Hundreds of Palestine activists in Wollongong held a 72-hour blockade of the Bisalloy Steel factory in Unanderra on 14-17 June.
Bisalloy has been a target for the Palestine campaign in Wollongong since 2017. It is the only Australian manufacturer of high-strength quenched and tempered steel suitable for armouring military vehicles. The company has contracts with Israeli companies such as Plasan Re’em, which use Bisalloy steel to produce armoured “killer Toyotas” suitable for covert Israeli military operations.
The June picket was the longest ever against the company and drew in widespread support. Organisations that held a presence at the picket included Students for Palestine, the Greens, the Gong Commune and Socialist Alternative. It was clear that more groups were keen to throw in their support, including the NSW Teachers Federation, who visited the picket, and Palestine Action Bega Valley, who made the four-and-a-half-hour trip up the coast.
The police mobilisation at the picket was also the largest yet. At 5:30 am on Monday morning (15 June), the riot squad forcibly cleared the road. They assaulted one woman at the first gate and arrested another at gate two. The second activist, who is trans, was called “it” by the police in their report of the incident. For the rest of the morning, the riot squad threatened to arrest anyone who set foot on the nearly empty road. Although Monday morning had the most intense police intimidation tactics, they were a constant presence, behaving in a hostile and threatening manner for the duration of the picket.
Their behaviour encouraged at least a handful of people to attend the picket for the first time. One older woman told us she had seen a video from Monday morning of a cop throwing a woman to the ground on the local evening news. She was so appalled that she came to the picket the next morning with her walking stick and camp chair, despite never having been to a picket or even a Palestine protest before.
It is to the credit of the picketers that their numbers remained strong over the 72 hours. There was a lively atmosphere in the evenings and throughout the days with teach-ins, live music performances, lantern parades, documentary screenings and craft workshops. In the future, we could make these events even bigger, like at the Rising Tide blockade in Newcastle.
Having an ambitious approach to organising the picket paid off, but the campaign in Wollongong faces new challenges. Bisalloy’s more “hands-off” approach to the community pickets, which has been due to management wanting to avoid controversy, appears to be coming to an end. But activists were able to overcome these challenges and hold a successful, peaceful community action because our numbers grew compared to previous pickets.
If we want to continue to campaign to break Bisalloy’s contracts with Israeli companies, Palestine activists must recognise the prospect that next time the police presence could be more serious. The community campaign has no intention of abating while this blood-soaked company operates in our town. For the campaign to go forward, we need the next picket to be bigger, with more organisations on board and greater determination to shut the company down.
