June 28 saw a massive show of force by unionists throughout Australia. Hundreds of thousands marched in every capital city and major regional centre. It is pretty clear that working people are angry and are not taking this lying down. There is a serious problem of leadership though. Both on the union and political level. workers have a leadership committed to respectability not to class struggle. How their politics shape this campaign was shown most markedly in Sydney. The Sydney rally of forty thousand marched through the western suburb of Blacktown. Whilst the rally was held at the showground there was a march through the main shopping centre about a kilometer away. The marchers were strongly supported by the locals including shoppers and workers.
Why Blacktown? Blacktown is a working class suburb. But it is located in the federal electorate of Greenway. Greenway, a traditional Labor seat was won over to the Liberals last election. The people who swung to the Liberals were those whom Mark Latham was desperately trying to win � the so-called aspirational voter. Latham failed but the current ACTU leadership have chosen to pitch their campaign at those voters also. Some of the union tops are so electorally oriented that they opposed any sort of rally at all. This march and rally was a compromise.
The rally was designed to demobilize struggle. Apart from the speaker from Unions NSW, there was a Church speaker and rank and file speakers already suffering. One a childcare worker, told how last election she voted Howard. But in no way did she vote for a system which undermined her wages and working conditions. Other workers told of their horror stories.
Whilst having rank and file speakers was, in a way, refreshing. But the point was to avoid any debate on struggle or give workers a forum which would discuss any strategy which wasn�t the bureaucrats.
Kim Beazley, a belated convert to opposing Australian Workplace Agreements, is now in their good books. Despite Beazley Labour being thoroughly supporting the system and its �efficiency� the bureaucrats give him their backing. They were also silent concerning state government attacks on unions. The closest the bureaucrats came to endorsing industrial action was to ensure any victim of Workchoices that they would back them. With what was not clear.
Basically, the bureaucrats want a campaign of respectability. They hope that by showing that they are fair responsible Australians, middle class and ruling class sections will give them a fair go. This is the road to suicide! It is only when workers are prepared to struggle that they are taken seriously. Crawling is the road to defeat.
Revolutionary leadership is needed urgently. Such a leadership would not only fight Workchoices but the whole agenda of the Howard Government! This includes their war effort, reactionary policy on refugees, the unemployed and unemployment. Black people, Gay marriage. We could go on!
What is needed is a programme to bring down the Howard government. Labor�s reactionary policies must also be rejected. The alternative is not a parliamentary government but a revolutionary workers and small farmers government. A revolutionary communist party must be constructed as a matter of urgency!