File spoon-archives/marxism-news.archive/marxism-news_1998/marxism-news.9804, message 70


Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 09:12:06 +0100
From: Hugh Rodwell <m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se>
Subject: M-NEWS: Pessimistic news from Brisbane


Forwarded from Gary M in Brisbane on the Marxism-International discussion
list. Posted 4.30 pm local time Tuesday 21 April.

Cheers,

Hugh

______________________________

Update 1.

I have been away from my computer and have yet to catch up on what is
happening in Melbourne. This morning's news from there does not sound good,
but I will leave that to Tony.  The news last nite was not good either.
Reith, the politician who is leading the attack, was back on tv and he
seemed to have recovered his nerve somewhat.

He was taunting his moderate counterpart, Bob McMullan,  from the Labor
Party over whether the ALP supported the pickets breaking the law or not.
The ALP politician would not of course come out and support the workers.
And yet this is the party that the Australian working class has built.

The Victorian Supreme Court has granted an injunction forbidding picketing
and even the filming of events at the docks.  We will see how events
unfold.  But the strike is now at a crucial stage.  It is absolutely clear
how it can be won.  Australian ports must be closed down.  Everyone knows
this, but the union leadership stubbornly keeps P&O operating and
concentrates on trying to block Patrick.  Only in Sydney and Melbourne is
this totally successful.

Everyone knows that I think that this is directly linked to a "half a union
is better than no union" strategy that I feel the MUA leadership is adopting.

As I have said in earlier posts there are at least three levels to this
dispute.  The govt has committed itself to smashing the MUA. (Maritime
Union of Australia).  The union officials have committed themselves to
keeping alive their role as mediators and negotiators.  The workers want
their jobs back and wider sections of the class want an end to the attacks
on their living standards by the forces of so-called economic rationalism.

The govt keeps upping the stakes in the struggle.  I honestly thought it
would be settled after the police were defeated in Melbourne last week.
However this was seen as a direct challenge and now it is to be countered
by the state.  If the picketers win the coming battle I still expect an out
for the government.  Their retreat line is via an order form the court to
reinstate the sacked wharfies.  It is of course the same retreat line that
the union leadership are hoping for.

This order should have been delivered yesterday but I suspect the judge is
waiting to see events unfold. If he refuses to reinstate the workers then
the choices are very stark for the union bureaucracy.  They will have to
capitulate or escalate their response.  There are I think deep divisions
within the union leadership over what to do in the eventuality of an
unfavourable court decision.

But all this is speculation in front of the coming show down in Melbourne.
For the first time in my three decades in Australia a time and a space are
being created where the class struggle will be fought out for all to see.
If the picketers in Melbourne can drive back the police then we will have a
great victory in the class struggle.

This is not Irish rhetoric at work. (Well not really) On Sunday night a
thousand of us gathered at the picket lines here in Brisbane.  A call had
been put out that the union was going to stop the freight train.  I have
never felt such an atmosphere as the people gathered round.  Only once
before have I been close to such political excitement, such a determination
to go beyond and to break through existing social relations.  That was when
Arthur Scargill, the great leader of the Yorkshire miners, came to speak at
Essex university in 1972 and I was privileged to be there.

On Sunday night we waited with excitement spilling and bubbling everywhere.
 The officials had gone into a huddle.  Rumours began to circulate.  The
train has gone early.  We are going to march on the wharf instead.

An official of the MUA came out and spoke to us.  The microphone did not
work.  He could not use the megaphone properly but we all listened as hard
as we could.  He said that this was now the "people's dispute" not the
MUA's dispute.

This was a long rambling speech.  It seems to me that Australian workers
make excellent hecklers - very witty and incisive, but they are poor
orators.  The impatience of the crowd grew.  Why weren't we doing
something?  Then the  speaker told us the train had gone and that we were
going to march on the wharf - Cheers all round.  We headed off into the
night. We were chanting loudly _The Workers United Will Never Be Defeated_
and _MUA- Here To Stay_.  We got to the gates and cut our way through.
More cheers.

However the chanting died down as we marched on and on and on.  Where was
Patrick's.  I have been in the dock before.  Many times.  But never on the
docks.  Finally we got there and rushed to the fence.  We screamed abuse at
the security guards.  They stood impassively. There were only a handful of
cops. A militant official cut through the wire.  Then the officials
screamed at us to stop.  That we were not going inside.  We stood there for
nearly an hour.  People began to drift away.  One official came up to me
and I asked him what was happening.  He said that they had a great victory
and that they had said they would never be back on the wharf and yet here
they were.  I told him that if we were not going to do anything we should
at last have a few speeches and then go home.  The same official as before
spoke again.  This speech was worse.  We will keep it going for years he
said.  I groaned inwardly.  We turned around and trudged back.  This time
there was no chanting only a steady demoralised silence broken only by
complaints that they had done nothing.

I was with a group of young workers and they were genuinely pissed off.
They wanted to fight.  I myself thought it was crazy to march down a dark
road onto an island with absolutely no way to retreat if the police had
mobilised behind us.  But then I am in my 50's.

Overall the experience was a bad one but if we had got smashed it would
have been even worse.  In terms of the officials' tactics I kept thinking
of the rhyme

The Grand Old Duke of York
He had ten thousand men.
He marched them up to the top of the hill
And he marched them down again.
And when they were up, they were up.
And when they were down they were down.

The secret action planned for the following day did not materialise.  I
cannot say what it was here, but I have to say that I never believed it
would happen. I would describe it as a kind of counter-hegemonic gimmick.
It is the sort of stunt that people come up with when they are not doing
what really is needed to win the struggle. Mind you the student Left
thought it was a wonderful idea.

Part of me is deeply disturbing for me to see the working class come up
with the kind of non-violent passive resistance type rubbish that the
student movement pioneered in the 60's. But then I favour a few stirring
speeches and an up and at them approach.  I am something of a philistine
when it comes to street theatre etc.  It has its place of course, but
eventually heads have to be broken as Lenin once put it.

Also I have always believed that when the workers took to the streets at
long last that their tactics would be *naturally* more militant than that
of the middle class Left. However I am always mindful of the extraordinary
passage in Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution when he describes
how  the workers took off their caps and approached the Cossacks     saying

'"Brother-Cossacks, help the workers in a struggle for their peaceable
demands; you see how the Pharaohs treat us, hungry workers.  Help Us!"
This consciously humble manner, those caps in their hands- what an accurate
psychological calculation! Inimitable gesture! The whole history of street
fights and revolutionary victories swarms with such improvisations.'

So perhaps the tactics of linking arms and allowing the police to pick them
off one by one is the correct one for this period.  Moreover the picket
line in Brisbane did block the road for one hour and then under
instructions from the police moved out of the way.

That then is the state of the struggle in Qld. There is close cooperation
between the union officials and the police.  When the union official
announced that ours was going to be a peaceful dispute there was an
outburst of spontaneous applause form the workers. The middle class Left is
very impatient with the moderation.  But there is nothing we can do.   This
dispute is firmly under the control of a group of men who are very moderate
in their politics.

The Premier of Queensland, Rob Borbidge has just announced on the radio
that everyone in Australia should send their produce through Brisbane as
this port is fully open.  This is impossible given the long distances
involved.  But I cannot tell you how galling it is that the filth can crow
so openly over our defeats.

One official from the union that had lost the Electricity workers dispute
in 1985 told a friend that this dispute was going the same way.  And in all
truth if what was happening in Brisbane was generalised then this struggle
would be absolutely over.  But Sydney and Melbourne keep alive the hope fo
a victory and it is to events there that we are all looking.


regards

Gary



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