[Marxism] Sharan Burrow Lismore visit

[Nick Fredman <srcsra@xxxxxxxxxx>]

The ACTU to the Rescue?

Bernie Wunsch, Lismore.

On July 19 Sharan Burrow, President of the Australian Council of Trade 
Unions (ACTU) made a whirlwind one-day protest tour of the regional NSW 
town of Lismore. As part of the campaign to oppose the Federal 
government’s changes to Industrial Relations laws, the ACTU has decided 
to reach into areas where they have rarely dared to tread in the past. 
Burrow’s tour included a campus speakout to over 200 people, some 
workplace visits, a daytime protest rally of 200 outside local National 
MP Ian Causley’s office as well as a public forum of over 60 workers 
and a trade union dinner. Both at the protest rally and the public 
forum Burrow outlined the peak union body’s campaign strategy to oppose 
the Howard government’s IR changes and how she saw it could succeed. 
The public forum, organised by the Socialist Alliance, also saw their 
national trade union caucus leader, Sue Bolton, outline strategies for 
a successful campaign.

The visit by Burrow and Bolton allowed a rarely glimpsed insight into 
the machinations of a campaign which has quickly mobilised hundreds of 
thousands of Australian workers and has swung public opinion firmly 
against the government in general and in support of workers’ rights in 
particular. Such a keynote speaker as Burrow managed to speak to 
hundreds of workers and community members at the various events even 
during a workday and bolstered the local campaign activists’ and 
general community’s response to the most dramatic change to workplace 
laws seen for decades. In particular, a regional community that has few 
workplaces larger than 100 people, as well as a large number of 
unemployed will mean that changes to unfair dismissal laws will remove 
the current protection to the overwhelming majority of local workers’ 
jobs. Also in a safe National Party seat, the Lismore region is showing 
fierce and general opposition to the changes which directly challenges 
the inherited hegemony of conservative politicians like Ian Causley.

The ACTU’s campaign strategy outlined by Burrow involves a mixture of 
lobbying politicians, using a savvy advertising and media campaign, 
galvanising support from many different regional areas as well as 
supporting mass mobilisations by state and local campaign organising 
bodies. In the wake of the Howard government’s recently attained Senate 
majority, Burrow outlined a strategy of targeting individual 
politicians because “ every politician is elected by its 
constituency”. She explained that “…the only countervail is the people. 
If people stand up and ask their politicians to defend their rights, 
there will be a backlash against the Liberals and Nationals.” But 
pinning hopes on individual politicians becoming nervous of some of the 
proposals and voting against them assumes that we do live in a form of 
representative democracy where politicians can succumb to a ‘community 
fight’ and vote against the changes in parliament. As the conservative 
government can only guarantee a majority of one in the Senate this 
could theoretically work but it also assumes politicians will be 
worried by the effects this campaign has on their prospects of 
re-election in over three years time. Burrow later conceded that the 
other elements of an ongoing campaign such as protest rallies, mass 
delegates meetings and worker defence campaigns should continue if the 
laws go through parliament.

Sue Bolton of the Socialist Alliance spoke largely about the current 
and future prospects of building a protest movement to ensure the 
opposition to the IR laws is maintained. Bolton explained that we 
cannot expect the so-far successful ACTU media campaign to hold as the 
Howard government is launching a $20 million media campaign, employer 
groups are pooling money for their own advertisements and the 
government is threatening the de-funding groups like churches who are 
opposing the laws. Bolton explained that “Mobilisations are key because 
they are more than just delegates accepting leaflets as action to back 
up the campaign means that you don’t turn up for work. We need more 
mass delegates meetings as delegates are key members of workplaces and 
through union struggles we can maintain blue and white collar worker 
solidarity… we need another national day of action and the ACTU 
executive to agree to this.” Bolton also called on the ALP “…to show 
their commitment to repeal the laws” if parliament passes the changes 
and urged the campaign to continue even if the legislation goes 
through.

During discussion, Burrow was coy about what the ACTU is really 
planning to do in the upcoming months for the campaign. While promising 
the ACTU executive would unveil this plan in early August there were no 
guarantees given to organise further national protests. Local Richmond 
Valley Unions convenor and Australian Services Union organiser, Michael 
Flinn, stated that “There has to be a campaign to defend workers and 
instantly respond to any employer in town to stick their head up and 
use the new laws” which gained much applause. In this context it 
becomes clear that the ACTU will be there as one part of the campaign 
which includes many different individual unions, cross-union bodies as 
well as community campaign groups but does not intend to lead any 
series of mass co-ordinated national protests like those that occurred 
on June 30/ July 1. Socialist Alliance members commented during the 
public meeting that the ACTU leadership should be threatening 
industrial action on any employer who wants to use these laws which was 
not supported by Burrow. It appears that while the ACTU will play a key 
role in this struggle, we need to rely on building our local and 
city-wide campaign bodies to rebuild the industrial strength of the 
union movement in order to provide a crisis which can remove the 
conservative Howard government


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