DON’T ACCEPT THE ELECTION’S MISERABLE “CHOICE” WE NEED MILITANT CLASS STRUGGLE TO SMASH ALL ANTI-UNION LAWS AND WIN JOBS FOR ALL WORKERS

1 May 2016 – Last month the building industry authority launched legal action in the Federal Court against the NSW Branch of the CFMEU construction workers’ union and ten of its officials. Their supposed “crime”: organising strike action, necessarily including action to stop scabbing, in order to force the reinstatement of a union delegate who was sacked by the bosses at Sydney’s Barangaroo site. In launching the legal action, the Australian state’s building industry authority boasted that it now has 108 CFMEU officials before the courts! All these attacks on workers’ rights are being unleashed under the cover of anti- worker laws introduced by the openly anti-union, Abbott/Turnbull government, right? Well, actually no! This repression against the workers’ movement is being conducted under the provisions of the Fair Work Act introduced by the Labor government in 2009. That act formally replaced John Howard’s hated Workchoices but retained nearly all its draconian anti-strike provisions. Meanwhile, the construction sector’s industry “watchdog” that is today feverishly persecuting CFMEU and other union members is the body formed by the previous Labor government: the Fair Work Building and Construction (FWBC) authority. FWBC replaced the Liberals’ notorious ABCC. However, while a few of the most extreme powers of the ABCC were taken away, the FWBC retained the ABCC’s central purpose – to use prosecution to attack struggles for workers’ rights in the construction industry and to obstruct union officials entering worksites. This purpose the FWBC has carried out with crusading zeal, often invoking the star chamber powers that it retained from the ABCC to force trade unionists called before it to answer questions under threat of six months’ jail.

It is not simply that the existence of an openly anti-working class Liberal-National government has given the FWBC and the courts the impetus to attack staunch trade unionists. During the reign of the previous Labor government, authorities were also carrying out legal action against trade unions left, right and centre. In mid-2013, the Federal Court found the CFMEU guilty of contempt of court for its picket lines blockading Grollo construction sites during its August-September 2012 struggle against that company’s atrocious disregard of workers’ safety. It was this court ruling and the civil litigation launched by the FWBC – both during the reign of the Gillard ALP government – that paved the way for the Victorian Supreme Court fining the CFMEU a massive $1.25 million the following year.

All this highlights the miserable “choice” that working class people face at the upcoming elections. On one side are the Liberals who would kick working class people in the stomach and then smirk at workers. Their rivals, the ALP, like to whisper sweet words in workers’ ears. But when the capitalists prod ALP leaders in the back signalling that “it’s time,” they will – like obedient little children – turf the toiling masses into the mud then quickly – with false remorse and fluttering eyelashes all wet with crocodile tears – turn back to these same workers they only just betrayed and beg for forgiveness. This not a “choice” that we need to accept! There is another road! The road of militant industrial action and class struggle to not only stop the return of the Liberal’s ABCC but to smash the ALP’s own FWBC, to demand the repeal of all anti-strike laws and all restrictions on union access to workplaces and to fight to stop bosses retrenching workers. Such a fight must unite with the struggle of all of the downtrodden. It must unite with the struggle against the forced closure of remote Aboriginal communities and must mobilise mass action to defend Aboriginal people against racist police violence and mass incarceration. We must demand free, 24-hour childcare to open the road to women’s full participation in economic life, we must fight for a massive increase in public housing and we must smash all attacks on the poor like cashless welfare and compulsory “income management.”

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY IS A DEAD END

FOR MILITANT CLASS STRUGGLE TO WIN GAINS NOW AND PREPARE FOR THE FUTURE REVOLUTION

There are a few differences between the parliamentary parties. The right wing conservatives launched the union-busting Royal Commission into the unions. The ALP did not support this but it has, treacherously, supported the ensuing legal proceedings against unionists for taking militant action to defend workers’ rights. This is hardly surprising! Victorian ALP leader, Daniel Andrews, hailed the persecution of the CFMEU over the 2012 Grocon dispute, branding the construction workers’ struggle as “appalling.” And, although it has been the Coalition that has plotted for a cut to Sunday penalty rates for workers, the ALP again betrayed working class people when Bill Shorten recently announced that a future ALP government would not try to reverse such a cut if the Fair Work commission ruled in favour of it. Indeed, because it accepts the capitalist system, the ALP shares the Coalition platform on key issues. Both parties are for draconian anti-strike laws, both accept the “right” of capitalists to retrench workers whenever that is necessary to maximise profits, both support the cruel incarceration of asylum seekers. Furthermore, both support the Australian capitalist  rulers’ militarisation campaign. This build up is essentially aimed at supporting the international capitalist drive against China, a country which, despite dangerous capitalist inroads, remains a socialistic state dominated by socialistic state-owned enterprises –  a huge gain for its people.
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For their part, The Greens promise some progressive social reforms and oppose several aspects of the war on refugees. Yet, The Greens reject the idea of the working class organised as a separate political force independently of the capitalists. It is telling that The Greens responded to Shorten’s announcement that Labor would accept a court ruling slashing penalty rates with –   not a promise to push legislation reversing such a cut – but merely a promise to “consider” such legislation adding – with the typical “even handedness” of their middle class base – that they “will wait to see the commission’s ruling.” It is notable, too, that The Greens support the Australian capitalist military’s recent huge purchase of 12 new submarines.

To seize on tiny offerings from the ALP and The Greens as an excuse to campaign for them at the elections as a “lesser evil” can only breed defeatism amongst the masses. It amounts to telling the working class and all of the oppressed that we must simply support whoever promises that they will punch us less hard. Yet the working class united with all of the downtrodden actually has the industrial and social power to challenge the capitalist exploiters because it is workers’ collective labour that is the source of capitalist profits and the whole running of the economy. This power needs to be made conscious of itself and unleashed against the capitalist exploiters. Illusions in salvation through parliamentary elections undermine this self- awareness and, instead, encourage the masses to be passive and dependent upon the mythical “good Samaritans” working in the enemy’s political administration. That is why it is not enough for those who understand this to simply ignore the elections. We cannot ignore them because there are millions of working class people who do have illusions that their road to a better life is through electing the ALP or The Greens (while no class-conscious worker is going to support the Liberals, of course). We need to organise actions that will help convince the masses that support for any of the pro-capitalist, current parliamentary parties is completely counterposed to the class struggle. Every time a class conscious worker is convinced not to vote – either directly or through preferences – for any of the current parliamentary parties because she or he subscribes to a class struggle path instead, the working class is better prepared to organise struggle to oppose the attacks of whichever party is elected to administer Australian capitalism.

Belief in salvation through the ALP is a big part of what is disorienting the union movement right now. Even while they are sometimes personally persecuted by anti-strike laws, the current pro-ALP union leaders are resigned to largely playing by these bosses’ rules and looking to “progressive” parliamentarians for salvation. Accepting the straightjacket of these laws and of the pro-capitalist framework of the ALP, the current outlook dominating our unions is to recoil from the idea of industrial action to prevent bosses from retrenching workers. Instead, many of our unions hope to protect jobs by calling on bosses to favour “Aussie workers” in hiring instead of overseas workers and by proposing schemes to “save Australian jobs” by favouring Australian companies over their overseas rivals. Apart from harmfully pushing workers into an alliance with their own local exploiters, such schemes do not save jobs. As a workers’ movement in one country calls for local bosses to favour them over overseas producers, workers abroad also start demanding the same. In the end all that happens is that workers are divided and greedy capitalists everywhere are laughing all the way to their respective banks. Especially when we are facing ever more draconian attacks, workers’ unity is indispensable. We must be aware that the capitalist rulers are seeking to divide our side by intensifying racist attacks against Aboriginal people and against Muslim and other coloured ethnic communities. That is why the workers’ movement must mobilise in defence of these embattled communities, must demand freedom for the refugees and must mobilise to decisively crush the violent far right racist groups.

Today is international workers’ day. Basing ourselves on its spirit doesn’t mean just repeating nice sounding platitudes about international workers’ unity on one day of the year only to then put out the call to favour Australian workers over overseas workers the rest of the year! Instead, it means standing as one with our overseas and guest worker sisters and brothers in a common fight for improved wages and jobs for all workers. The way to fight for jobs is to prevent companies from laying off workers and to fight to force wealthy capitalist bosses to increase hiring by accepting lower profits. Of course, they will not do this willingly. We will need to force them and their governments to accept such concessions through militant class struggle. That means we need a union movement that is prepared to build up forces to defy the anti-strike laws and unleash the full power of the united workers’ movement in the face of the bosses, their governments and their anti-worker laws. The capitalists will scream like bloody murder that any loss of profits that results from being forced to hire more workers will inevitably lead to economic collapse. We must then be ready to reply that if you capitalists are incapable of stably running the economy in a way that provides jobs for all then we workers will take the running of our economy into our own hands by confiscating the industries, mines, banks and communication networks from you and putting it all into the collective hands of the people in a socialist economy under workers’ state power.

This is actually the crux of the question – capitalism or socialism? In the end the current parliamentary parties are against the masses’ interests not just because of their respective ideologies but because they all accept capitalist rule. The demands of the capitalist system simply require any party administering it to continually seek to increase the rate of profit sweated out of working class people. Look at what has happened in Greece. A radical left-talking, nominally socialist party, Syriza, was elected to government. Yet, once in office, it has proceeded to administer the brutal austerity demanded by the capitalists who still hold the reins of state and economic power. Whether in Greece, Australia or any other capitalist country, any party no matter how much it pledges commitment to working class people must necessarily betray these same working class people if it assumes office in such a capitalist society. No matter who win elections they will be merely administering state institutions – courts, commissions, police, prisons and the military – that are tied to the wealthy capitalists by a thousand threads. That is why we should be aware, too, that any gains we make today through class struggle will not be secure as long as the capitalists retain state power. Yet the struggles of today are the indispensable preparation for the future revolutionary struggle for the working class seizure of state power. That is provided that today’s struggles are waged in such a manner that they always teach our side to trust only our own united power and never any of the parties and state institutions of the capitalist exploiters. Today, that means fighting to convince the most class conscious workers to reject any electoral support for any of the current parliamentary parties and to, instead, organise militant mass struggles based on unity with all of the oppressed and genuine unity with our overseas working class sisters and brothers.