Industrial relations campaign update
- 175 000 in Melbourne, 30 000 in Sydney, about 60 000 across Queensland, tens of thousands in Adelaide, at least 10 000 in Perth (despite the oppressive heat), tens of thousands more at smaller rallies in regional centres — and even a contingent in New Zealand. The Community Day of Protest was a resounding success. Melbourne was especially successful — the turnout doubled expectations and represented the city’s “biggest political protest on record”.
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But it’s not all about numbers, as the Government will ignore the community, but it’s about building momentum towards the next election. By all accounts, the events were friendly, engaging and inspiring, and a dejected Left is finding itself again. A movement is building:
[T]his was no angry mob chanting hackneyed catch cries for the television cameras. It was a vast — some said the biggest — communal gathering in which all sectors of society and age groups assembled to hear and be heard on workers’ rights.
The message was very clear and could only be misunderstood if wilfully misinterpreted — proceed with this legislation only if you are prepared for the fight of your political life, and have your bags packed at the next federal election.
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The blogosphere has photos: Weezil, Suki, Stoush.net, Webdiary, Anonymous Lefty, gjw, brokenleg. There’s more at Indymedia: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Wikipedia has galleries for Melbourne and Sydney, and there’s a new Your Rights at Work group photo pool on Flickr.
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Sharan Burrow and Greg Combet spoke well, and Kim Beazley made this firm commitment: “My first act as prime minister of the nation will be to stand on the steps of Parliament and rip these laws up — these extreme laws are headed straight for the bin which is where they belong.”
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Greg Combet promised a campaign of civil disobedience — kicked off, perhaps, by the TWU briefly stopping traffic in Sydney. Combet said, “I will not pay a $33,000 fine for asking for people to be treated fairly … On such a fundamental issue we must look the Government in the eye and stare them down.” The effect of this refusal is that Combet will face jail — and “[i]f unions refuse to pay fines, and officials start going to jail for what they claim is doing their ordinary business of representing workers, voter sentiment might harden against Howard.” Be ready to support the men and women who forfeit their liberty to defend your rights.
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The forces of the Right were so threatened by the prospect of today’s rallies that they pulled out all the stops to squash them. The Federal Government threatened public servants with the sack if they attended — even if they made up the time later — but was forced to back down after the CPSU challenged its misleading memorandum. Likewise, building workers defied threats from the building industry gestapo. However, union-busting firm BGC has not ruled out prosecuting its workers for exercising their democratic right to protest unjust laws. That right was upheld by the IRC because it “will allow employees to be more fully informed about their futures in the paid workforce and the potential effect on their family life.”
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The Chamber of Commerce and Industry and The Australian were singing from the same hymn book, saying that the biggest protest in Australia’s history proved that nobody was worried about WorkChoices. But The Australian’s Brad Norington points out that the rallies “compare favourably with the Vietnam moratorium marches, indicating that community concern cannot be easily dismissed.”
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The day when half a million Australians take to the streets to defend workers’ rights might not have been the best day for Telstra to announce plans to slash 12 000 — 15 000 jobs. It will come as no surprise that Telstra supports the Government’s WorkChoices package.
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The Government’s sham inquiry into the IR package, which will ignore thousands of submissions from the public, began in the Senate this week. Labor’s Gavin Marshall was on the ball, forcing the business lobby to admit its real aims: “We’re hoping for a… we’re hoping for… Well for our… we’re hoping for a lesser [pay] increase for our industry.”
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When the Victorian IR minister Rob Hulls appeared at the inquiry, Liberal Senator Judith Troeth complained about a $55 000 advertisement Victoria had placed. Hulls didn’t miss a beat: “$55,000, not million,” he said, referring to the Howard Government’s failed propaganda campaign. “I think, with due respect senator, it is an absolute cheek for you to be asking this question.”
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NSW workplace minister John Della Bosca argued WorkChoices — which smashes unions, outlaws industrial action, and imposes the Minister’s will on all industrial agreements — is “fascistic”.
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In Question Time last week, John Howard was asked about some strange deliveries of WorkChoices booklets: 99 copies to the Indonesian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Pandas. Other apparently very interested organisations included the Curry Lovers’ Society, the Wingham Deer Hunting Foundation, the Kilabarch Hamster Loving Society, and the Porn Lovers’ Guide to Australia. A year 9 student protesting against WorkChoices arranged for around 5000 booklets to be sent to these obviously bogus groups — and yet 97% still haven’t been delivered.
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Key senators are promising to tinker at the edges of WorkChoices. Barnaby Joyce is mainly concerned with moves to scrap unfair dismissal protections, and says, “I don’t know whether there is a strong economic argument for it.” Steve Fielding is worried about working hours, and has finally twigged to the fact that the 38 hour week is not “protected by law” at all. Fielding will today announce a 10 point plan — but if he thinks ten minor amendments will fix the package, then he’s not looking at it very closely.
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The NSW Government has revealed it is considering the possibility of seeking an injunction against the new IR laws until the High Court has determined their constitutionality.
I was at the rally, wheelchair and all and thoroughly enjoyed myself. The Atmosphere was like one big party, no aggro, lots of chanting and drumming.
Shame that the rally co-incided with various end of year exams, which unfortunatly prevented quite a few uni students from attending.
The ACTU broadcast from Melbourne was inspiring and they should seriously buy some prime-time space to screen it to the entire country, and only then will ?Joe public will realise the hellhole that Howard is going to create.
Shame that the rally co-incided with various end of year exams, which unfortunatly prevented quite a few uni students from attending.
Including me, unfortunately.
Be ready to support the men and women who forfeit their liberty to defend your rights.
I doubt that there will be jailings for a few years, unless Howard decides to forfeit all of the good will he’s built up over the last nine years and play hard-ball.
First rally I’ve been to, actually. I’m impressed so many turned up in freezing cold and drizzle, too.
Why were there so many more in Melbourne than, say, Sydney?
I’ve got some crappy cameraphone photos and a sarcastic post on it here.
I was there, although under pain of death from exam stress, risking exclusion and unemployability. But this was something that was too important to forgo.
I really find enlightening the miserable argument that 95% of the workforce continued to go to work yesterday and this was the reason that the vast majority of the nation couldn’t give two hoots about the IR “reforms”. This was mentioned by Kevin Andrews and the ACCI. These protests are perhaps the biggest in history in this country, and at the same time not one random survey has reported in favour of this evil legislation.
I feel disappointed I did not see many people from my continent of origin turn up. They will be amongst the workers most vulnerable to exploitation by bosses following the introduction of the legislation, and it is a shame that many of them remain ignorant of their plight. Perhaps it comes from centuries of habituation to being subservient to dictatorships and undemocratic regimes, but every nation in the world started that way.
I doubt that there will be jailings for a few years
You might be right, Alex:
But then again, if the Government fines a union official for, say, trying to add an unfair dismissal procedure to an agreement, and they refuse to pay the fine, won’t they end up in jail anyway?
Geelong needed a bigger park to accommodate all those who marched. 10,000 at least.
Photos on my blog for those who are interested.
What do you think of this joker? Is it Swiftian satire, or is the guy actually serious?
Some photos of the Adelaide rally up on my Flickr page, linked through my blog. It was a great turn-out - although unrepresentative of the actual numbers of angry people, as I know as many people who wanted to attend but couldn’t as I know people who went. Including a woman on the train, who was lamenting that she had to have applied for the day off by last wednesday, but only heard about the rally on Friday, so missed out.
AV - “Left Leaning” + “We must remember that at the end of the day, we are dealing with a market” = Libertarian. Enough said.
re AV’s comment:
“James McConvill is a lecturer at Deakin University law school in Melbourne.”
Quality commentary then.
A happier story about the actions of Federal public service management is at Canberra blog Loadedog.
I hear that staff in Defence have also been “noted down” if absent yesterday morning.
- and i hope your exam went well and that they’re nearly over.
What is it with Deakin University law lecturers and the murdoch press?
It is not like Mirko and James have any expertise in the fields they write about.
Need a conservative opinion? Call Deakin! Wonder what (if) their students are learning?
Great round-up Rob. Of course, we now await the Howard Government turning the other cheek and professing ignorance if public opinion…
Two things:
I’m disappointed that Beasley intends to totally scrap WorkChoices. After removing the draconian elements there is still a core that would work. I hope Labor have an alternative solution to revamping IR. It certainly needs it.
Get ready for mandatory tipping. Okay, so it won’t initially be mandatory, but it will be expected. Once these new laws become implemented wages and conditions for service workers, especially the hospitality industries, will plummet. The ‘Restaurants’ spokeman said as much to the Senate Committee. He said that ‘wages were too high’ and that within a few years the entire industry would collapse without the Workchoices reform. As a result we’ll see tipping introduced so that the employers don’t have to pay their workers as much, but still enable said workers to buy the occasional loaf of bread or glass of milk.
Get ready for mandatory tipping.
Throw crumbs to the peasants. How Australian.
Get ready for mandatory tipping.
It will be a cold day in hell before Australians ever tip.
Will Troeth be the first casualty?
Fuck tipping as a wage subsidy, there are plenty of successful restaurants out there that pay wages, if other owners can’t get by, get a fucking Mr Whippy Van.
It will be a cold day in hell before Australians ever tip.
With the new industrial regime, Australians won’t be able to afford to tip.
Mandatory tipping? No way.
If the wages and conditions of restaurant workers are pushed down, there will be two main theoretical consequences:
1. All restaurants will have to push down wages and conditions to compete. No restaurant will end up with competitive advantage over another because they all have to force their workers to accept lower wages and conditions.
2. Dining at a restaurant will become slightly cheaper, as labour costs have been reduced.
If people then have to tip to keep food on the table of restaurant workers (ironic?), then the advantage of slightly lower eating out costs will be completely negated. The cost of eating out will remain roughly the same. There will not be increased patronage to restaurants, because again, the costs are the same. The way the money moves around has merely been changed. Moving to such a system will not save the industry, the argument is rubbish.
Furthermore, such a system will rob restaurant workers of a certain amount of human dignity. Here, mutual respect and friendliness will get you good service. If you want to pay people to be nice to you, then perhaps Australia is not the right country for you.
thanks rob for all the coverage re IR. big it up to you homie.
1. All restaurants will have to push down wages and conditions to compete. No restaurant will end up with competitive advantage over another because they all have to force their workers to accept lower wages and conditions.
You’re presuming that wages and conditions exist in a vacuum and that every proprietor will act exactly the same way. It doesn’t and they won’t.
2. Dining at a restaurant will become slightly cheaper, as labour costs have been reduced.
Some restaurants might wish to pass on the savings to their customers but I wouldn’t expect them all to. Some will pocket the savings, others will reinvest it.
If people then have to tip to keep food on the table of restaurant workers (ironic?), then the advantage of slightly lower eating out costs will be completely negated. The cost of eating out will remain roughly the same. There will not be increased patronage to restaurants, because again, the costs are the same. The way the money moves around has merely been changed. Moving to such a system will not save the industry, the argument is rubbish.
You’re looking at it the wrong way. There may not be an increase in patronage nor a decrease in the costs to the customer but for the proprietor they’ve just had a real decrease in expenditure for exactly the same amount of business. This is a huge win for them.
Here, mutual respect and friendliness will get you good service.
You need to dine out somwhere other than McDonalds or quit smoking crack, mate. You’re delusional.
yeah well….
wage fund theory suggests that higher wages will reduce the number of jobs offerd.
A slow reduce in real wages, in time would create more jobs in Australia.
Trackback.
I hate protestors. they are in it for the wrong reasons.
And what might they be df? And what reasons would you prefer? And what reasons are the ‘non protestors’ not in it for? And why are they ‘right’?
I think at least 50% of protestors are protesting for themselves. they enjoy protesting and will go to every protest that comes along not carrying what it is about. some protestors are there because they actullay feel strongly about the issue, but some are there to for a day off work/school/uni/welfare just to join the group.
Point granted, and is true in some cases, however what i was getting at, is that’s only a sufficiently bad thing to kick up a stink about if the alternative’s better. As far as i’m aware the alternative is apathy, which is just about the worst thing you can get because it’s lazy and gutless, and breeds a society that will tolerate any amount of wrong and injustice because they don’t care or don’t think they can do anything about it. People for the wrong reasons included, i’d rather take the former option any day.
Wombat.
good point.
John Howard seems to be labled as a ‘liar’ alot what exactly has he lied about?
Mmm let’s see, mmm tampa immediately comes to mind….i think people take iraq also coz of the wmd issue. Personally what bothers me about johnny is not his lying record…the fact that he’s so generally evasive….ducking and diving…hiding behing ministers and advice and refusing to give a frank, honest or personal opinion on anything. Admittedly just about every other pollie does the same thing, but it really damn annoys me.
tampa was blown way out of proportion, i dont think he ever lied about iraq even though the unexplained wmd, also this is kinda of the subject of industrial relations and unfair dismissal but anyway. There never has been and never will be an austrlian prime minister or (president hopefully) that will not be accused of lying or cheating. Economically the current government is the greatest in Australian history.
Kids Overboard is a better example than Tampa.
To be honest, i simply think it’s gutless to hide behind ministers, and decisions, and protocols. If you look at issues like immigration, particularly the Alvarez and Rau cases, he’s clearly done that. The public’s not perfect, so they’ll accept their government’s making mistakes, providing they own up to them and outline the corrective action they’ll take. The problem is Johnny’s such a bloody politician he’ll never admit anything wrong happening under his watch. What the public deserves is someone who speaks straight, gives their opinions on issues, problems and solutions and takes responsibility for what happens under their leadership. Then they can decide if they support those views or not. I just hope the next government is like that and bloody better than the one we have now.
Just a minor point about the Perth Rally….for some reason the media (a definition definitely open to interpretation in WA considering the pig-swill that they regularly serve up) obviously failed to see the other 15,000 people at the rally on the 15th November.
The media’s blatant under-estimate of the numbers that attended (10,000) is an insult. Accurate estimates would say there were at least 20-25,000 in attendance…and this is a conservative estimate!!
In solidarity!
I think they took the police figures for the rally. I was there and listening to the police on the scanner and the end of the parade left the Esplanade when we were at least halfway down William Street.
It is worth remembering that the rally attendance figures are distinct from the march figures.
I spoke to several senior police in attendance on the day and they indicated to me that their estimates for the march (not the rally) were 15,000. Taking into account that many thousands of people left before the march began (either because of the heat or the fact that they returned to work) I think that 20-25,000 is a truer reflection of the numbers that attended the rally. Photographs taken at the rally suggest those figures also.
Lets be honest now, due you think rags like “The Worst Australian” are going to tell the truth about this issue!? …I think not!
Someone explained that the police do their crowd estimate by counting people as they march past a certain point. It’s crude maths — fifteen people in a row, 1000 rows of people walked past, therefore roughly 15 000 marched. But as others have pointed out, it was a scorching day in Perth and a lot of people left before the march began, so the police numbers are definitely a significant underestimate.