Australia that were adopted word-for-word from Work Choices”.

“The right to strike should not mean having to go to a commission, giving three days notice so that employers get forewarning to make contingencies to undermine workers’ industrial action. It should just be about a meeting of workers making a decision collectively.”

White also called for the abolition of the Australian Building and Construction Commission completely, not just in name.

White said the importance of striking should not be limited to economic interests: “Unions should be able to take solidarity strikes. In the past, when Indonesia was committing genocide in East Timor, we used to be able to strike to support the people of East Timor.”

He also said the question of workers’ control and self-management needs to be on the agenda. “Workers can control our own economy without capitalists.”

In discussion, South Coast Labour Council secretary Arthur Rorris spoke strongly in favour of the campaign, saying it shouldn’t be a fringe event, and “the right to strike is the main game. Capital can strike, and we should be able to as well. If you don’t have the right to withdraw labour, you are a slave.”

Geelong Trades Hall Secretary Tim Gooden said the campaign needed to spread. He said unions should not be allowed to be picked off, but build a fighting alliance together to push the right to strike.

Gooden said the experience of unions in the Clarrie OShea case in 1969 showed that the battle to free O’Shea, who was jailed for striking, was not a short one, but a campaign built over years.

Susan Price, branch secretary of the National Tertiary Education Union at the University of NSW, said attendees should sign on to a joint statement in support of the right to strike campaign that was initiated in NSW. Many rank-and-file and union leaders had pledged support.

Initial NSW signatories to the statement include veteran trade unionist Fred Moore; assistant national secretary of the MUA Warren Smith, deputy branch secretary of the MUA in Sydney Paul Keating, NSW state secretary of the CFMEU Brian Parker, University of NSW branch secretary of the NTEU Susan Price, Sydney University branch secretary of the NTEU Michael Thomson, and state councillor of NSW Teachers Federation John Gauci.

The ACTU Congress voted on a 釘etter Bargaining Policy・ that included “restoring an effective right to strike”. This policy notes that the International Labour Organisation has described Fair Work Australia’s regulation of industrial action as 兎xcessive・ and calls for industrial action to be available without a secret ballot. The policy also calls for bosses to have to give three days notice for lockouts and not be able to use replacement labour during industrial action. It also demands an end to the outlawing of pattern bargaining, and for an end to workers or their unions facing coercive or punitive court orders from industrial action, unless Fair Work Australia has ordered an end to the industrial action.

[To sign the right to strike statement or for more information, contact Susan Price on 0400 320 602 or pricesusan9@gmail.com.]
From GLW
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/51070

The campaign is called Better Jobs 4 Better Chicken and you can follow it here

http://www.betterjobsbetterchicken.org.au

This ACTU Congress declares its full support for the 4,000 mineworkers who have been attempting to negotiate a new Enterprise Agreement at BHP’s seven Central Queensland coal mines for over 18-months now.

We note that the while the CFMEU, AMWU and the ETU have been negotiating in good faith BHP has refused to do so, a point made clear by its chief of global coal operations Marcus Randolph who declared in an email to staff leaked to the media that the company’s demands were “not negotiable now, next month or next year”.

This is not in the spirit of good faith bargaining.

We fully support the mineworkers in their campaign to protect their rights at work and defend vital safety, workplace and other conditions such as rosters and accommodation that would damage families and hurt mining communities if BHP has its way.

We condemn BHP’s pursuit of safety deregulation that would transfer vital safety roles from qualified workers on the job to management. We note that this was the key factor that led to the recent Pike River Disaster in New Zealand in which 29 coal miners perished. We further note that the last three big coal mine disasters in Australia all occurred at BHP mines.

We condemn BHP’s insistence on clinging to
WorkChoices provisions imposed on BHP coal mineworkers in the last EA reached in the Howard era in 2007, particularly the provision that stripped contract and labour hire workers of equal pay and conditions and have allowed them to become a source of cheap labour to undermine permanent employees.

We note that this dispute has occurred in a period when BHP has made the greatest profit in the history of Australia – $23 Billion and find it repugnant that at a time when the company has never had more it has never done less.

We call on BHP to start listening to its workforce and respect their right to bargain.
We declare the full support of the ACTU for the BHP mineworkers.

In the event that the company continues to refuse to negotiate in good faith and inflicts further harm on its workers, their families, mining communities and investors in its coal operations, we will mobilise support throughout the trade union movement in Australia and internationally.

On today’s ACTU opening, with about 1,000 delegates from every industry and occupation in Australia the ACTU and unions having 2 million unionists, began in a most professional public presentation of policies and speeches, a strong reality of unity amongst the unions and left and right factions in consensus.

After a wonderful dance aboriginal welcome and stirring rendition with all delegates singing Solidarity Forever For the Union Makes Us Strong, Jeff Lawrence gave his farewell speech and tributes to him and Ged Kearney her opening address

http://www.actucongress.org.au/site/congressmedia/speeches-and-opinion/1610-opening-address-by-actu-president-ged-kearney

and indeed all the draft and eventually final policies can be accessed at
http://www.actucongress.org.au/site/

Incoming Secretary Dave Oliver, who already you see is a strong media performer and who promises to lead campaigns to achieve ACTU policies, gave his union life story. He pushed and achieved an improved campaign fund http://www.actucongress.org.au/site/attachments/resolutions/motions/Campaign_Fund_draft_resolution.pdf

Appropriately the first ACTU policy is to campaign for stronger delegates’ rights. Over 150,000 worker elected union representatives on the job are the backbone and key to worker power and success. It is about time that the ALP government does give basic legislative protection and lawful rigths for union shop stewards and delegates in a Charter of Delegates Rights (download it from the site)…we will see.The new web is www.delegatesonline.org
Union leaders showcased the challenges of organising with speeches explaining how the CPSU organised with it’s delegates leading successful bargaining campaign against the Commonwealth government. The NUW explained working to unionise chicken factory workers and winning difficult strikes with community pickets – see on this blog reports of the Baida dispute – and a campaign ‘I give a pluck’ and
www.betterjobsbetterchicken.org.au for poultry workers.

The AWU showcased how they tackled the giant corporate Rio Tinto well known for its aggressive anti-unionism in organising Tasmanian Bell Bay aluminium workers who were being paid $20,000 less than those workers doing the same work. The TCFUA explained their sucessful national campaign to get the Gillard government and the Parliament to pass strong laws for outworkers getting paid $5 an hour to sew in their homes to be now nationally in law employees and entitled to minimum award wages and conditions and with some 20 of these outworkers on stage themselves now as unionists explaining their sucessful campaign to try to end sweatshops, now not alone. See photos here
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150125244352492.301460.834557491&type=1

United Voice had delegates as early childhood educators explaining their Big Steps campaign to try to lift the low wages to reflect the professionalism of early childhood educators and if this does not happen then more and more of these workers will leave the sector to get higher wages elsewhere. See http://bigsteps.org.au/

After lunch Congress welcomed and praised PM Gillard who praised unions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2kqWBM3QwQ&feature=youtu.be

The better bargaining policy was presented and endorsed that includes pushing for amendments to the Fair Work Act for the right to strike.

This includes linking the Secure Jobs campaign to the right to strike.

Some of the details are:

“Choice of content in Agreements
5. Congress stands by its 2006 policy that the matters to be included in a collective agreement should be for the parties to agree subject to agreements meeting a genuine no disadvantage test. Congress notes that the Constitutional basis of the Fair Work Act provides no justification for the retention of the “matters pertaining to the employment relationship” test.

6. Recognising the challenges of a global economy and workers’ interests in secure work and a clean energy future, workers must be free to pursue claims in relation to matters relating to their job security and the impact the work performed under their agreement may have on the environment, including claims that may impose conditions relating to performance of work by persons other than the employees to whom the agreement applies.

7. The ACTU accordingly calls for the “permitted matters” restriction to be replaced in favour of a general requirement the enterprise agreements contain “terms regulating relations between employers, workers and their representatives and their social, economic or employment interests”.

…bargaining representatives should be free to agree on workplace consultation, representation and unfair dismissal protocols between workers, unions and the employer that best suit their respective needs.

In this context: a) The statutory entry rights for permit holders and the statutory unfair dismissal procedure should be considered minimum standards to be built upon in bargaining and the legislation should not restrict this. b) The model consultation and dispute resolution terms provided in legislation must at a minimum also require meaningful consultation and disclosure of relevant information concerning proposed changes to job descriptions, proposed outsourcing or proposed changes to the legal or operational structure of an employer’s business before a final decision and associated third party commitments have been made.

Choice of parties to Agreements
11. Consistent with the principle that parties should be free to determine the level at which they bargain, bargaining for multiple employer agreements should involve the same rights, processes and conciliation from Fair Work Australia as apply to single employer agreements …
12. Unions and employers should be free to agree to extend an agreement from another enterprise in the same industry to apply to them where FWA is satisfied this is not contrary to the public interest, or to reach agreements in terms that apply to a particular class of work performed for the benefit of a particular business, irrespective of the chain of supply, labour hire or other contracting and employment arrangements that are utilised by that business. …

16. Individual Flexibility Arrangements should be optional rather than mandatory and be stand-alone arrangements that do not purport to modify entitlements that exist outside of the collective agreement to which they relate. …

21. To ensure equal access to collective bargaining for all workers, Competition and Consumer legislation should be amended to permit unrestricted union representation for independent contractors. More broadly, workers should be entitled to representation by their union in all Courts and Tribunals that exercise jurisdiction in work related matters.

22. To assist in bargaining and implementation of agreements, the minimum statutory framework for right of entry must a) Place a positive obligation on employers and occupiers of premises to notify their workforce when union officials will be on site and where they will be located. A standard notice should be provided in the Regulations for this purpose which informs workers that they have a right to participate in those discussions. b) Require the employer/occupier to provide a private room for discussions. c) Forbid observation or monitoring of discussions, including observation or monitoring of the attendance and departure of participants in those discussions.

Fair, simple and democratic rules for industrial action
Restoring an effective right to strike

23. Congress notes that the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has described the Fair Work Act’s processes for regulating access to protected industrial action as `excessive’.

24. Legally protected industrial action should be available to workers seeking a collective agreement, without the necessity for a secret ballot.

25. Unions will not take industrial action unless it is democratically endorsed in accordance with their internal processes. However, unions should have optional access to secret ballots supervised by Fair Work Australia or the Australian Electoral Commission free of charge should they so choose, in accordance with a brief timetable and voting method that is appropriate to the particular size, circumstances and wishes of the workers concerned.

26. Irrespective of whether unions utilise internal processes or choose to avail themselves of ballot processes administered by Fair Work Australia or the Australian Electoral Commission, there should be no role for employers other than a positive obligation of non-interference.

27. Once protected industrial action is duly authorised, the Act should make it clear that it continues to be authorised and available to all union members irrespective of changes in the size or composition of the workforce seeking to be covered by an agreement.

28. While recognising that the only protected industrial action that employers are permitted to take is a lockout, Congress notes that workers are unduly prejudiced by snap lockouts and as such employers should be required to give 3 clear working days written notice of an intention to lock out their workforce.
29.

In line with ILO recommendation 188, international best practice and previous Congress policy, employers should not be permitted to engage replacement labour during periods of protected industrial action.

Giving the umpire choice
30. The right to take protected industrial action should not be subject to administrative interference other than in the exceptional circumstances of: a) Threats to life, personal safety or health, or the welfare, of the population or part of it; or b) Significant damage to the Australian economy or an important part of it.

31. In those exceptional circumstances the object of the legislation should be to give Fair Work Australia a discretion to do what is necessary to obviate the identified risk with minimum interference to the union’s capacity to organise its activities and the workers’ right to strike, and allow the bargaining process to continue unless there is no reasonable prospect of agreement being reached.

For example, where Fair Work Australia finds that the exceptional circumstances arise substantially from particular employer response action or particular employee response action, and is satisfied that action is disproportionate, Fair Work Australia may choose to suspend or terminate the particular protected action that is giving rise to those exceptional circumstances, while allowing the bargaining and other protected action to continue. In a different case FWA might be satisfied it should terminate all protected action and order a post industrial action negotiation period to precede arbitration of a workplace determination.

32. Fair Work Australia should not be compelled to cancel a union’s industrial campaign as a reward to a significant employer threatening to hold the nation’s economy to ransom, however it should be empowered to order such employer action to cease.

33. Similarly, and to complement the breadth of bargaining endorsed in this policy, engaging in pattern bargaining should not diminish the right to take protected industrial action.

34. In line with the principle of accountable discretion underlying this policy, there should be no power to a Minister to terminate protected action.

35. Orders to stop or prevent unprotected industrial action must be the domain of Fair Work Australia in the first instance and Fair Work Australia must have discretion as to whether it issues those orders.

36. No worker or union should be subject to coercive or punitive orders from a Court as a consequence of unprotected industrial action, irrespective of whether an agreement applies to their work or has passed its nominal expiry date, unless Fair Work Australia has first ordered that the industrial action stop, not occur or not be organised.
Good faith, fair play and better access to arbitration

A genuine voice for all workers
37. Loopholes that permit employers to coerce workers to stop or cease exercising their rights to take protected action must be closed. In particular, employers should be forbidden from evicting workers from employer sponsored accommodation or taking any other action that would directly affect their living arrangements, and should be bound to make proportional payments for work performed in the event of protected action constituted by partial work bans.

38. In any bargaining process, workers have a right to be represented and that right should not be defeated by practical barriers or a voting cohort that does not represent the workers who will ultimately be bound by the agreement. Accordingly:

a) For any proposed agreement, where the workforce to be covered by the agreement comprises one third or more of short or long term visa workers, the employer must (as a condition for Fair Work Australia approving the agreement) facilitate an opportunity for the workers to meet and confer with a representative from a union eligible to represent those workers (and any foreign language interpreter if required) within 14 days of the notification time for the agreement. b) In circumstances where the number or identity of the workforce changes significantly within 1 year after an agreement is approved, the workers upon demonstrating majority support should be able to bring forward the nominal expiry date of the existing agreement.

Resolving deadlocks
39. The good faith bargaining requirements provide important rights and obligations however there is a need to develop more effective remedies to combat surface bargaining. With this in mind, Congress endorses the following four pronged reform to the Fair Work Act: a) It should be a good faith bargaining requirement that employers facilitate meetings of workers (and any union representative the workers invite) in paid time within 14 days of the notification time for any proposed
agreement, to discuss bargaining claims. As with other good faith bargaining requirements, this would operate when there is agreement to bargain or a majority support determination in place.

b) It should be a good faith bargaining requirement to refrain from submitting an enterprise agreement to a vote until the bargaining representatives are agreed on that course or bargaining is at an impasse. As with other good faith bargaining requirements, this would operate when there is agreement to bargain or a majority support determination in place.

c) Non-compliance with the good faith bargaining requirements must be a basis to object to the approval of enterprise agreements by Fair Work Australia. Where such an objection is proven, the result should be a decision to not approve agreement which is complemented by a suitable bargaining order to progress good faith bargaining.

d) There should be access to “first bargaining workplace determinations” for groups of workers that include classes of workers in an enterprise who have not been previously covered by a collective agreement made under the Fair Work Act, or previously covered by a workplace determination. It would complement, rather than be a substitute for, access to arbitration as a consequence of a serious breach declaration.

40. Access to first bargaining workplace determinations would not require resort to any protected industrial action, and would not interfere with rights to take protected industrial action unless/until arbitration had commenced. Access to first bargaining workplace determinations would require as prerequisites:

a) A majority support determination that recorded that the proposed agreement included classes of workers in an enterprise who have not been previously covered by a collective agreement made under the Fair Work Act, or previously covered by a workplace determination; and

b) A failure to make the proposed agreement (or an agreement with a scope including any of the classes workers identified in the majority support determination) within 90 days from the date of that majority support determination issuing; and

c) A failure to make the proposed agreement (or an agreement with a scope including any of the classes workers identified in the majority support determination) following 30 days of compulsory conciliation presided over by Fair Work Australia; and

d) Satisfaction by Fair Work Australia that bargaining representatives will be unlikely to succeed in concluding the terms of an enterprise agreement that will be approved by the workers in the immediate future.

41. Arbitration for first bargaining workplace determinations would involve the resolution of disputed claims. First Bargaining workplace determinations would record the agreed terms and the arbitrated resolution of disputed claims and have a nominal expiry date of no longer than four years. Before making a First Bargaining Workplace Determination, Fair Work Australia must be satisfied that it
would leave the workers better off overall as compared to the modern award (or award based transitional instrument), and any equal remuneration order or take home pay order, and any over award entitlements customarily enjoyed by those workers.
Playing to our strengths

42. While actively campaigning in support of our reform agenda, Congress commits to continuing to ensure the benefits currently available through bargaining under the Fair Work Act are realised for the greatest number of Australian workers.
Inclusion of claims, consistent with other Congress decisions, for improved hours of work, increased job security, improved conditions for casuals and other workers with precarious employment, better work and family balance, delegates’ rights, greater superannuation entitlements, protection and portability of employee entitlements and paid training leave.”
(see final version soon to be posted on the website).

Unionists need to organise for the right to strike, for the effective strike and for workers’ control.

1. Unions’ right to strike campaign is to repeal all Fair Work Act penal powers and for a ‘firewall’ protection for workers in their unions taking industrial action.

ILO principles can prevail:

‘The right to strike is one of the essential means available to workers and their organisations for the promotion and protection of their economic and social interests. These interests not only have to do with obtaining better working conditions and pursuing collective demands of an occupational nature but also with seeking solutions to economic and social policy questions and to labour problems of any kind which are of direct concern to the workers.’

The ACTU argued ILO principles with the 1993 Keating reforms for the first enterprise bargaining protected action regime, but we did not achieve all our the aims. This protected action limited right to strike was weakened under Reith’s 1996 WRAct.

‘Repressive tolerance’ of strikes under corporate legal attack moved to repression of strikes under WorkChoices – the most severely regulated anti-strike regime in the OECD world – still retained in FWA. Howard’s WC spin says ‘we are not taking away the right to strike’ but in practice unionists are not free to strike.

Still no one argues against the principles. ALP MPs and Rudd in 2005 criticised WC and supported the ILO right to strike. But the Rudd and Gillard government flouts such a right to strike.

In ACTU policies there remains scope for the endorsement of ILO principles, based on an appreciation of the right to strike as a civil, political, and socio-economic entitlement.

In 2012 right to strike amendments can go through this Parliament.

Minister Bill Shorten can first delete all of the FWA/WC strike provisions. Then insert the above ILO principles and a section to ensure no one can take a legal case against any industrial action, full stop.

Employer legal sanctions to stop strikes and fine striking workers and union officials are not available. Corporate law firms are out of industrial relations. The right to withdraw our labour-power is legally paramount over all corporate law.

What does this ‘firewall’ protection for the strike mean? Such a new FWA guarantees freedom for workers in unions to collectively bargain with strikes. Unionists are free to determine the strike processes, the timing, the negotiations, the notices etc and free to determine how we take industrial action democratically in paid workers’ meetings. Free to pursue our demands not in anyway legally constrained, not restricted by old legalities of ‘matters pertaining to employment’ or so-called ‘not allowed’ matters. Free to put on industrial pressure for claims not only for wages and conditions in collective agreements but over so-called management prerogative decisions, over industry development strategies, for job protection provisions, environmental demands etc.

The right to strike on occupational health and safety is absolute.

The employer right to lockout is repealed. No Minister has the discretion to stop industrial action.

Industry and pattern bargaining industrial action is lawful as the industrial parties are free to determine at what level to bargain.

The Building and Construction regime now in FWA is abolished. Restrictions in trade-related industries, such as the waterfront are repealed.

The lawful strike extends internationally – essential for unions to organise globally in response to powerful multi-national corporate interests.

This right to strike politically is a last resort response to bad government policy affecting workers’ interests. Workers, as citizens in a democracy, have legal protection for political protest assemblies e.g. against WorkChoices; no penalties against workers taking time to attend ‘No War’ rallies or on foreign affairs protesting against dictatorships e.g. in Fiji and fascist acts such as Indonesian TNI genocide against the East Timorese. The lawful strike supports human rights struggles. Provisions in the Crimes Act and anti-terror laws are repealed. No exceptions such as ‘for damage to persons or property’.

Union officials organising the strike have legal protection against ancient British master and servant common law actions in tort, contract and in equity – no possibility of crippling damages. Industrial disputes are settled by the parties or in the FWA system and not in the courts.

Picketing is protected industrial action not subject to injunctions. Employers cannot employ ‘replacement’ labour to break a strike, as this is a violation of our freedom of association. The individual on strike is protected: no return to work orders, no threat of dismissal, no victimization, no fines.

Competition law outlawing solidarity strikes and secondary boycotts is removed.

2. The question is then reviving the strike so working people can regain power and transform Australia.

Unions know the strike is the essential means for the power to win our demands, e.g. secure jobs. How workers organise a winning strike is a priority. Historically in this era strikes are essential to respond to the capitalist and environment crisis and in response to the political attacks on workers’ rights. Democratic control by workers in their unions of their industrial action is central to defeat the employers’ decisions, defeat the corporate attack and defeat right-wing ‘austerity’ cuts.

The effective strike now is very difficult because of the repressive regime and corporate/government lawyers taking legal actions against unions. Employees in their unions in enterprise bargaining have to win ‘protected’ strikes as best we can.

Recruitment succeeds when integrated into successful strike action.

We can criticize past union leaders shifting resources to organize the un–unionized sectors, as this has failed to revive unions. We cannot resolve our crisis simply by adding new members – without a powerful strike in place.

Planned lengthy strikes are necessary to organise. Australian unions are good at the one-day protest publicity strike. But this gives the illusion of struggle, distracting from our real problem, which is the lack of an effective traditional lengthy strike. Secondary bans, boycotts and solidarity strikes are a powerful means of union strength and need to be again back in practice if unions are to succeed.

Mass general strikes in many countries are organised as the global capitalist order is in another chronic crisis period with corporate and state austerity attacks on workers. Occupy activists call for a general strike on May Day. But look back through history about how general strikes happened. They are organized in the workplace by union delegates and organizers organizing their co-workers and can be done again.

Our YRAW campaign proves our capacity strategically to win in civil society and politically. We defeated Howard, but failed to secure key rights at work.

We organise outstanding social unionism struggles with community support. But to win requires the power of collective strike action. Social unionism is not a replacement for direct struggle against employers. Social unionism where the strike is abandoned loses the central role of workers at work, at the point of production.

Co-ordinated strikes against the repressive anti-strike regime requires union members organising across industries, a mass strategy to defeat the penal powers, learning from the 1960’s anti-penal powers organising model resulting in mass national ‘Clarrie O’Shea’ strikes. Working class principles justify the refusal to follow unjust and illegitimate restrictions and for the principled defiance of judicial orders to win the right to strike.

“Labour is not a commodity”, “our labour power creates wealth”, “the right to strike is a basic freedom that distinguishes us from the slave or bonded labour or from fascism”, “ freedom from corporate and HR rule” etc.

3. But the strike is only a means. We return to work with more power. Workers’ struggles can then develop with democratic self-management agendas. Workers’ control over our work to counter employers’ control is the challenge. Tactics historically are sit-ins and occupations when workers facing redundancies took over factories and ran them cooperatively. We can learn about workers self-management cooperatives. We can study workers control developments.

As unionists we can listen to the history of militant workers who acted believing we can control our work and the economy without capitalist rulers.

Some of our richest Australians, like billionaire Clive Palmer, did not pay tax in his main private company last financial year. BRW lists his wealth at $5.05 Billion.

Unemployment has risen to 5.2% as at March 2012, yet Australia still relies on foreign workers.

Australian banks are some of the most profitable in the world, yet finance jobs are being shipped
offshore and interest rates sit above the reserve bank rates.
The social contract is broken.
This paper calls for a fundamental shift in policy, so that:
1) every Australian makes a fair contribution,
2) every Australian receives a fair distribution of wealth; and
3) every Australian who wants a job, has every opportunity to get one.Read in this document below

AJP final document

Jobs, rights, fairness and equality on the agenda as unions prepare for 2012 ACTU Congress
07 May, 2012 | Media Release Better protections for workers exercising their rights, a more balanced bargaining system and a range of improvements to economic and workplace conditions to help deliver secure jobs are all at the heart of a dynamic agenda for Australian unions leading into next week’s ACTU Congress.

The ACTU today outlines its vision to create a better future for Australian workers with secure jobs and a stronger, more equitable economy, to be endorsed at next week’s 2012 Congress.

Almost 1000 delegates representing workers from every industry and sector in Australia will attend the ACTU Congress at the Sydney Convention Centre from 15-17 May. ACTU President Ged Kearney said the triennial Congress – often referred to as a “Workers’ Parliament – was the largest and most important gathering of Australian unions.

In the lead up to Congress, draft policies have today been released covering industrial relations, social and economic policy and representation and organisation of workers. The policies are available at www.actucongress.org.au

Ms Kearney said the Congress would outline a positive agenda for Australian workers against a backdrop of increasingly militant campaign by employers to destroy the hard-fought rights of workers.

“We will put forward solutions to counter this employer militancy, through better bargaining powers for workers and stronger representation rights, including a Charter of Delegates’ Rights,” Ms Kearney said.

“But we also have a growing number of workers engaged in insecure work who are often powerless against hostile employers who put profits before workers.

“In response, unions will call on the Government to strengthen the rights for employees in insecure work, and to improve their conditions of employment.

“Improvements need to be made to allow workers to bargain for job security, and to prevent big employers from holding the economy to ransom through their refusal to bargain in good faith.

“The agenda for wages and conditions will include lifting the minimum wage to $660, improving rates of pay for young workers, and expanding the National Employment Standards.

“Australians unequivocally voted in 2007 for better rights at work and unions have subsequently achieved much success, including the negotiation of the Fair Work Act. But we are seeing a growing wave of attacks on the wages, conditions and job security of workers.

“This short-sighted approach will ultimately lead to a weaker economy. We know that a strong economy is underpinned by good jobs, a workforce in which everyone is given a chance to participate and in turn contribute to the economy.”

A comprehensive plan for economic and employment growth through vibrant service, manufacturing and resources sectors, alongside a strong public sector, will also be debated at the Congress, as will tax reform for a fairer and more inclusive society.

ACTU CONGRESS Fringe Event Public meeting
AUSTRALIAN JOBS AND THE RIGHT TO STRIKE
Discussion and Drinks: Mark Lennon, Ged Kearney,
Brian Boyd, Dean Mighell, Len Cooper & more…
Time: 5.15pm – 6.15pm Date: Monday 14 May 2012
Where: Unions NSW Atrium, Trades Hall
Job Creation
Organising rights Fair tax system
Cap Exec pay
Sham contracting Phoenixing
sponsored by VTHC

See ACTU Congress website for other Fringe events.

Please in Sydney distribute this flyer.

Right Strike ACTU Fringe flyer

An Interview with Joe Burns, author of “Reviving the
Strike” (review this blog)
April 28th, 2012

by Camilo Viveiros
https://t.co/qoRke0ut

Introduction: Many in the Occupy movement have called for a general strike on May 1st but most Occupy activists aren’t involved in labor organizations or organized in their workplaces.

While General Assemblies may be somewhat effective institutions at reaching the agreement of assorted activists around future direct actions, workplace stoppages require the large scale participation of workers in decision-making structures.

The interview below gives some organizing advice for those who have called the general strike. I hope that this interview will inspire Occupy activists to consider the difficult work ahead that is needed to build democracy in the workplace. We are the 99%!

Camilo: You’ve written this very important book
“Reviving the Strike” that gives us a lot of insight about some of the challenges, but also the importance of strikes as a tactic.

Thank you for your work
promoting the increased use of the strike as a tool to use building working class power. In “Reviving the Strike” you argue that the labor movement must revive effective strikes based on the traditional tactics of labor– stopping production and workplace-based solidarity. As someone who sees the strike as a vital
tactic to achieve economic justice I want to ask you a few questions.

Right now Occupy and other activists across the country have been agitating for a general strike on May 1st.
Resolutions have been passed at General Assemblies around the country.

There are a lot of new activists that have joined the Occupy Movement, some never having had any organizing experience or labor organizing experience.

Could you share some of the examples of creative ways that newer
activists and established labor activists can think about this coming year, maybe toward next May 1st or toward the remote future of how people can embrace new creative strategies to organize toward strikes involving larger numbers of folks.

Joe Burns: First of all, I think the fact that people are talking about this strike and the general strike is a good thing because it starts raising people’s consciousness about where our real source of power is in society, which is ultimately working people have the power to stop production because working people are the
ones who produce things of value in society.

On the other hand, if you look back through history about how strikes happened, how in particular general strikes happened, what you’ll find is that they’re organized in the workplace by organizers organizing their
co-workers. And that’s really the key aspect here.

If you look at how most general strikes in the United
States have come about, it’s because there’s been
strike activity in the local community, people have
built bonds of solidarity. And then, let’s say one
Local goes out on strike, they put out an appeal for
other Locals to help them, and then eventually it
breaks out beyond the bounds of the dispute between
just them and their employer and becomes a generalized
dispute between all the workers in the city and the
employers in the city. So it really happens as part of
a process of solidarity being built step by step.

“It hasn’t really happened where people have put out a
general call saying let’s strike, let’s do a general
strike on this day. ”

It hasn’t really happened where people have put out a
general call saying let’s strike, let’s do a general
strike on this day.

One of the things that I focus on in my book, is the
need to refocus on the strike. And to do that, that
really takes workplace organizing in both union and
non-union shops, where people go in and do the hard
work of talking to their co-workers, forming an
organization, and ultimately walking out together.

I think it’s scary to do, to strike, to ask people in
these isolated workplaces to strike all by themselves
makes it very difficult.

“…people go in and do the hard work of talking to their
co-workers, forming an organization, and ultimately
walking out together”

Camilo: What do you think it would take to actually
organize, to bring back the capacity to have a general
strike in the United States?

Joe Burns: In order to have a general strike I think
we need to have a workers’ movement that’s based in the
workplace.

If you look at, in the early 1970′s there’s
a good book called Rebel Rank and File that a number of
folks edited and it’s got articles. It’s really about
how the generation of 60′s leftists, a lot of them went
back into the workplaces and did organizing, and that
in the early 70′s there were tons of Wildcat strikes
which aren’t authorized by the union leadership.

Some of them, like the Postal Strike of 1970 involved
200,000 postal workers striking against the federal
government, in an illegal strike. But that didn’t
happen just by itself, it happened because people went
in to their workplaces and organized it. So, how are
we going to get a general strike in this country? I
think it’s going to be because we redevelop a labor
movement or a broader workers’ movement that’s based on the strike.

I think the efforts of Occupy for the class-based sort of thinking will help in that.

Ultimately, though, I think we need at some point to
devote our attention to the workplace, because the
workplace is the site of where the strike and struggle
need to generate from.

Camilo: During the takeover of the capital building in
Wisconsin some folks speculated that what should have happened is that public sector workers who were under
attack should have gone on strike. But in some ways
public sector workers are even more restricted around
strike guidelines than private sector workers and so
they have less right to strike.

What are your thoughts
around public sector workers who are really bearing a
large brunt of the attack on labor over the last year,
and what would the challenges be to building the
solidarity necessary to consider strikes of public
sector workers?

Joe Burns: I think what you find studying labor
history is that even though strikes were illegal up
until 1970, Hawaii became the first state to authorize
a legal strike, regardless of that workers struck by
the hundreds of thousands, public sector workers in the
1960′s. And in fact the laws giving them the right to
strike were done after the fact, and they were only
passed because workers were striking anyway and
legislatures decided to set up an orderly procedure to
govern strikes.

So what you find is hundreds of thousands of teachers striking throughout the 1960′s, and that’s really how public employees built their
unions. And they did it in the face of injunctions, so
a judge may order them back to work and start jailing
leaders, but like in Washington state in a rural
community all the teachers showed up together, everyone
who was on strike, and told the judge to arrest them
all. And the judge backed down because it didn’t look
good.

So that’s really how we won our unions to begin with in
the public sector, in the 1960′s, so when you fast
forward to today and look at strikes in the public
sector, when you look at Wisconsin in particular,
clearly the Wisconsin teachers is what really kicked
off the whole Wisconsin battle.

They organized calling
in sick, and two-thirds of Madison teachers didn’t show
up to work and that’s what really kind of fueled the
beginning of the takeover of the capitol, along with
the grad students and so forth. So it was based on a
strike. Some people wanted that to expand into a
general strike, but that really wasn’t going to happen
unless the people most involved which were the public
employees, took the lead on that. And they chose, and
made a strategic decision after four days to go back to
work and fight by other means. I think that’s the
strategy that they wanted to do and that made sense for
them.

Camilo: With union density not at its peak what are
the some of the opportunities for non-union
organizations to use striking as a tactic? What are
some of the lessons we can learn from the Wildcat
strikes of the 70′s, and how can we have enough
flexibility to try to go beyond the stranglehold that
Labor law has on workers’ organizations right now?

Joe Burns: I think there’s been a lot of good movement
in recent years to look at different forms of worker
organization beyond the traditional unions. So you’ve
had workers’ centers, you’ve had various alternative
unions, the IWW and so forth, all looking at how do you
organize particular groups of workers. The question
that all of them eventually run into is, you can have
your alternative form of organization but ultimately
it’s a question of power, and do you have the power to
improve workers’ lives. And to do that traditionally,
that’s been at the workplace the ability to strike or
otherwise financially harm an employer.

So I think part of what moving forward we’ll see with the revival of the workers’ movement in this country is a lot of coming together of these different forms of
organizations, embracing tactics such as the strike.

And really some of them are the best situated to do it,
because they don’t have the huge treasuries and
buildings and conservative officials that you find in a
lot of unions.

“…ultimately it’s a question of power, and do you have
the power to improve workers’ lives.”

Camilo: So, what would your advice be to a non-union
Occupy activist who maybe voted for a general strike
during a general assembly, or who wants to see a
general strike come to fruition at some point, what
would your suggestions be for those activists that are
out there who are seeing the need for this tactic to be
embraced.

Joe Burns: I think go into your workplace. The strike
and strike activity needs to be rooted in the
workplaces, and if it’s based on people outside of the
workplace calling on people to engage in strike
activity, that’s not going to work.

Not saying you
need to just bury your head in some local place, you
need to have a broader perspective and broader
activism, but if you really want to see a general
strike, go out and organize workers, your co-workers or
however you want to do it to build forms of
organization in the workplace.

Joe Burns is staff attorney and negotiator, with the
Association of Flight Attendants/ Communications
Workers of America and author of Reviving the Strike.

http://www.revivingthestrike.org

Camilo Viveiros has been a multi-racial economic
justice organizer for over 20 years. He has developed
organizing trainings for the Occupy movement
www.popularassembly.org and does campaign and
leadership development, popular education, strategy and
direct action trainings for grassroots groups.
401-338-1665 camilo@activism2organizing.org

___________________________________________

Portside aims to provide material of interest to people
on the left that will help them to interpret the world
and to change it.

Submit via email: portside@portside.org

Chomsky on May Day

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/04/29-4

Photos May Day
http://boingboing.net/2012/05/01/may-day-2012-big-photo-galle.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2012/may/01/may-day-rallies-pictures

Leo Panitch on May Day
http://www.socialistproject.ca/inthenews/MayDay.html
The claiming of May 1 as a day for political protest grew out of the particular nature of working-class activism of Europe and North America in the late 19th century. During that time labourers were encountering ferocious industrial capitalists who sought to limit workers’ control over their jobs; working people in turn fought back by demanding shorter hours and better conditions. New May Day graphic novel retells old stories of struggle
“May Day has symbolized the common struggles of workers around the globe”.
Read here
http://rabble.ca/books/reviews/2012/04/may-day-graphic-novel-retells-old-stories-struggle

From the US May Day and Occupy
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/04/30-9

Monday is May day Public holiday in Darwin

Unions NT May Day Magazine
with articles including mine on the right to strike for secure jobs.
Unions_NT MayDay 2012

And in one of the poorest nations Timor Leste the unions are now allowed to exist from 2002, so good struggles to the KSTL.

In the US, the AFL-CIO

http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Global-Action/May-Day-Workers-Rights-Must-Be-Universal

In Adelaide

http://s-o-b.posterous.com/may-day-dinner-outstanding-success#