From:    Gary MacLennan 
To:      marxism-international
Subject: Re: M-I: RE: Australian wharfies
Date:    Monday, April 13, 1998 10:26 PM

Tony's post on the dispute was excellent.  Especially as it comes from
Melbourne.  As I have said often the Australian revolution will be in
Sydney first and then Melbourne or nowhere.  We here in Brisbane exist in a
backward backwater. we will have to be rescued.


I am appending a piece I wrote after going to the picket line on Saturday
but which had to wait until I could get into my office today.

There has been more militancy since yesterday and the picket lines are
functioning.  I have also received a phone call that my friend Bobby
Carnegie has occupied a train bringing in cargo.  I have no more news about
that.  I have heard though that Bob is disgusted at the lack of suport and
militancy from his union.  Bob is an official mind you but a true
revolutionary.  I also know a young rank and file wharfie and his story is
that the membership is too old and does not want to fight.  The young
blokes do though want to have a go but are being held back.

I myself think that this is an astonishing betrayal of the working class.
I tell you now that it is all over and that the ACTU leadership have
decided to abandon the MUA and hope for a Labor govt to save the rest of
the union movement.

There will be huffing and puffing to disguise this but the rank and file
have been sold out horribly.

I now know looking at what is unfolding how the Social Democrats managed it
in Germany.  I never could understand how they got away without calling a
general strike to prevent the rise of the Nazis.


regards

Gary

I have just come back from the Maritime Union of Australia's picket at
Fisherman's wharf here in Brisbane.  There were something like a hundred
workers and their supporters at the picket.  We were three miles away from
the actual wharf because the police had moved the picket back from the
company's land.  The union had complied with police directions.  There was
an unreal atmosphere about the whole experience of being at the picket.
For a start it was more of a vigil than a picket.  Thus there was no
attempt at all to block the road and to interrupt port activities.
Apparently the real pickets will begin next week when the union will
attempt to stop goods being delivered to the ports.  We shall see. 

Among the supporters were old Communist Party of Australia comrades -
Warren and Jean Bowden.  I lived with their son for a while a long time ago. 

Warren and Jean are both now in their 80s and not in good health.  But
always when the workers are in struggle they are there, doing what they
can.  Jean and I had a good chat and agreed between us that all this was
like the famous Electricity Workers Strike of 1985.   That dispute involved
power cuts at first but the union leaders secretly ordered an end to power
cuts and government victory was assured.

The workers held out for over a year but they were always going to lose.
They had tremendous support at the beginning but gradually that was
whittled away and one day the Union officials told the remaining workers
who turned up at the weekly meeting to "piss off" and get themselves a job.

The MUA's current strategy is to stay inside the law.  They are hopeful
that next week the courts will instruct the Company to take the sacked
workers back.  Of course what will happen is that in the eventuality of an
order going in favour of the union, the company will appeal to the High
Court and that will take at least a year.  In the meantime the company is
training more scabs and they are shifting cargo.  

The other major stevedoring company, P&O, is using union labour.  So
between the wharfies that work for P&O and the scabs,  Australia's ports
are operating.   What is going to happen of course is that eventually P&O
will employ scabs and sack their MUA workers.  So then the MUA will cease
to exist.

As I have said from what I can gather the MUA's strategy is to try and win
in the courts. A group of workers told me that this was the "best way to
win".   The rest of the union movement is going to give them financial
support but there will be no bans or strikes in solidarity with the MUA.
These have been outlawed under anti-union legislation and the union
movement has decided not to defy the law.

The probable key variable here is that there is an election due this year
and the workers must (?) have been promised that the Labor Govt will repeal
the legislation and that they will then be able to force the company to
give them their jobs back. So we are going quiet for Labor.

The other principle hope that the wharfies have is that the international
union movement will win the struggle for them.  There was great rejoicing
about rumours of the longshoremen in New York in occupying the Australian
Embassy.  No one knows how much international pressure can be brought to
bear on the Australian government.  But the government here has said that
they will sue any union anywhere which takes action in support of the MUA.
It seems to me that the brutal truth is that workers in Australia are
hoping that workers abroad will defy their laws in order to save a group of
workers who will not defy Australian laws.

Tony has written about the proud tradition of the wharfies as a militant
union. All that is very true.  But those days are long gone.  There is now
no Communist Party.  There are no worker militants with a sound grasp of
Marxism.  There are no key workers who have been trained in Moscow or
Beijing.  There is no longer a counter-hegemonic core to the MUA. 

All that remains is a bunch of mostly middle aged men, many of whom parrot
every piece of right wing ideology that they pick up from the mass media.
Thus one worker told me today that they had moved the picket when ordered
by the police because "the public don't like to see confrontations."
Similarly the hapless leader of the MUA, John Coombs, responded to having
two of his Sydney members sprayed by security guards with mace, by saying
that they would not be provoked.

It is almost as if the union movement here has gone Taoist and is holding
"fast enough to quietness".  They will suffer and endure. As a consequence
they may even get sympathetic coverage in the media. Many workers seem to
be under the illusion that this is how the struggle can be won.  Thus one
worker told me that it was good that the local paper was focussing on the
harm done to wives and kids by the sackings. 

But the harsh reality is that even if the workers win the 'hearts and
minds', they will be defeated if they do not stop the scabs from loading
the ships.  Today a group of Christian supporters arrived and my heart
truly sank.  The stench of betrayal and defeat was strong in my nostrils.
Once you see the pious hand wringers come to the picket line then you know
the cause is long lost.

I have used the word "betrayal" advisedly. It is part of left mythology to
talk of the betrayals of the union bureaucracy. But one should be very
careful about who one nominates as a "traitor".  Coombs the MUA leader
appears to be a pathetic figure way out of his depth.  But it is crucial to
understand that he accurately reflects the political consciousness of most
of his members.  Yet there are traitors here and they are right at the top
of the Australian Council of Trade Unions.  I would nominate ACTU
Secretary, Bill Kelty, and ACTU President, Jenny George, as prime
candidates for the roll of dishonour. It is they and their ilk who have
helped tie the working calass to the Labor Party and to class collaboration
through the Prices and Incomes Accord with the former Labor Party
governmnets of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. They have also known for months
that the mass sackings were going to happen but since they have arrived
they have done nothing but to repeat incessantly that they will not be
provoked.

I will however say that just as the workers are going to pay a terrible
price for their illusions in their leadership, I feel that the government
will also pay a heavy price for waging class war with such brutality and
with such success.  The remorseless dialectic never dies. It is without
pity for either Capital or Labor and out of the defeats that we are facing
Australian socialism will be reborn.

In the mean time we must wage the present struggle with all our strength.
There is as yet no solidarity movement or front here in Brisbane. I cannot
say what is happening in Sydney and Melbourne. All this is extremely
personal and unofficial but it seems to me that it is more vital than ever
for international supporters to do all they can. So pickets of Australian
embassies would be a great help.  Boycotts of Australian goods or whatever
would also be of use. If someone could start a boycott of Australian travel
agencies that would make an impact, as tourism is of vital importance to
Australian capital at present. Militant actions abroad will steel the
resolve of workers here and may even spur them into the kind of action
which will win this dispute.

regards
Gary 



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