Victorian Socialists (VS) is the largest-scale socialist political project in Australia for decades. There is no other project in which hundreds of socialists—including members of Socialist Alternative and many others—have conversations with literally thousands of working-class people and all comers, over a period of weeks in election campaigns like the one the party just waged in the western Melbourne electorate of Werribee. 
We get some idea of how those conversations have gone by looking at the party’s vote. In the case of Werribee, it was high enough to leave pundits and rival political parties scratching their heads. What unfathomable secret, they wonder, can explain how an area with close to zero history of serious socialist political activity could deliver a very creditable 7.1 percent of the first-preference vote to VS’s Werribee candidate Sue Munro (up from 3.7 percent in the 2022 Victorian state election)? 
The final tally of 3,010 votes was fewer than 200 behind the Greens, who had the benefit of a political profile established over decades (as well as, in the case of Werribee, getting the donkey vote—the number one spot on a ballot paper listing twelve candidates in total). At a couple of booths VS scored 14 percent of all votes cast, coming third behind Labor and the Liberals. “It’s not all great for the Liberals, the socialists got a bigger swing”, the Australian Financial Review moaned in an <a href="https://www.facebook.com/share/p/15ndxHKFYj/">online headline</a>
reflecting on the Werribee result. 
Melbourne’s Age newspaper described our decent result as a “<a href="https://x.com/vic_socialists/status/1888178135075803397">surprise packet</a>”. But it’s no surprise to anyone involved with VS that a socialist message of rage, hope and resistance can strike a chord among thousands of people in the working-class heartlands of Melbourne, and beyond. 
Campaigning for Victorian Socialists gets us into conversations with rage-filled healthcare workers about the state of our hospitals and the slide to privatised health care; with voters appalled at Israel’s genocide in Palestine and Labor’s complicity in it; and with union members disappointed by the lack of fight from what should be the strongest organisations our side has. 
A minority are already committed socialists, delighted to encounter a party that takes working-class politics and working-class people seriously. Many more have never met an active socialist before but can relate to our sincerity, our political conviction and our basic propositions: that it’s crazy that billionaires keep doubling their wealth when it’s working-class people who do all the work around here; that we shouldn’t tolerate being sold out by Labor, which keeps the capitalists’ profits piling up while throwing crumbs (at best) to the rest of us; that everything is the wrong way up in this society; and though we’re not promising to solve every problem, we’re serious about helping working-class people organise and fight back. 
Our Werribee result was no one-off. In Victoria’s 2022 state election, more than 52,000 people voted for VS in the upper house and 48,000 in the lower house. You have to go back to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1943_Victorian_state_election">1940s</a> to find a socialist electoral campaign in Victoria that got anywhere near that number of votes. As the lead VS candidate in the Northern Metro upper house region in 2022, I received just 300 fewer primary votes than the eventual winner of the final of five seats. In the Western Metro region, VS candidate Liz Walsh came even closer to being elected, though both of us missed out after preferences. 
Given how far socialist ideas have been pushed to the margins in this country, this was a real achievement—and a solid contribution to bringing socialism back into everyday political life. We built on our 2022 campaign in last year’s local council elections—winning 67,296 first preference votes, with an average vote share of 10.8 percent for each ward we ran in. Owen Cosgriff was elected as a VS councillor in Bendigo with more than 40 percent of first preferences.
Our goal in winning positions in local councils and parliaments is not to rain socialism down upon a grateful and passive public. Rather, it’s the opposite: we aim to use those platforms to promote every strike, protest and act of collective resistance, and to build the politics of intransigent opposition to capitalism and to the exploitation, wars and oppression that the system produces and feeds off. 
It’s not like we’re waiting around to win parliamentary seats to play a positive role in the resistance though. In 2022, <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/reproductive-freedom-precondition-equality-interview-liz-walsh">15,000 people</a> answered a call-out from VS Western Metro candidate Liz Walsh to rally for abortion rights after the US Supreme Court scrapped Roe v Wade. We’ve been <a href="https://victoriansocialists.org.au/campaigns/palestine">active in solidarity</a> with the people of Palestine throughout Israel’s Gaza genocide. When Woolworths workers put out a call for <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/protesters-block-entry-to-woolworths-warehouse-as-grocery-shortages-continue-20241202-p5kv0m.html">picket line support</a> during their recent strike, a couple of hundred Victorian Socialist members and supporters <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DDDp0_3Tbhm/?img_index=4">joined</a> the pre-dawn picket line at Dandenong South. 
All this activity sits alongside Victorian Socialists’ success in waging large-scale and effective electoral campaigns, as a contribution to rebuilding socialist political forces. Our next major opportunity to do this is in the rapidly approaching federal election. 
High-profile housing activist Jordan van den Lamb (aka purplepingers) has become the hero of renters and the scourge of Australia’s landlords through his <a href="https://www.shitrentals.org/">shitrentals.org</a>
website and his viral <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@purplepingers?lang=en">tiktoks</a>. Victorian Socialists is proud to have Jordan as our lead Senate candidate. Anyone across the state of Victoria can play a role in the <a href="https://pingers4parliament.com/">pingers4parliament</a> campaign. We’re also running lower house candidates in the seats of Fraser in Melbourne’s west, Cooper and Scullin in the north, and the regional seat of Bendigo.
We’ve already kicked off the campaigning. Whatever your level of experience, there’s an important role for everyone—letterboxing, doorknocking and helping organise events. <a href="https://victoriansocialists.org.au/join">Signing up to be a member of Victorian Socialists</a> is the best way to contribute and to get involved. Find an event on our <a href="https://victoriansocialists.org.au/join">website</a>
or <a href="https://www.instagram.com/vic_socialists/?hl=en">socials</a>, and bring your friends.
Anyone serious about fighting for socialism needs to take opportunities to expand the reach of socialist ideas, to inspire more resistance to capitalism and to convince more people to become active socialists. Victorian Socialists makes a valuable contribution to each of these projects—so jump on board and get active!

Jerome Small

Victorian Socialists: putting socialism on the political map

Woolworths workers strike a blow against corporate power

It’s a sight for sore eyes. 
For the past two weeks, a news cycle usually dominated by trivia, tragedy and paid talking heads has featured an unusual sight: striking workers. The people whose labour makes society function, who are most of the time ignored and invisible, are walking out of their workplaces, into the streets and onto the nightly news. 
There have been <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-27/thousands-rally-queensland-against-qld-governmnet-suspend-bpic/104652842">construction workers</a> in Brisbane and <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/nurses-took-to-the-streets-after-insulting-pay-offer-next-stop-court-20241113-p5kq80.html">nurses</a> in New South Wales taking action. But, more than anyone else, it’s the 1,800 warehouse workers striking in Victoria and NSW who have pushed working conditions, corporate greed—and, crucially, workers’ power—onto the political agenda. Organised by the United Workers Union, these workers have seriously disrupted the super-profitable “business as usual” of Woolworths supermarkets—one of the biggest, most ruthless, and fiercely <a href="https://thenightly.com.au/business/coles-woolworths-continues-fall-from-grace-to-now-be-among-nations-top-three-distrusted-brands-c-16973063">hated</a> companies in the country. 
Two weeks into the strike, the outcome still hangs in the balance. But win lose or draw, the warehouse workers’ strike is likely to be the most significant industrial dispute in Australia this year. As Red Flag has <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/woolies-distribution-workers-strike-for-everyone">argued</a>, every worker in the country has a stake in its outcome. 
Perhaps the most powerful moment of the strike so far came on Monday 2 December. Up until that point, management’s policy seemed to be one of sucking the energy and momentum out of the dispute. Management locked the gates of the strikebound facilities on day one, ramped up alternative supply chains, harassed workers by phone and text, and waited for demoralisation to set in. But faced with significant and growing gaps in supermarkets, and gaping holes in the stock at Dan Murphys, management decided to take a chance. 
On Sunday 1 December, Woolworths CEO Amanda Bardwell put out a statement claiming that only a minority of workers at the giant Melbourne South Regional Distribution Centre in Dandenong South were union members; that the vast majority of workers were keen to scab on the strike; that management had reached a deal with the Shop Distributive and Allied union (which is notorious for undercutting other unions, and even <a href="https://redflag.org.au/node/5320">legal minimums</a>, in their enterprise agreements); and that as a result, full production would resume at South Dandenong from 6am Monday morning. 
Anyone aware of Woolworths management’s commercial practices, such as allegedly <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-takes-woolworths-and-coles-to-court-over-alleged-misleading-prices-dropped-and-down-down-claims">lying about their own prices</a>, will not be surprised to learn that this statement was, to put it mildly, a little shy of the truth. Out of slightly more than 300 workers at the Dandenong centre, the UWU have a membership of more than 240 (and growing). The SDA, by contrast, have seven members at the facility. Unsurprisingly, Bardwell’s statement neglected to mention this relevant fact.
Perhaps Bardwell and team believed their own bullshit. Perhaps they thought that one day of transparent PR spin would be enough to demoralise the workers and their supporters. If so, management were in for a shock. By 5am on Monday, a crowd of around 100 workers and more than 200 community supporters—a large number of them mobilised by Victorian Socialists—were assembled, ready to turn back any scabs. 
An hour passed. Then another. And then another. 
Spirits were high on the picket as workers, students and well-wishers chatted, chanted, and practiced our picket drills. Rumour was that the would-be strike breakers had been put on a bus, then taken off, then put back on, then taken off. 
It wasn’t until 12 hours after management’s supposed start time that a tiny crew of would-be scabs turned up, only to be turned away from the facility with no great drama. Management’s grand reopening turned out to be just another Woolworths fake news story. 
As word of the victory spread, workers on other pickets celebrated. Rhys, a worker at the Erskine Park distribution centre in Sydney, told Red Flag, “Hearing about this big Melbourne story on Monday. They [management] failed, you know, this morning they failed. And today they’re trying to get an injunction through Fair Work to open that site. And it just makes you laugh. You know, it’s not scary. It’s just funny.”
Workers mercilessly mocking their management as the company flail around looking for a way to neutralise worker power and worker solidarity, is an unparalleled, and much too rare, joy. 
Of course, the future is unwritten and so far, though the company has moved on some issues, the strikers are yet to fully win their main demands. It’s encouraging though that some heavy artillery of the union movement is taking an interest, with the Victorian Building Industry Group of unions <a href="https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Do4MDWWWU/">declaring</a> that they will support the striking warehouse workers “industrially, politically, and financially until these workers win this dispute”. But with pressure increasing on all sides, it’s impossible to tell how the dispute will resolve. 
Even at this stage though, the strike—as with any serious dispute—has shone a revealing light on politics and society. 
Predictably, the Liberals, though willing to <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/dutton-to-supermarkets-rein-in-prices-or-we-ll-force-you-to-sell-off-stores-20240702-p5jqh1.html">mouth off</a> once in a while about a “big stick” approach to taking on the big supermarket companies, have not uttered a single word to support the people actually taking on these same companies—the striking workers. 
Labor politicians have barely been more visible, with Cabinet ministers’ <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-04/woolworths-union-dispute-government-uwu-woolies-shelf-dan-murphy/104682096">reported comments</a> falling well short of any actual support for the workers’ demands. The Victorian Greens have finally crept out of witness protection on the issue, posting two Instagram <a href="https://www.instagram.com/victoriangreens/">reels</a> in support of the strike in the past day or so. 
By far the most prominent political party supporting the strike has been Victorian Socialists. The party’s support extends not just to social media <a href="https://www.instagram.com/vic_socialists/?hl=en">posts</a>, but to party members and supporters doing one of the most important things in politics: turning up. The Melbourne Age (in a rare <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20241202092230/https:/www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/protesters-block-entry-to-woolworths-warehouse-as-grocery-shortages-continue-20241202-p5kv0m.html">sympathetic report</a>) noted the presence of many VS supporters at Monday’s early morning picket: 
“Activist and Victorian Socialists federal Senate candidate <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20241202092230mp_/https:/www.theage.com.au/link/follow-20170101-p5k5fq">Jordan van den Lamb</a>—known as purplepingers online—issued a call-out to followers on social media on Sunday, urging them to attend Monday’s action in Dandenong South. Party member Ryan Stanton said activists, students and trade union members were among those who turned out with the party to support Monday’s protest. ‘Woolworths is one of the main drivers behind the cost-of-living crisis,’ Stanton said. ‘They’ve been price gouging...but what a lot of people don’t know is that they’re also doing their best to make working lives harder for the workers who actually pick the stock that goes to the stores.’”
It’s no surprise that socialists, for whom workers’ struggles are at the centre of social change and the vision of a new world, are also some of the most active supporters of those struggles when they erupt. 
But the strike reveals much more than the real values of political parties. Like any major dispute, the strike makes it obvious who does all the goddam work around here—and who doesn’t. Without workers’ labour, it turns out, none of us have toilet paper, pasta, frozen goods, chilled goods, beer—or anything else. Anyone who doubts this can wander through one of hundreds of Woolworths supermarkets or liquor stores in Australia’s most populous states. The strike shows anyone who cares to look that even in this automated age, workers and our labour underpin everything. 
What a contrast to Woolworths management. 
Throughout the strike, Bardwell and her extensive team of executives, HR goons, lawyers and spin doctors are no doubt working as hard as they ever do. The stream of dishonest press releases, legal threats and fake-welfare harassing phone calls to striking workers is testament to that. But nothing at all of any value to human beings results. The billable hours rack up, but not one extra roll of toilet paper gets to the stores.
To put it plainly: this layer of CEOs and executives and their well-paid flunkies is parasitical. They contribute nothing of value to society, but feed off the rest of us. In even simpler terms: they need us, but we don’t need them. 
The Brad Banduccis, the Amanda Bardwells and their bought-and-sold servants in politics and the media can wander around as if they’re the most important people on the planet. A major strike, however, makes it abundantly clear whose labour really matters—and who would have nothing without it. 
The essential nature of the work millions of workers do every day, to society and to the capitalists’ profit-based “business as usual” set-up, gives workers enormous power. But it’s obvious that this power can only be exercised collectively. 
This mundane fact has important consequences. Any strike points in the direction of solidarity and collective action, and an ethos directly at odds with the dog-eat-dog individualism fostered by the system. Even a quick look at the scope of the warehouse strike, and its demands, shows this. 
Everyone on strike knows that warehouses commonly shut after 20 years, sometimes more, sometimes less. Each time this happens, Australia’s current system of enterprise-by-enterprise bargaining (introduced by Labor in the early 1990s) allows a company like Woolworths to set up a new shelf company, and dictate a new enterprise agreement on favourable terms. The gains won by previous rounds of struggle are largely wiped out, and workers in the new facility (many of whom have come from an older facility) have to start on lower pay. 
This is why one of the strike’s main demands is for a national agreement or at least for a series of nationally applied minimums, which Woolworths has to meet for existing and new sections of its supply chain. A minimum pay rate of $38 per hour is one key part of this. 
In other words, each of the Woolworths strikers knows that the only way to secure their own long-term interests in having decent wages, is by fighting for many thousands of workers they have never met to get a minimum pay rate of $38 an hour. A secure victory for one, it turns out, can only be achieved by a victory for all.
Not just the demands of the strike, but also its scope, show the same dynamic of expanding solidarity. If one warehouse goes on strike, it’s a major hassle for Woolworths management. But this impact is multiplied, and multiplied again, with each warehouse that joins in the action. 
This is why the elected officials, organisers, delegates and members of the UWU have put years of effort into lining up the expiry dates of the enterprise agreements covering the distribution networks of the major supermarkets. “United we stand, divided we fall” is not just a pleasant-sounding slogan. It reflects a class logic: the logic of working-class people in struggle for their own interests is to fight in ever-widening circles of solidarity. 
And this logic intensifies once the actual strike starts. Ask a striking worker about their experience of the strike. You’ll get an answer about how great it is to see and feel their own power in the flow-on effects from their strike. You’ll get an answer about the joy of forming a bond with people who share the same workplace and the same task but who have never had a chance to meet and talk, let alone establish a connection in common struggle. 
And you’ll get an answer about overcoming the sort of “divide and conquer” between shifts and job roles that management thrives on and promotes. Rhys, one of the strikers at Sydney’s Erskine Park distribution centre, explained to Red Flag how significant it is to see one of the main divisions in the shed—between day shift and afternoon—simply dissolve during the strike. “To see how together we are, it’s like it’s not two shifts, there’s just one shift” he said, “There’s just one way out—and it’s great to see that it’s everyone supporting everyone”.
This logic of working-class struggle, the logic of “everyone supporting everyone”, can extend beyond shifts, and beyond sheds. Far beyond, in fact.
One of the most generous and moving acts of solidarity with the warehouse strikers comes from refugees, a group of people who have been vilified and demonised in Australia for decades. A large group of refugees recently held an epic 100-day protest camp outside the Department of Home Affairs in Melbourne’s Docklands area, demanding the dignity and security that Labor promised them ahead of the 2022 election. 
This extraordinary protest received invaluable support from the UWU, whose Victorian office is located nearby. Many of the refugees involved are now returning that solidarity in the most practical way imaginable: by assisting the strike kitchen. As the refugees explain on their <a href="https://www.facebook.com/RefugeeWAVE">Facebook page</a>:
“Striking workers are heroes. They challenge the divisions created by bosses and prove that unity can overcome the barriers keeping us apart. Their struggle inspires us all to fight for a more equal and just society. In solidarity with these workers, Rathy and Maki have decided to start a Strike Kitchen called Meals for Equality. Starting Monday, they will prepare meals for the striking workers, showing that refugees and migrants stand united with the workers. When politicians like Dutton and Albo blame refugees and migrants for problems they created, we must counter this divisive narrative.” 
This is not just a gift to the striking workers. It’s a concrete example of solidarity that in months and years to come we can throw back in the face of anyone who buys into the lie that migrants and refugees are a threat to workers in this country. This example proves the exact opposite: while one of the biggest companies in the country was trying to starve and bully striking workers back to work, refugees were on the pickets, helping to keep the strikers fed. 
This sort of industrial action, and the solidarity it inspires, is far too rare in Australia today. In the 1970s, Australian workers had one of the highest strike rates in the world. Millions of workers struck to win decent wages and conditions, and an important minority of militant, political unionists led industrial campaigns to support other workers, to preserve low-cost housing, to win equal rights for women, against the Vietnam War, for Aboriginal Land Rights and against Apartheid in South Africa. 
This tradition of industrial action was deliberately <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/node-7266">broken</a> by the Labor governments of the 1980s. The result of this defeat has been the decline in union density and living standards. Along with that, the low level of strikes had led to a breakdown in the sense of solidarity and common interest on display at the picket lines outside distribution centres right now.
It is this solidarity that, when able to develop fully, points to a new and different sort of society, one which puts ordinary people in the driver’s seat. Workers can become so used to accepting society’s injustices and atrocities because they feel deprived of the power to change it. Strikes, and the solidarity they spark, can lead in the other direction, by demonstrating in practice that workers actually do have power, and that there is an alternative to this resignation. Any serious strike shows this potential power of our side. And once conscious of this power, workers are not necessarily content to stop at a wage rise or better conditions. 
The outcome of the warehouse strikes is still in play. But it’s clear that the warehouse workers and their struggle are an inspiration, and an education, to us all.

Hope on the picket line

What’s driving Israel’s wars?

Chants of “One, two, three, fuck the ALP!” rang out across Sydney in late September as several thousand striking construction workers protested in city streets. Around 5,000 workers struck and rallied in Sydney and Brisbane. But the construction unions in Melbourne once again put the biggest crowds on the street—upwards of 25,000, according to police estimates. 
It’s just over a month since the federal Labor government appointed a barrister to take total dictatorial control over the main construction union, the CFMEU. It is the most draconian attack on a union in living memory. All elected positions in most state branches have been replaced with a single unelected administrator who has publicly committed to strict adherence to Australia’s restrictive industrial laws. 
The strikes and rallies in response, and the stationary tower cranes dotting the skyline that formed their backdrop, illustrated a fundamental truth that no amount of spin from Labor ministers or highly paid administrators can wish away: it is construction workers, not overpaid administrators, cabinet ministers or Fair Work commissioners, who keep the whole industry going—and who can stop it in an instant. 
This industrial strength is sorely needed. 
Part of Labor’s attack, via the Fair Work Commission, has been dramatically slowing the approval of new enterprise agreements (EAs) in Victoria. This has sent a signal to employers, some of whom are now clearly dragging their feet about signing and lodging these new EAs. Several thousand Victorian CFMEU members who were already getting the first 5 percent pay increase under the new pattern EA have now had those pay increases withdrawn.
Over the past two weeks, an average of just one new Victorian EA per day has appeared on the dedicated Fair Work Commission <a href="https://www.fwc.gov.au/work-conditions/enterprise-agreements/find-enterprise-agreement/cfmeu-construction-agreements">web page</a> showing new CFMEU agreements being lodged. This is a fraction of the number usually lodged as a new EA gets rolled out. 
All of this poses a serious threat to a core piece of the architecture of the CFMEU’s industrial strength: the “pattern” enterprise agreement governing the wages and conditions of tens of thousands of construction workers. Without this pattern EA in place, a “race to the bottom” could quickly take hold in the core of the commercial construction industry. 
A battle to get the EA over the line in Victoria will take various forms. 
The last serious attempt to break the pattern EA in Victoria was Daniel Grollo’s ill-fated 2002 attempt to win a non-union ballot at his Grocon company. The CFMEU organised an industry-wide publicity campaign and targeted doorknocking, CFMEU members doorknocking members in their own language. T-shirts with the slogan “I’m not Daniel’s Donkey” were a popular fashion item, off and on the job. 
The union campaign was a huge <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/grocon-workers-say-no-20021219-gduydw.html">success</a>, 75 percent of the workforce voting “no”. Renewing this sort of detailed organising work will be important to defeat any similar employer ballots this time around.
Industrial action, protected or unprotected, aimed at particular employers will also be crucial in forcing recalcitrant bosses over the line—as will further industry-wide stop-works and rallies. The chair of the Melbourne rally, Electrical Trades Union Secretary Troy Gray, got the biggest cheer of the day when he threatened to shut down the industry with a three-day strike if there were “an orchestrated, continued attack on the working conditions and the living standards of Victorian construction workers”.
The rest of us have a stake in this fight as well. 
The break-up of industry bargaining into myriad enterprise-level agreements, pioneered by Labor in the early 1990s and continued by every government since, has fragmented solidarity and allowed conditions to go backwards. 
In contrast, the CFMEU and other construction unions have been more effective than any other private sector industry in maintaining a common standard across different employers. Enforcement is often a problem. For instance, the “finishing trades” such as plastering and painting have been a basket case in Victoria since 2005, even on unionised commercial sites: many workers flying a union flag don’t actually get the union rate.
Nevertheless, the construction unions have demonstrated in practice that it is still possible, despite enormously restrictive industrial laws, to achieve the most basic union goal of taking wages and conditions out of competition by imposing a common standard across the core of an industry. This living, breathing example of effective unionism is what’s now under threat from Labor’s attack.
The government claims its attack is necessary in response to a series of media stories in recent months. These have included serious allegations of corruption and criminal gang involvement in the structure of the Victorian and NSW branches of the CFMEU. We shouldn’t fall for the government’s spin. 
As Red Flag has <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/labor-knives-out-against-cfmeu-workers-rights-on-the-chopping-block">previously noted</a>, these problems can be tackled only by a revival of union democracy: regular election and re-election of all on-site delegates, full accountability to the membership regarding any allegations (and actions taken to address them) and most importantly a revival in the industrial action and politically informed debate that are the lifeblood of any real union democracy. 
But of course, the Labor government moved in the opposite direction—<a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/labor-set-to-impose-dictatorial-powers-over-construction-union">abolishing</a>
all democratic rights for CFMEU members in five states, and appointing an unelected administrator with dictatorial powers over the union and with precisely zero obligations to report to any member. 
The only serious “crime” of the Queensland CFMEU branch in the eyes of Nick McKenzie, the main journalist who broke the stories, was <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/cfmeu-members-are-right-to-rage-but-they-re-railing-at-the-wrong-people-20240827-p5k5t9.html">failing</a>
to prevent “ugly scenes in public streets” in Brisbane. This is a reference to a picket at the crucial <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/strike-shows-stakes-for-queensland-cfmeu">Cross River Rail dispute</a> in Brisbane—probably the most important dispute in the country right now. In other words, the real “crime” in the eyes of the political establishment and their mouthpieces is effective unionism.
Whatever the public justification for Labor’s attacks, they have led directly to a growing assault on workers’ wages and conditions—especially in Victoria over the new pattern agreement. 
For decades, many union causes in Melbourne and beyond have benefited from the solidarity of construction union members. Rallies for workers’ compensation or for better industrial laws, pickets large and small for all sorts of workers—all of them have benefited when the CFMEU turned up. Without that practical solidarity, and without that living example of a union that has maintained significant industrial strength when so many have let it peter out, we’d all be that much poorer. 
It’s now our turn to show up for the CFMEU. Anyone who values effective unionism in this country has a stake in this fight.

High stakes for all workers in construction battle

“Here’s some good news”, I announce. I’m standing on a planter box outside the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, one of many hundreds of protesters jammed into an awkward corner between cops, horses and the giant conference venue.
Inside, a cabal of war practitioners and war profiteers—the military and the monetary—is meant to be settling in for an exclusive breakfast buffet, the prelude to three days of wheeling and dealing in the tools of mass killing. It’s the first morning of Land Forces, the country’s biggest get-together and money-making opportunity for the booming business of war.
Usually, the masters of war get to waltz around every part of the Earth as if they own it. But today, they have a problem: us.
To counter the planned protests, the cops have done 90 percent of our job for us by constructing a vast ring of fences around the venue. The underground car park has been closed, along with the tram route that those staying at city hotels might use. Conference participants have to guess, second guess and triple-guess the activities of the protesters to gain access. 
It’s just after 7am, and a rapidly growing crowd is determined to disrupt the conference’s opening day. We’ve already marched a couple of kilometres around the city, away from the cordon of cops and barricades at the front door, to another of the venue’s entrances.
Folks are a little hesitant at first, but we soon get ourselves organised to block the steady trickle of Land Forces participants coming through this particular gate. Police bring horses, but a row of planter boxes makes it difficult to clear the crowd.
It’s a standoff. It’s all a bit chaotic. No one really knows what’s happening or what we should be doing. It seems important to explain that this is what an effective protest looks like, so I clamber onto a planter box. The megaphone is creaky, but it does the job.
I’ve got some good news, I say. It’s just past 7am. Which means that the masters of war are supposed to be inside this venue, rubbing shoulders and gawping at tanks, settling themselves down to a profitable three days of buying and selling the tools for mass murder without a worry in the world.
Instead, they’re under siege.
This is a lot of things. Chaotic. A little confused, perhaps. But it’s definitely not business as usual for the people inside. And outside, we’re sending a message around the world that people in this town are prepared to disrupt the machine that wages war.
We’re doing great. And we’re only just getting going.
I repeat the short speech to a different section of the crowd, this time emphasising that we’re walking (literally) in the footsteps of many other protesters. Exactly 24 years ago, on 11 September 2000, tens of thousands of protesters blockaded a meeting of the World Economic Forum. The WEF is the exclusive club for the world’s billionaires and their political servants, usually held in Davos, Switzerland, but staged at the nearby Crown Casino 2000.
On the first day of these “S11” protests, the protesters were more powerful than the most powerful people on Earth—who couldn’t get into their own conference. The event continued on subsequent days, thanks to an extraordinary level of brutality from Victoria Police, urged on by Labor Premier Steve Bracks. But the protest contributed to a worldwide movement against corporate greed, which jumped from Seattle to Genoa to Melbourne to Porto Alegre and beyond. The WEF retreated to Doha, and then back to the hidey-hole in Switzerland.
Jump forward a couple of decades to 2019. Around 700 of us blockaded the front entrance of the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre—the same venue as Land Forces—to disrupt IMARC, the biggest mining and fossil fuel conference in the country. The conference went ahead, thanks to an extraordinary level of brutality from Victoria Police, urged on by Labor Premier Daniel Andrews. But civil disobedience as part of the climate movement was the talk of the town. IMARC moved cities the following year.
So even if our protest is five different sorts of chaos at any one time, that means ten different sorts of chaos for the conference participants and organisers as they try to work out what we’re doing and how to get around us. They’re relying on their drivers to get them through, but the cops have closed the car park and their limousine is stuck in traffic due to the protest. They’re expecting to get off a tram in their $10,000 suits to wander in unhindered to discuss the business of war and genocide—but the cops have blocked the tram route, so they end up lost and bewildered, wandering right through the protest. They’re usually the masters of war. Today, they have to contend with us. We should be proud that all over the world, people will see that there are thousands of us right here, stopping the “business as usual” so necessary for mass killing.
By the time I finish my speech, marshals had noticed the cops are moving to kettle us, so we were on the move. For a while, the crowd occupies one of the main intersections in the area. We try a rush one way or another but police horses are much quicker than us. Nevertheless, the mood is upbeat. No doubt plenty of Land Forces cars, buses and limousines are stuck in traffic.
I get talking to an old friend and comrade, another veteran of S11. He reminds me that years before S11, there were protests against US President George H.W. Bush, who visited Melbourne in January 1992. The Bush demo built on massive anti-war protests sparked by the US-Australian invasion of Iraq in early 1991. And just a few weeks earlier, thousands of protesters had blockaded the AIDEX arms fair in Canberra.
The police of Labor Premier Joan Kirner had turned the venue for the Bush visit—a convention centre just across the river from the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre—into an armed camp. So the protesters roamed the city. This forced George Bush’s motorcade to repeatedly change routes as more than 1,000 protesters marched, danced and finally ran around the CBD. Kirner’s cops gave us a beating with batons and horses, but we’d sent a message of resistance to the US-Australian war machine around the world.
Our reminiscences are interrupted by the crowd getting on the move again. As we return to the conference venue’s front entrance, there are probably a couple of thousand of us. Still intent on disrupting the war profiteers, a section of the crowd discovers that the sturdy-looking fence surrounding the conference venue is not so sturdy. A chunk of the fence comes down, with cops pouring out of the breach spraying everyone with OC spray and briefly separating a section of the crowd.
Meanwhile, the rest of us find an increasing number of conference attendees—military, monetary, and functionary alike—wandering around the protest area, trying to gain access to the conference.
Usually, the workings of capitalism are disguised under layer after layer of bullshit and mystification. Our rulers and their flunkies are special people, we’re told, with special skills, far beyond the comprehension of us mere mortals who do the work.
But a protest like Land Forces brings them down to earth. All of a sudden, the masters of war are up close, some aggressive but mostly bewildered, unable to function without all the protections they usually enjoy.
The more expensive the suit, and the more arrogant the attitude, the more pointed the crowd. A few of us position ourselves near one of the places where the cops let a trickle of Land Forces attendees through. It’s not often we can get in the face, or the ear, of someone actually engaged in the business of profiting from genocide.
“So, how many millions will you make from killing babies today? Or perhaps you’re more in the ‘munitions that slice up parents’ business? Ah no—got it—you’re one of those ‘loitering munitions’ people aren’t you—so you can keep counting the profits while your handiwork keeps killing.”
By this time, the cops had usually hustled the war profiteer through. The more we were doing this button-holing, the more work the cops had to do. Often enough, the cops did the blockading themselves with riot cops and horses.
By now, it is well after 9am, the official kick-off time for the giant conference. And still, hundreds, or even thousands, of delegates are clearly having a hell of a hard time even getting to the building. There is no business as usual for the usually smooth business of genocide and war.
The police use of OC spray is becoming increasingly frequent. I mainly dodge it, but need a bit cleared off my neck and face.
“Are you ok?” asks one of the medics. “Fuck. Yes. 100 percent”, I reply. “How often do we get to get in the face of, or in the ear of, someone who is organising and profiting from the business of genocide? How often do we get to send a message around the world—to Palestine and the places where the genocide is armed from—of thousands of ordinary, extraordinary, people totally wrecking the ‘business as usual’ of genocide, even for a short time?”
But most of the crowd seems to be feeling the same way. We are all standing a few inches taller. And, of course, the point isn’t just to feel good; the point is to build the power we need. The long history of civil disobedience shows that the direct action of disruption can change individuals, build movements and challenge our rulers.
Which is why the cops couldn’t just let it continue.
If there was a trigger, I didn’t see it. But the obvious bottom line was that we were succeeding way too much in disrupting the business of war, in building strength and spreading a message of hope and strength and solidarity—not just in sentiment but in the physical fact of disruption.
Rows and rows of cops filed out from behind the barricades—general duties cops, riot cops, horse cops, cops with a<a href="https://mals.au/2020/11/25/victoria-police-weapon-id-guide/"> </a><a href="https://mals.au/2020/11/25/victoria-police-weapon-id-guide/">substantial arsenal</a> including OC spray, guns (perhaps the “baton-round launcher”), and cops with grenades (perhaps the “stinger grenade”).
Then they charged.
I’ve seen the violence unleashed by the police of Labor premiers Joan Kirner, Steve Bracks and Daniel Andrews against disruptive mass protests. The cops of Liberal premiers Jeff Kennett, against protesters defending Richmond High School in 1993, and Ted Baillieu, who turned much of the city into an armed camp to crush the Occupy protests of 2011. Those moments were also milestones in police brutality against disruptive protest in this town.
But the brutality of Labor Premier Jacinta Allen’s police yesterday was something else.
Stun grenades. Plastic bullets. Oceans of OC spray. Batons. Fists. All unleashed on protesters trying to get the hell out of the way. An army of charging cops deploying the violence they judged necessary to ensure business as usual—both for the armies of war and genocide, and the army of profiteers that supply them.
We scrambled away as best we could. Pushed back a hundred metres or more, and facing overwhelming force, it was clear that the main business of the protest was done for the day. 
Of course, already, everyone was talking about what we’d achieved.
After my planter-box speeches, a couple of younger protesters asked me how the day’s rally compared with the S11 protests of 24 years earlier.
S11 caught the rising wave of a global movement. We couldn’t control the timing of Land Forces. Perhaps if the masters of war had gathered in November or December last year, we could have got more protesters.
Regardless, that we put thousands on the streets despite an extraordinary media campaign against us, and despite the public threat of a police riot, is a testament to the organising groups and to everyone who turned up. We were easily twice or three times the crowd that had disrupted the fossil fuel profiteers at the same venue in 2019.
Despite an army of cops unleashed by Victoria’s Labor government, despite media lies and a string of defamatory articles—despite everything, the masters of war had to contend with mass, disruptive opposition to their agenda and their activities.
These are meant to be some of the most powerful people on Earth. On many days, they are. But on the streets around the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, thousands of us demonstrated in practice—to the world and to ourselves—that their “business as usual” can be challenged and derailed. That’s a win that can never be taken from us, and one that we can build on in the weeks, months and years to come.

Inside the Land Forces protest

Worldwide, <a href="https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2024/global-military-spending-surges-amid-war-rising-tensions-and-insecurity">military spending</a> hit a record US$2.4 trillion last year. If our rulers were serious about ending world hunger, just over a tenth of this amount could <a href="https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/stories/how-much-money-would-it-take-to-end-world-hunger/">do the job</a>, spent over a decade. If our rulers were serious about tackling climate change, this sort of money could have had us well on the way to solving the problem already. 
But instead, our rulers are serious about war—so we get Land Forces. 
Do you want a target for rifle practice depicting an armed man wearing a keffiyeh, the Palestinian scarf? Get to Land Forces, where <a href="https://aal-manual-prod.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Production/exb_doc/397/2202/nDR7Uz34OscY1663677172pdf.pdf">GlowShot Targets</a> should have one in stock. (GlowShot was on the <a href="https://exhibitors.landforces.com.au/land-forces-2022/Exhibitor/ExbDetails/NDM0?&amp;c=SXNyYWVs">2022 exhibitor list</a>—the organisers are a little shy about publishing this year’s list.)
If you want to buy the Rafael Spike missile, which <a href="https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2024/04/02/strike-that-killed-world-central-kitchen-workers-bears-hallmarks-of-israeli-precision-strike/">most probably</a> killed Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom in Gaza this year, head to Land Forces. The 2022 exhibitor list linked directly to Rafael’s promotional material, which <a href="https://aal-manual-prod.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Production/exb_doc/397/2594/yIECWowJKf5B1661958613pdf.pdf">boasts</a> (as many Israel-based weapons companies do) that their products are “combat proven”. On aid workers, among many others.
If you want to buy the Elbit Hermes drone, which <a href="https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/04/04/zomi-frankcom-elbit-systems-airstrike-drone-900-million/">most probably</a> fired the Spike missiles into three successive cars until Zomi Frankcom and all her six aid worker colleagues were dead, you can talk it over with the Elbit rep at Land Forces. 
While you’re there, you can hang out with reps from Lockheed Martin, which manufactures the F-35 planes that Israel uses; HTA, whose co-CEO Karen Stanton is a <a href="https://www.3cr.org.au/fridayrave/episode/friday-rave-9-feb-2024-more-hta">key link</a> in the Australian F-35 supply chain; and General Dynamics, which manufactures the 2,000-pound bombs the F-35s often drop on the people of Gaza. 
Of course, you won’t find the survivors of these attacks at Land Forces. There will be no stall where you can talk with <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/protest-target-melbourne-weapons-manufacturer">Suleiman Salman al-Najjar</a>
about the 24 family members he lost, killed by a 2,000-pound bomb dropped on his home (most likely) by an Israeli F-35 in October 2023. Nor will medic <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/dozens-killed-israeli-strikes-displaced-people-khan-younis">Mohammed Al Khatib</a> be there, talking about treating the victims of three 2,000-pound bombs dropped by Israeli F-35s on the supposed “humanitarian zone” of al-Mawasi in the central Gaza strip in mid-July. And Umm Mahmoud will not be there to recount an almost identical Israeli bombing raid on al-Mawasi <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/al-mawasi-attack-people-were-torn-pieces-most-them-women-and-children">just this week</a>—10 September 2024—where her neighbours “were torn into pieces, most of them women and children”. 
Israel’s war in Gaza, with all its genocidal carnage, is being fought for <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/australia-israel-and-us-imperialism-explaining-bloody-embrace">profit and power</a>. And the profit and power to be gained from that war, and from supplying the means to fight that war, outweigh the horror and heartbreak endured by the family of Zomi Frankcom, Suleiman Salman al-Najjar, Mohammed Al Khatib, and Umm Mahmoud—along with the millions of Palestinians whose lives have been scarred or destroyed forever by the current genocide. 
This week, the release of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide final report prompted former soldier Kat Rae to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/radionational-breakfast/families-respond-to-veteran-suicide-royal-commission/104329802">reflect</a> on Radio National about how well the “military-industrial complex” had done out of the wars of the past twenty years. Meanwhile, the help provided by Veteran’s Affairs to her husband Steve (also a former soldier) to deal with crippling back pain was a $7 per fortnight prescription. This was cut to $5 and then cut altogether just two weeks before Steve took his own life. 
And the costs of war, the costs of the preparation for war, the costs of a society geared increasingly to war, spread far beyond those who are killed under the bombs or die later from the aftereffects. Our government can find $368 billion for nuclear-powered submarines—some of the most sophisticated killing machines so far devised—but claims it can’t afford to fund schools and hospitals properly.
And then there’s the nuclear weapons. Land Forces participants Lockheed Martin, Thales and BAE are on the <a href="https://www.dontbankonthebomb.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Producers.pdf">select list</a> of companies that make the most destructive weapons known to humanity.
All of this is meant to be normal. The monstrous, mundane. 
And usually, the masters of war get away with it. Usually, they’re able to conduct their brutal business as if it’s entirely divorced from the human slaughter and the sickening waste of human capacities that the arms trade represents.
Earlier this year, the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz described the scene at the Singapore Airshow, the biggest and most important arms trade show in Asia. “The Gaza war”, <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-04-05/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/at-singapore-airshow-the-gaza-war-was-a-selling-point-for-israeli-weapon-manufacturers/0000018e-aa7f-dc75-afde-faff383b0000?dicbo%3Dv2-dyCUtCK%26utm_source%3Dtraffic.outbrain.com%26utm_medium%3Dreferrer%26utm_campaign%3Doutbrain_organic&amp;sa=D&amp;source=docs&amp;ust=1726092009666407&amp;usg=AOvVaw1LvBTAXcSUkfktO7QsMXp6">Ha’aretz reported</a>, “was a selling point for Israeli arms makers”. It described how “the Asian clients took an interest in systems that have proved themselves on the battlefield, and the efficacy of the Israeli weaponry showcased here was backed up by evidence fresh from the battlefields in Gaza and Lebanon. Some of the buyers were eyeing defense systems that have intercepted thousands of missiles, while others were drawn to attack drones and tiny, advanced loitering munitions”.
Thanks to the thousands of protestors who have taken to the streets of Melbourne this week, media reports from Land Forces will be very different. Although the mainstream media will attempt to denigrate the protesters and sanitise war, they will not be able to hide that there is mass resistance to one of the great obscenities of capitalism—the trade in the weapons of war and genocide—as our rulers gear up for yet another brutal redivision of the world for profit and power. 
And just as importantly: for many of the protestors, this will be an important experience of ordinary (extraordinary) people making their voices heard, in a world designed to leave us silent and powerless. The protests are one step among the many needed to retake our world, from the warmongers and profiteers who currently treat it as theirs to exploit and destroy.

Why we’re right to disrupt Land Forces

Around the country, tens of thousands of the workers who build, tear down and rebuild our cities were out in the streets on 27 August. For a few hours, the workers who make our cities brought them to a halt. 
The protests were in response to the federal government’s extraordinary announcement on 23 August that 281 office-bearers of the Construction and General Division of the CFMEU would be removed from their elected positions, and all of the union’s legal powers handed over to an administrator. 
So, from 8:30am that day, a barrister with zero industry experience on a salary of $640,000 (plus allowances) is the main construction union, legally speaking. As previously <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/labor-set-to-impose-dictatorial-powers-over-construction-union">detailed</a> in Red Flag, the administrator is empowered to sack organisers, dismiss delegates, dispose of property, rewrite the rules and expel members—all while being fully indemnified against any finding of wrongdoing, and with precisely zero accountability to any member of the union.
This draconian, anti-democratic move got the response it deserved on Tuesday: tens of thousands of construction workers shutting down worksites and taking to the streets in defence of their union, their democratic rights and their conditions. It’s a fight in which the whole working class has a stake.
Melbourne saw a colossal march, estimated by police at 50,000. There were big contingents from both city and suburban jobs, and from the other construction unions (Electrical Trades, Plumbers, Manufacturing Workers). Members of the Rail Tram and Bus Union, the Firefighters and the Maritime Union were also visible.
Former Builders Labourers’ Federation and CFMEU official Ralph Edwards spoke to the crowd about the charge of “illegal industrial action”. The media, the administrator and the Labor government have recited this accusation—both as a justification for imposing a government-appointed administrator and as a threat against anyone stopping work for the protests. 
“We have been accused of illegal industrial action”, Edwards said: “Make no mistake—I plead guilty!” Edwards took us through a quick history of “illegal industrial action”, encompassing the “stop work to stop the war” protests against the Vietnam War, strikes to save Medicare and strikes and rallies to win safety and dignity on the job.
The new Victorian enterprise agreement was a recurring theme. Some companies that had previously indicated they would sign now seem to be getting cold feet, emboldened by the government’s moves against the CFMEU. This jeopardises the 5 percent annual pay rise written into the agreement, as well as crucial clauses that had been ruled as “prohibited content” under the previous Liberal government (for instance, clauses mandating consultation with the union over the use of sub-contractors). ETU secretary Troy Gray stressed the importance of “Campaign 1,000” to get a thousand Victorian companies signed on to the CFMEU agreement in the coming year. 
In Brisbane, around 12,000 construction workers and supporters rallied in the city centre. There was plenty of feeling against Labor, with one widely-shared placard comparing Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to Hitler.
Along with Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather and speakers from the Maritime Union and the Rail Tram and Bus Union (and a well-received speech from Socialist Alternative’s Ella Gutteridge), the Brisbane rally was addressed by a striking worker from the Cross River Rail project. These workers are heroes. They are <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/strike-shows-stakes-for-queensland-cfmeu">seven weeks into a strike</a>
for a CFMEU agreement that would dramatically lift wages, conditions and safety compared to the miserable, loophole-filled enterprise agreement signed by the Australian Workers Union on this major project. There was one death and dozens of hospitalisations on this job last summer due to a woefully inadequate heat policy agreed by the AWU. 
This important dispute seems to be the only supposed “crime” that the Queensland branch of the CFMEU is accused of. That striking and picketing have been used to justify the imposition of an unelected administrator on the Queensland branch is telling. It shows that the CFMEU is being targeted at least as much for being industrially effective as it is for allegedly harbouring criminal gangs.
In Sydney, well over 10,000 construction workers staged a spirited, rowdy rally outside the state parliament, chanting against Labor and Albanese and intermittently surging towards the parliament building. In Canberra, a smaller crowd of 300 heard from BLF veteran and CFMEU delegate <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/C_KkIJkBPv_/?igsh=czFidjk2N2VuY295">Dusty Miller</a>, voting unanimously for his motion to disaffiliate the union from Labor. In Adelaide, around 1,000 heard from CFMEU and other union speakers (and booed as a list of unions not in attendance was read out). In Perth, a crowd of several thousand marched the length of the CBD after hearing from a string of rank-and-file construction workers. 
“The only way out is through”, observed Edwards at one point in his speech in Melbourne. Yesterday’s rallies were a terrific show of strength and of fighting spirit. Plenty more will be needed over the coming months (and years) if construction workers are to avoid the federal administration becoming a trash fire for their wages, conditions and industrial strength. 
So what’s next? Federal and state Labor governments have pulled the trigger on the most dramatic attack on a union in decades. And if anything, Labor seems keen to double down on the politics of CFMEU-bashing ahead of the next election. Labor has <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/labor-smacks-greens-for-grandstanding-at-cfmeu-anti-albanese-protest-20240827-p5k5u3.html">reacted</a> with fury to the Greens’ defence of the CFMEU, Workplace Relations Minister Murray Watt attacking Max Chandler Mather’s correct observation that Labor’s attack on the CFMEU is “an attack not just on construction workers but on every worker in this country because Labor has set a dangerous precedent”.
One placard in Brisbane compared the government’s actions to one of the most notorious anti-union figures in the English-speaking world, declaring, “Thatcher would be proud”. As if revelling in the scorn of unionised workers, Albanese used an afternoon press conference to rehash one of Thatcher’s most famous anti-union <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_lady%27s_not_for_turning">lines</a>—declaring that “the government is not for turning”. Albanese clearly believes that adopting the role of head-kicker of working-class people and their organisations is clever politics. There’s no comfort for workers in Labor.
Then there are the administrators. The government has been careful to appoint supposedly “union-friendly” administrators. But what kind of unionism are they “friendly” towards? 
The Victorian administrator is former National Tertiary Education Union secretary Grahame McCulloch, notorious for talking left while acting right. One typical example from his decades-long CV as a union official was one of his last efforts, in 2018, when he rammed through a new enterprise agreement at Murdoch University in West Australia. 
McCulloch’s deal at Murdoch resulted in <a href="https://redflag.org.au/node/6263">serious losses</a> on workload, lower redundancy payouts, weaker misconduct clauses, reduced facilities for casuals, weaker clauses governing conversion to ongoing, the loss of “reasonable time” for union delegates, weaker controls management changing employment policies, plus a sub-inflation pay rise. None of this stopped McCulloch’s team <a href="https://securejobs.nteu.org.au/article/Win-for-union-and-staff-at-Murdoch-University-20499">declaring</a> it a “win”. With “union-friendly” administrators like this, any effective union is likely to soon be in serious trouble.
Federal administrator Mark Irving, being a lawyer rather than a union official, hasn’t signed off on such appalling enterprise agreements. But Irving’s stated commitment to ensuring that the CFMEU operates within the narrow limits of Labor’s Fair Work Act—one of the most restrictive anti-strike legal regimes in the world—means a much less effective and democratic union. 
Real union democracy is based on workers having the freedom to debate and act on the most important thing a union can do—withhold labour. It is based on a revival of industrial action, not ever-tighter restrictions on it. This is a vital part of ridding any union of corruption and criminal associations. 
As Red Flag
has <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/labor-knives-out-against-cfmeu-workers-rights-on-the-chopping-block">previously argued</a>, not all the allegations of ruthless capitalist gangs (i.e. criminal outfits) occupying union positions in the CFMEU can be easily dismissed. CFMEU national secretary Zach Smith and many others have acknowledged this. But meekly submitting to unjust, anti-democratic restrictions on the right to strike imposed by a high-paid lawyer on $600,000 is pointing in the exact opposite direction to what’s needed for any real cleaning of the house. 
The proof of this is the Health Services Union. One of the main claims to fame of federal administrator Mark Irving is his work clearing corrupt officials out of the HSU a bit over a decade ago. But this did nothing ato challenge the union’s passive industrial practice and, therefore, did nothing to revive any real democracy. So it’s no surprise to find that the HSU today is once again facing serious allegations of corruption, to the tune of several million dollars. 
What about the bosses? Some are champing at the bit to take advantage of Labor’s attack on the union, to start carving up union power and union-won conditions. The day after federal Labor put the CFMEU into administration, the front page of the Australian Financial Review celebrated with the headline: “CFMEU neutered”. Inside, long-time building industry bosses <a href="https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/workplace/cfmeu-s-administration-orders-biggest-event-in-construction-since-1986-20240823-p5k4wl">celebrated</a>: “I saw the BLF deregistered in 1986—this pales to nothing in comparison to the impact of this”, declared one. Another executive hailed “an extraordinary juncture ... we’ve been living in darkness for years and now there seems to be some light”.
Interestingly, though, some construction industry bosses seem hesitant to take advantage of this coming-of-the-light courtesy of Labor. In mid-August, the Australian Financial Review carried a sharp <a href="https://www.afr.com/chanticleer/the-cfmeu-s-real-secret-following-the-money-20240813-p5k20q">analysis</a> by columnist James Thomson, pointing out that, regardless of any legislation, the state of the industry gives the CFMEU a lot of leverage: “With interest costs as high as they’ve been in 13 years, with labour shortages rife across the construction sector, and with large swathes of the east coast property industry still in catch-up mode after two years of bad weather, the costs associated with holding a delayed project are as high as they’ve been in a generation”. 
Constant delays to projects can be disastrous, especially among smaller and mid-sized building companies that rely on debt to finance their next project and on progress payments throughout the project to pay off that debt. When federal and state Labor governments deregistered the BLF in 1986, they had to pay billions of dollars to compensate construction companies hit by industrial disruptions, especially in Victoria, where the BLF survived for years as a rebel union. There is no such cash offer this time around. 
So some builders and developers with long memories (Thomson focuses on Sydney-based apartment developer Mirvac, which has recently signed on to the new NSW CFMEU pattern agreement) will recognise that the union still has the potential to cause them serious damage. This incentivises these companies not to go for the union’s jugular—for instance, by trying to cancel or vary enterprise agreements—as long as the CFMEU can demonstrate enough industrial strength to delay major projects. 
This somewhat cautious approach by some bosses is reflected in the half-way-house approach of several industry executives who <a href="https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/workplace/builders-move-to-take-on-wounded-cfmeu-20240821-p5k420">said</a> in late August that they plan to vary their enterprise agreements with the CFMEU. Their key target isn’t so much the wages and conditions in the agreement, though. Instead, they want to scrap the contracting clause, which requires lead contractors to only sign up sub-contractors who also pay the CFMEU-negotiated rates. 
This approach will be especially attractive to employers in civil construction (i.e., roads, rail and tunnels rather than apartments, office buildings and shopping centres), as it would allow most of the work to be done on typically cut-price terms agreed by the AWU. This is one of the crucial issues at stake in the major dispute at Brisbane’s Cross River Rail project.
To cut a long story short: construction industry employers will have to consider how much disruption they will cop if they move to terminate, vary or renegotiate enterprise agreements, or if they try to cut out the CFMEU altogether. CFMEU members and officials have plenty of cards to play in this respect. So despite the federal government and its highly-paid flunkies, construction workers still have the potential to shape the outcomes of federal administration through their industrial strength. 
Yesterday’s protests were a vital and encouraging first blow by construction workers. Plenty more will be needed. This includes all of the factors present in yesterday’s terrific protests—legally protected industrial action like the Cross River Rail dispute, unprotected (“illegal”) industrial action like yesterday’s stoppage, and political damage for Labor as a result of its disgraceful attack on the CFMEU.

Construction workers come out fighting against Labor

Any dictator would be proud.
Labor is set to ram through legislation to fast-track a court-ordered administration of the CFMEU, the main construction industry union. <a href="https://www.fedcourt.gov.au/services/access-to-files-and-transcripts/online-files/fwc-v-cfmeu">Court documents</a> show that if the order takes effect, 268 elected office-bearers of the union, from state branch secretaries to branch committee members, would be dismissed and replaced by a single unelected administrator unaccountable to any of the union’s members. 
In practice, the administrator would legally become the union—federally and in every state and territory except Western Australia and the ACT.
From Darwin to Hobart, all union property in the “possession, custody or power” of any of the 268 dismissed union office bearers would have to be handed over to the administrator. This includes “without limitation” items belonging to the union such as “cars, building/security passes, credit cards, devices such as mobile phones and laptops, passwords or other access requirements for email accounts, social media accounts or other communication channels”. The dismissed office bearers would also be ordered to give the administrator “any documents” related to “the affairs of the CFMEU”. 
Large sections of the union’s rule book would be declared void, and the administrator could expel anyone for up to four years.
Union employees such as organisers and office staff would initially retain their jobs. However, the administrator would have the power to sack anyone at any point. Elected officials such as state secretaries and other executive members would have their paid positions terminated as soon as the administration starts. 
Meanwhile, the administrator would draw a salary from the CFMEU “at the rate of remuneration payable to a Vice President of the Fair Work Commission”—<a href="https://www.remtribunal.gov.auhttps://cms.redflag.org.au/sites/default/files/2024-06/FTOH%20-%20RT%20Principal%20determination%202024.PDF">$643,640 per year</a>, plus travel and allowances. The administrator could appoint a limitless number of assistants, also paid for by union members. And the administrator is indemnified in advance for any claim arising from their conduct during the administration.
These are extraordinary powers. They go far beyond the measures taken by federal and state Labor governments to smash the Builders Labourers’ Federation in 1986, part of Labor’s strategy to impose class collaboration on the Australian trade union movement.
On that occasion, despite its deregistration, the Victorian branch of the BLF was able to maintain its structures, operate out of its building, hire organisers and pay officials. That continuity—and substantial support from labourers on the job—enabled the union to survive as an unregistered rebel union in Victoria. The BLF fought some major disputes until it eventually merged into the CFMEU in 1993. As the federal government and various media commentators have noted, the appointment of an administrator is designed to prevent any such possibility today.
At least as appalling as the powers given to the administrator are the purposes to which these powers would be put. 
Any decent unionist should see the presence of organised criminal gangs (who operate as ruthless capitalists, after all) as a red line. As Red Flag has <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/labor-knives-out-against-cfmeu-workers-rights-on-the-chopping-block">previously discussed</a>, regular election of delegates, full accountability to the membership about any removal of organisers or other office bearers, and a revival of organising and industrial action are crucial to establishing the sort of union democracy that would empower the rank and file to clean house.
The proposed administration of the CFMEU does none of these things. In fact, it does the opposite. The way to renew democratic norms in the union is not to abolish democracy altogether and hand power to a state-appointed administrator. If we take the Fair Work Commission’s statements and legal documents at face value, administration will dramatically weaken the CFMEU’s industrial effectiveness.
This is all supposedly about ensuring that the CFMEU is “enabled to function effectively”. The court documents abound with platitudes about “efficient management”, “high standards of accountability of organisations and their office holders to their members”, and “democratic functioning and control of organisations”.
But the remit of the administrator goes far beyond weeding out corruption or organised criminal gangs. The administrator is empowered to “establish and implement policies” to ensure the union “will be able to operate lawfully and effectively”. We get a clue about what these policies might be by looking at the list of “important facts giving rise to the claim” laid out by the manager of the Fair Work Commission in their application to the Federal Court. 
First on this list is that, since 2003, there have been 213 proceedings against the CFMEU for allegedly breaking federal workplace laws. Those proceedings have resulted in 2,600 “adverse findings” against the union and its members—and $28 million in penalties. 
It’s a scandal that these fines were levied in the first place. Many of the charges stemmed from the union’s officials walking onto building sites without giving notice to the boss—and inspecting sites, not just sitting in whatever designated area a boss tried to confine them to. 
Many fines were levied for routine industrial action that is part and parcel of winning and keeping any gains. For instance, $242,000 for disrupting a concrete pour in Melbourne in 2017, a disruption that lasted “about 10 minutes”, according to the Federal Court <a href="https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2017/1555.html">judgement</a>. Contrast that with the $50,000 a Melbourne concrete pumping company was <a href="https://www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/news/2024-06/50000-fine-after-fatal-boom-pump-failure">fined</a> last year after neglecting proper equipment inspections, which resulted in a workplace death.
Further down the list of Fair Work’s “important facts giving rise to the claim” are these two allegations: “threatening that construction industry participants that did not have enterprise agreements with the CFMEU would be banned from building projects”, and “threatening to close down projects unless particular construction industry participants were removed from the project”.
In other words, the aim is to penalise the CFMEU for doing the absolute basics of unionism: ensuring the union rate on the whole job and preventing contractors who undermine this from getting the work. 
“These sheep will be shorn union, or they won’t be shorn at all” is a line from one of the best-known celebrations of the 1891 shearers’ strike. The Fair Work Commission and the Labor Party seem to want to rewrite it: “These sheep might be shorn union, but heaven forbid that anyone actually tries to enforce the union rate”. 
This might matter most in civil construction. The CFMEU in Victoria has long ignored the Australian Workers’ Union’s claim to exclusive coverage on roads, tunnels and rail projects. To the credit of the CFMEU in NSW and Queensland, the union is also fighting for coverage on civil projects in those states. 
The stakes are high. A quick comparison of the <a href="https://www.fwc.gov.au/document-search/view/3/aHR0cHM6Ly9zYXNyY2RhdGFwcmRhdWVhYS5ibG9iLmNvcmUud2luZG93cy5uZXQvZW50ZXJwcmlzZWFncmVlbWVudHMvMjAyNC8zL2FlNTIzODc4LnBkZg2?sid=&amp;q=lendlease%24%24civil%24%24queensland">enterprise agreement</a> struck by the CFMEU Queensland branch with Lend Lease for civil construction in March, and the <a href="https://www.fwc.gov.au/document-search/view/3/aHR0cHM6Ly9zYXNyY2RhdGFwcmRhdWVhYS5ibG9iLmNvcmUud2luZG93cy5uZXQvZW50ZXJwcmlzZWFncmVlbWVudHMvMjAxOS8xMC9hZTUwNTc0OS5wZGY1?sid=&amp;q=cpb%24%24cross%24%24river">miserable deal</a> that the AWU signed with the Brisbane Cross River Rail contractor CPB in 2019, shows a stark difference. Shift work gets double time in the CFMEU deal (versus a 50 percent loading in the AWU deal); there’s a 1:5 apprentice ratio (versus no enforceable commitment to apprentice employment); there must be women’s toilets on site (versus no commitment); union inductions (versus an explicit prohibition on union inductions); and a matter of life and death—a detailed heat policy (versus no enforceable procedure in the AWU/ CPB enterprise agreement). 
That the Queensland branch of the CFMEU has been included in Albanese’s proposed administration is one indicator of what a vicious and undemocratic assault Labor is carrying out. The allegations of criminal gangs having influence in the CFMEU are centred overwhelmingly in Victoria and New South Wales. The main “crime” of the CFMEU in Queensland seems to be pursuing a vigorous <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/strike-shows-stakes-for-queensland-cfmeu">industrial campaign of strikes and pickets</a>, which should be supported by all unionists. 
If anyone needed proof, the court documents show that the proposed administration of the CFMEU is the enemy of union democracy and industrial action. This means it can’t get to the root of the corruption and criminal activity that the administration claims to address. This attack is designed to deal a serious blow against the idea that unions should fight for their members’ interests through strikes, pickets, and, on occasion, defying unjust anti-union laws.

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