SUB-CULTURE: Where the bloody hell are ya? : Melbourne Indymedia

The Fill the G, this was meant to be the centerpiece in a nationwide campaign against the WorkChoices legislation. But instead of a powerful message to the Howard government telling them that the people would fight back against tyranny from Canberra, was a half empty stadium and the burning question “where the bloody hell are ya?”

So where was everyone? The million-dollar question. A year ago a hundred thousand marched through Melbourne and swore an oath to keep up the struggle. The last union rally in July attracted eighty thousand. Yet on this day, only just barely did half that number show up to yell half hearted cheers while the Coalition government crowed their victory in the parliament-debating chamber.

They were at computers, they were on construction sites, they were at work earning their living. That’s the easy question to answer; the harder is why didn’t they show up?

The reasons are as varied as those absent “Thursdays are hard, I couldn’t really take a Thursday off”, “I thought everyone else would show up”, “I didn’t realize anything was on” or worse of all “I couldn’t be bothered”. Perhaps the most damming answer is the simplest, human nature has come to the fore and everyone is sick to death of hearing about the horrors of Industrial Relations.

Like the boy who cried wolf, the ALP and the Unions have cried “WorkChoices” and everyone rushed to the rescue. Only to find ghost and shadows, no danger to chase away. That is the insidious part of the WorkChoices legislation. It will not induce a sudden societal change, inciting everyone into action. No this decay will be slow and steady. The sky will not fall tomorrow, but can you feel the ground being dug from out under your feet?

Individual contracts are forced on to workers in dribs and drabs. Meaning that by the time the dribs are getting it the drabs are already over it. Even with one of the larger employers, the Commonwealth Bank now moving to AWAs, they are smart enough to “maintain” the foil of the Enterprise agreement as a sop to employee anger.

This leaves the question of where to next, the ALP and Unions are right to cry “WorkChoices”. What this act will do to the rights of working Australians cannot be underestimated. Unfortunately we are all just human, and as with all humans show us horror long enough and it becomes the ordinary.

The struggle should not end here, it cannot end here, but as to what we can do next?

They may have all the power, but we have all the people. Which is kind of the problem and solution in one tidy bundle.

The dominant (Corporate/Capitalist) culture has already harnessed and constrained the masses with debt slavery; this was a planned staged/stepped strategy. A PRELUDE TO INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS 'REFORM'.

Once the masses have been restricted in this manner they are/become loath to disrupt their fragile existences. They become more concerned with their personal (artificially induced) crtitical economic situations.

HENCE THERE WILL BE LESS AND LESS participation from workers in industrial action!

YOU HAVE FAILED TO SEE THE BROADER PICTURE and failed to resist in the early stages .. it may now be too late for 'soft' industrial action. A cure is of course a general strike and it is fast becoming the only remaining effective option.

But in view of the above outlined economic constraints, participation in a 'general' would be the major problem.

THE TARGET SHOULD BE THE BANKS AND FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS -- PARASITIC FEES IMPOSITIONS!!!! FIRST then the rest.

Strike at the root not the leaves.

Good luck.

When thousands of workers come together, as a class and on a working day, to defend their industrial rights, this has to be a good thing. It is estimated that over 250,000 workers in total rallied around Australia in support of the National Day of Action against John Howard’s industrial laws. Many defied aggressive employers to attend the event.

At the MCG event in Melbourne there were large numbers, possibly a majority, of women workers especially teachers, nurses and other health workers. Many made their way to the venue despite a disrupted rail system on three major lines.

Fresher layers of workers, who have only recently been brought out of the workplace into action, were the most vocal and excited by the event. They had not yet had their enthusiasm dented by the ALP election machine merchants at the top of the union movement.

Amongst the more industrially hardened workers and those more active in the workers’ movement, there was a sullen mood of cynicism towards the blatant, slick ALP electioneering of this production at the MCG. The price the ACTU paid for their expensive stage-managed production with painted grass, hired stadium and massive paid publicity was a passive mood and a turnout that could be codified almost exactly by the ruling class and its media.

Many workers voted with their feet and didn’t attend. They knew what to expect after a series of mass rallies in the past year – lots of speeches outlining the effects of Work Choices on working people, followed by an appeal to vote ALP at the next Federal election, and nothing by way of any industrial strategy to defeat these laws.

Many workers thought: ‘Why attend the MCG rally, lose a day’s pay and possibly your job, to attend a stage production you’ve seen before?’ The below-expected turnout and quiet atmosphere was a slap in the face for the ACTU strategy of industrial quiescence and pro-ALP electoralism. Trades Hall and the ACTU bureaucrats are very demoralised after this event and some put the blame on the rank and file.

However, workers yesterday hated Howard and Work Choices but are not convinced that the ALP can win the next federal election or, if they do, will act strongly in workers’ interests. From the point of view of many workers they see, on the one hand, an anti-union Howard government that has nevertheless seemingly delivered low interest rates and an economic upturn Vs on other hand a Beazley ALP opposition that opposes Work Choices but, workers worry, may not be as successful on the economic wheel as the Coalition.

There is no genuine mass workers party in Australia offering explanation and a programme for workers and therefore there is massive confusion and mixed consciousness.

The good thing about yesterday is that it will open up a debate inside the workers’ movement. Union activists would go along in the main with the ACTU strategy if it delivered ever growing numbers on the streets and falling poll figures for the Coalition. However neither is occurring. After yesterday’s failure for the ACTU there is more confidence now to take on the dominant strategy. There is more questioning taking place and it started happening even during the event and in the pubs and workplaces afterwards.

The Socialist Party alternative strategy to that of the ACTU is one of many that will be put out there in the class more aggressively in the next few months. We call for industrial action to defend workers under attack from the new laws, including as a first step a 24-hour national general strike as a way of uniting all workers in action against Work Choices. Instead of blindly calling for an uncritical ALP vote we raise the idea of a new workers’ party.

define a 'worker' today in the real world, not some dribbling antiquated notion from a FAILED ideology, u bunch of backward buffoons.

The Corporate run Labor and Liberal parties and their relative support bases are the same bunch of enemies to the people. Would you swap one slave driver for another? Get fucked u idiot commo cunt and that applies to conservative ultra-rights as well!

CLASS is divisionist ideology and divided no one wins except elites.

Free the people from financial constraint first and then they will have enough room to even think .. they are already in chains quarter wit.

Two to three million should have turned up cos they wanted to .. but what stopped them was DEBT slavery .. YOU HAVE TO FREE THE SLAVES BEFORE THEY CAN FIGHT IDIOT!!!

And u won't do it with redundant ideologies THAT DON'T WORK! WAKE THE FUCK UP OR THE LOT OF YOU WILL BE EATING SHIT BEFORE U KNOW IT .. NOT FAR OFF ACTUALLY

Attack the financial chains first ... HAS THE FUCKIN PENNY DROPPED YET???????????????????????????????????? Then worry about the rest ... GO FOR THE FUCKIN JUGULAR !!!

You guys have been drinking the cool-aid.
I bet you're really proud of the anti-Howard dog.. its a sure way to win an informed debate.

Why do you really have to get so worked up over minor changes to industrial regulation laws ?

Its not even about workers "rights", its about freedom for employees to at least offer a bigger range of employment terms.

This union/class rhetoric is about 50 years out of date.

There is no coordination with the real life-and-death struggle going on in burbs like Macca Fields, in Redfern, on Palm Island, in the outback town fringes.
The fighters on the front line await reinforcements and they get a ' workers-uber-alles' Nuremberg rally.
The ALP wont even stick up for itself and sack the Governor-Generalate. If they won't fight for themselves then why would we expect them to fight for us?

Then there was the shabby way most of the Marxist left reacted to G20. They echoed the worst rabid ravings over on the lunar right. The way they are going it won't be long before they call for a new ' National-Bolshevic' party...oh wait.
I oppose centralization but that doesn't mean we don't coordinate using our best asset - the internet.
And if we can't start a revolution here yet with the numbers we have then seek allies OS. Tonga, Indonesia, Fiji Islands...its a small world these days and one of these days a Mexican wave will usher in the worlds first planet-wide revolution - I promise you.

The vast majority on the reasonable thinking left can now demonstrate their good faith by expelling the Marxist-Leninist lead in the saddle-bags. Red fascist counter-revolutionary idiots overboard. Then as a democratic and libertarian socialist united front we can act quickly to outlaw the fascist right as well.

First the left fascists as warm-up - then the big job.
Tactics may include a general strike, employer lockouts, black-bans on all known fash, Coventry tactics, even prediction markets on when known fascist organizers will retire from politics should be considered. We have the net so no excuses for being lamer losers.

We all know the Right are leading us into the pits of hell so its time for moving, its time for freedom - It's Time.

When people know the strategy doesn't work and like the protests over the war on Iraq and David Hicks then they're less likely to follow.

That's the problem.

We need to fix the problem otherwise it's just a waste of time mate!

Put down the tools and a general strike until demands are met.

Demands to be decided democratically.

Dear PR

the action you advocate was tried once before, by people very different from you, but with similar language and arguments.

The German Communist Party decided to fight the Trotskyists rather than the Nazi Party and their armed street fighters called SA. They thought the Nazis would be an easy target later. The communist slogan was "after Hitler, us!" They broke the working class front in Spain, and then they did it in Germany. The results are as they say, history.

All workers together is not just a slogan. It is a method to fight the ruling class: Together we can defeat the capitalist enemy.

Well we had not just "work choices" but "socialist choices too:
Australian Labor Party
Socialist Party of Australia
Democratic Socialist Party/Socialist Alliance
Freedom Socialist Party/Socialist Alliance
International Socialist Organisation/Socialist Alliance
Socialist Equality Party
Socialist Alternative (ex-Socialist Alliance)
Communist Party of Australia
Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)
Spartacist League
others I probably missed but I was leafletted out by then.

Odd ones were from the
Citizens Electoral Council - a cult follwoing of "lyndon La Rouche"

Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group - calling for a general strike.

So with such a lot of COMPETING disunited fractions the biggest machine ie ALP wins as the "Opposition" at the State levels ie every state government and territory around Australia...
but these ALP regimes do not get around to making any challenges to the Commonwealth - ie they lost the High Court challenge and now say there is nothing can be done until next election.
If and when they sort out Beazley or Rudd
and go to election and win
will they really rip up the AWA anti-union laws ?
If the ALP lose we can be certain Howard (for his Master Class bosses)
will move on to attack
occupational health and safety at work.

I think a lot of people live in hope that the ALP will deliver them and they do not have to go on GENERAL STRIKE
ie be prepared to go to jail for their wages and conditions.

The best mob on the day for me were union solidarity who cut across all the socialist sects...
US have ALP members and anarchists even - that is what will defend our class, us ie ourselves whoever wins the elections and in the meanwhile. see http://www.unionsolidarity.org

Adam,

"Fill the 'G" was, quite explicitly, an ALP election rally. The fact that 'only' somewhere b/w 40-60,000 people attended is, imo, less evidence of workers' apathy or unconcern with the damaging impact of the new laws on wages and conditions as it is the q of whether or not workers, esp those in smaller and less 'militant' workplaces, or those without a (significant) trade-union presence, could reasonably be expected to attend and to risk losing pay or even their jobs... and for what? To be told: "Vote ALP"?

Fair crack of the whip!

What the event does demonstrate is the political bankruptcy of the ACTU/ALP's (to the extent that the two can actually be separated) approach to challenging the new laws. How many millions did the ACTU waste on the High Court challenge? Or on promoting this 'National Day of In-action'? And for what?

13 yrs of the Accord (1983-1996) ensured not only, for most, a real reduction in wages and conditions, but the 'withering away' of real, organic r/ships between the trade-union bureaucracy and its putative constituency.

And now the ACTU finds itself up shit creek without a paddle. (What happens if the ALP lose? Or decides they'll keep the laws, or merely ameliorate some of their worst aspects?)

Not that the leadership will suffer (or are -- check their salaries). Sooner, rather than later, they'll join their colleagues in the 'political' wing of the labour movement, whereupon they'll join the ranks of the same neo-liberals responsible for implementing the policies which have proved so damaging to the trade union movement in this country in the first place.

Blah blah blah.

Dunno what any of this has got to do with 'sub-culture' btw Adam.

'General Strike'
by DOA

This is a song about power,
the power that you and I have in our hands.
The power of the people.
'Cause you know all over this world,
people finally get it together,
get the courage together,
they use the general strike.
It's one of the strongest things they got.
In Eastern Europe, Central America, in North America,
believe it or not,
cause it's power to the people.
Come on!

We're tired, yeah tired of working
We're tired of working, yeah working for nothing
We all want, what we got coming
All we need is a break
Come on, make no mistake

Everything is not all right
And there's no end in sight
You can call it what you like
Come on, stand up for your rights

(Chorus)
Stand up, stand and unite
It's time for a general strike
Stand up, stand and unite
It's time for a general strike

We been out breaking our backs
Been out working, getting no slack
All week long just paying those bills
That's just the people that still got a job
What about the rest of us - on the soupline

(Chorus)
Stand up, stand and unite
It's time for a general strike
Stand up, stand and unite
It's time for a general strike

Everything is not all right
And there's no end in sight
You can call it what you like
Come on, stand up for your rights

(Chorus)
Stand up, stand and unite
It's time for a general strike
Stand up, stand and unite
It's time for a general strike