“Mum, someone is going to get killed on that worksite … they’re hell reckless Mum. No one wears a harness.” This was how Regan Ballantine recalled a conversation with her 17-year-old son, Wesley, days before he fell 12 metres to his death while installing a glass ceiling at work. 
Photos Wesley took of the construction site where he worked in central Perth show a tragedy waiting to happen. In one, a narrow beam is being used as a platform with no scaffolding or harnesses.
As the recent Western Australian hearings of the Senate inquiry into industrial deaths have demonstrated, Wesley’s death was not an isolated incident. Western Australia is the only state where the workplace death rate has risen over the last five years, from 1.5 to 1.7 deaths per 100,000 employees. 
In April this year Robert Cunico was working at a waste water treatment plant when he was struck and killed by a pipe that broke free when it was filled with compressed air.
In 2016, German backpacker Marianka Heumann fell 13 stories down an elevator shaft on a Perth construction site while working without a harness.
In 2015, Irish backpackers Gerard Bradley and Joseph McDermott were standing outside work in East Perth when they were fatally injured by unsecured 3-ton concrete tilt-up panels that fell from a trailer. The transport company responsible for the panels was fined just $160,000. Jaxon Construction, responsible for the site, was not fined. 
In the preceding months, a worker on the Jaxon site lost the tip of their finger, and a piece of scaffolding fell six storeys onto the roof of a nearby restaurant. Jaxon repeatedly denied the CFMEU access to the site.
In 2007 Luke Murrie, 22, was helping to assemble a crane when he was crushed to death by 375kg of equipment. The company and directors were fined $125,000.
The construction union (now the CFMMEU) and the families of the victims of workplace deaths are calling for industrial manslaughter laws that jail bosses for killing a worker to be adopted in Western Australia. 
There is no question that it is corner-cutting to save money and maximise profits on the part of construction bosses which leads to unsafe conditions. 
As state secretary of the CFMMEU, Mick Buchan, has put it: “Companies are systematically, knowingly and deliberately underquoting on projects to secure tenders knowing full well that they will never, ever be able to recoup their investment without the extreme corner-cutting and price gouging that critically undermines basic workplace safety. Safety costs money. And it’s a cost that companies have decided they don’t want to pay”.
The widespread use of casual workers and labour hire in construction, one of Australia’s most dangerous industries, means many workers are reluctant to speak up about safety out of fear that they won’t have a shift the next day. 
Added to this, safety officers are often appointed by management rather than elected by the workers, a product of the weakening of unions on construction sites. This makes it easier for management to victimise workers who raise safety concerns. 
And the punishment for killing a worker due to an unsafe building site is little more than loose change for multi-million dollar construction companies.
Rather than punishing bosses whose morally bankrupt business model costs lives, the Liberal government has done everything in its power to criminalise unions that stand up for safety. Most recently Scott Morrison threatened to deregister the CFMMEU over a tweet. 
Union power needs to be defended and rebuilt so workers can better stand up against bosses who treat them as disposable commodities and so that further deaths can be prevented.

Lewis Todman

WA bosses getting away with murder

Workers feeling the sharp end of employer attacks on wages and conditions are doing it tough this Christmas. Coal miners at Oaky North in Queensland have been locked out since July. Workers at Esso’s Longford gas plant near Sale, Victoria, have been on strike since June, and maintenance workers at the Griffin coal mine in Collie, Western Australia, have been out since August. All are trying to defend hard-won entitlements.
Red Flag spoke to Collie maintenance workers, members of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), a few days before Christmas. Like most coal mining towns, Collie has a strong union tradition. When we arrived to find the picket empty, we asked the nearest group of people wearing hi-vis for help. They turned out to be unionists who worked at a local power plant.
“We’re all socialists here”, said the first person we spoke to, who gave us a beer each and called everyone he knew to get us in touch with the strikers. Soon, we were sitting down with a group of Griffin maintenance workers in the office of the local Labor MLA, himself a former coal worker.
The cause of the strike was the company’s decision to terminate its enterprise agreement in June 2016. The maintenance workers’ contract reverted to the award minimum, meaning an immediate 43 percent pay cut on a per-hour basis, and loss of entitlements. But even this wasn’t enough for Griffin.
“We believe the company has been manipulating the award”, said one striker. “One blatant one was they didn’t recognise Christmas Day and ANZAC day as public holidays.” Griffin also refused to pay sick leave on Sundays, demanded an unreasonable amount of overtime, and implemented a new family-unfriendly roster.
“It was evil. They’d done their best to make it as mean as possible.”
After a year on the award, with Griffin management showing no sign of wanting to negotiate a new agreement, the maintenance workers voted to walk out the gate to demand a new contract.
They were feeling the strain at Christmas after months without pay.
“I guess it’s a bit emotional for a lot of people now that it’s Christmas and perhaps you can’t do what you did with your family or for your kids or for others”, said one maintenance worker.
“Financially we’re hamstrung”, said another. “The guys that have got a big mortgage, kids and all that sort of thing, it does take its toll. You definitely tighten the purse strings for when its Christmas time.”
Donations from other unions and the community have kept them going, with two unions bringing Christmas presents for school-age kids from the affected families.
The strike is now the longest in Western Australian coal mining history, a record the maintenance workers never intended to set.
“Even we wouldn’t have expected to be here for this long. But they’re more than happy to string it out. They would love us to crumble.” Another chimed in: “You get the feeling that they’re trying to starve us out”.
For Griffin, the dispute seems to have become as much about teaching the unionists a lesson as it is about the money. In November, the company pulled its own offer from the table when the parties were close to reaching an agreement. The maintenance workers have been replaced with scab contractors paid more than what the strikers are asking, and Griffin has spent a fortune on legal fees. All this while the company says the strikers’ demands are unaffordable. One worker summed up Griffin’s attitude:
“Since we’ve been so strong and our camaraderie’s been really good, because they haven’t been able to break us and we’ve still been together, I think it’s a personal vendetta … to make sure they get the job done by ultimately smashing us … You just sort of get the idea that because we’ve said no to ’em on every turn and we just want that little bit of a better deal, now they’ve made it personal and they’re just out there to punish us.”
Everyone we spoke to expressed frustration at the rigged industrial laws. The picketers are not attempting to blockade the mine or stop production. Fair Work has threatened massive fines if they do.
“They can impose a loss on us but we can’t impose a loss on them … Fair Work doesn’t work”, was how one striker summed it up. “If only we could turn the power off for a week”, said another. “Imagine that! I’m sure somebody would ring!”
Despite the hardship, there is determination. The Collie strikers know that they are part of a nation-wide battle to maintain hard-won rights. Their message for the strikers at Esso and Oaky North was simple: “Stick together, stay strong … We’re really proud that they can stick together. And actually it gives us good morale too to keep on going”.
Red Flag also visited the picket line outside Esso’s Longford gas plant in Victoria. The workers there, also members of the AMWU, walked out in June over a new contract that offered a 30 percent pay cut. They also lost their roster arrangements of one week on, one week off and faced two, three or even four weeks in a row at the whim of management.
“This fight goes well beyond our own self-interests”, said Malcolm, an AMWU delegate at Esso, speaking of the fight to maintain wages and conditions across the country. “Basically, our resolve is so strong because we are in the right; we won’t succumb to their bullying and intimidation.”
The Esso strikers’ resolve is impressive, with pickets continuing without breaks over Christmas and New Year’s. “It’s so rewarding to be able to stand together with everyone and fight for our rights, even at Christmas”, said Malcolm. “It’s a comfort in itself to know that what we’re fighting for is a better place.”
The workers at Esso have also come face to face with the rigged industrial laws. Not only could they face fines if scabs were blocked from the workplace, but Fair Work has threatened them for simply raising their voices. On 21 December, a court injunction banned the workers from using a megaphone or derogatory language towards scabs.
About 20 workers have also received letters banning them from any property owned by Exxon-Mobil (Esso is the Australian affiliate of Exxon-Mobil), effectively blacklisting them from future work with Esso. This comes after 24/7 surveillance of the picket line by the company.
One Esso worker said his dad was arrested three times in a past dispute for lying on the road to stop scabs from crossing a picket line. “That’s why we’re out here”, he said. “Everything we have, someone’s old man got arrested for. We can’t just give it up – it wouldn’t be right.”
-----
To help out the workers at Oaky North, Collie and Gippsland, chip in to the Union families appeal: <a href="https://www.australianunions.org.au/union_families" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.australianunions.org.au/union_families</a>.

Nick Reich

Christmas on the picket line

Students at Edith Cowan University are challenging a ban on politics on campus. Currently, the student guild at ECU prohibits the formation of political clubs, denying students any avenue for free expression or political activism on campus.
Student Tom Freenan explains how the ban works: “I can’t hand out leaflets, set up a table to get petitions signed or hold conversations with like-minded students on campus”.
“What we are talking about here are basic democratic rights to publicly organise, assemble and express ideas. The ban on political clubs appears to be a way of the guild censoring potential political competition”, he said.
When questioned about it, guild president Lewis Price told free speech advocates he didn’t want student guild elections to be contested by political factions.
The ECU ban is part of a worrying national trend in which university administrations increasingly seek to limit political expression on campus, outside the stifling confines of tutorial discussions. But on most campuses, activists can find a way around restrictions through their elected student representative bodies.
At ECU, students leafletting for same-sex marriage rights were shut down by security at the start of the semester. “Security threatened to call police and told us we need to start a guild-affiliated club if we wanted to leaflet on campus”, Equal Love WA activist Clare Francis told Red Flag. “The only catch? ECU student guild doesn’t allow political clubs.”
Students are demanding that the ECU student guild change its policy disallowing the affiliation of political student clubs.

Free speech banned at Edith Cowan University

Last Saturday I prepared to give a speech about political censorship to a peaceful Perth protest against Israel’s massacre in Gaza. Barely were the words “Israel’s supporters are determined to silence criticism” out of my mouth, when a supporter of Israel lumbered towards me, shoving protesters out of the way. “You’re full of shit!” he shouted repeatedly, as he attempted to wrench the megaphone from my hands. The timing was impeccable.
As Israel’s actions become harder to justify, its supporters are moved to greater lengths to silence criticism. The previous week WA Police blocked us from marching to the end of the mall.
At the University of Western Australia, Socialist Alternative has come under sustained attack for our opposition to Israeli war crimes.
The UWA Socialist Alternative Club had decided to hold a meeting entitled “Why Israel is a terrorist state”. After initially approving the meeting poster, the Student Guild sent an email suggesting that we change the title to “something like ‘Meeting to discuss the Israel-Palestine conflict’.”
On the day of the meeting, we received another email informing us that all posters advertising the meeting had been removed from Guild property.
The Guild has previously approved – and defended –posters featuring former members of the Israeli Defence Force, the organisation which has just killed more than 1,900 Palestinians.
Not content with silencing discussions about Israel’s war crimes, the Guild has embarked on a witch-hunt against Socialist Alternative that would make Joe McCarthy proud. On 13 August, we received an email from the Guild secretary informing us that our “club privileges” had been “suspended”. Those “privileges” include our right to put up posters in Guild areas, access funding and hire Guild rooms to hold meetings. These actions are in blatant violation of the Guild’s regulations.
The allegations justifying these measures are a mixture of right wing opinion (“a student taking offence at the UWA Socialist Alternative Club’s t-shirts with ‘F*** Tony Abbott’ printed”), vague and unsubstantiated insinuation (“general reports of confrontational and aggressive behaviour”) and blatant lies.
Included as evidence is the poster entitled “Why Israel is a Terrorist State”, which was approved by the Student Guild. Other gems include an accusation of “swearing” made 18 months after the alleged act. Anything resembling a court would throw out these charges. Yet the Student Guild has seen fit to judge us guilty before an investigation has even begun.
These are not the only instances of pro-Palestine sentiment being silenced on campus. A Muslim student informed us that a poster for the UWA Muslim Students Association’s Barbeque for Gaza, which was raising money for charity, was taken down by campus security. The student was told by security that complaints had been received about the poster and that it had been deemed “offensive”.
When the student challenged security, they were asked for their student number and told that it was the job of security to take down anything the vice chancellor didn’t like. Socialist Alternative’s information stalls have also been harassed by campus security, one of whom is a former member of the Israeli Defence Force.
This censorship comes at a time when students should be banding together against the Liberal government’s attacks on higher education. We were dismayed to find that not only pro-Palestine posters, but also posters for the 20 August National Day of Action against the Liberals’ higher education cuts, were systematically taken down from the Guild precinct on 14 August.
If we have any chance of defeating the Liberals, student guilds need to put their time into organising a fightback, rather than silencing student activists.

Free speech under attack at UWA

The revolutionary socialist movement lost a great fighter on Saturday, 24 August.
Amber Maxwell lived a difficult life. As a transgender woman, she found it impossible to find permanent work or accommodation. But through all her hardship, she put everything she had into the fight for socialism. Amber seemed to have boundless energy and enthusiasm for politics. Every week she would catch the bus from the homeless youth hostel where she lived to the University of Western Australia to help us build the organisation, sell Red Flag, fight cuts to higher education and campaign for refugee rights.
Amber was always the one leading impromptu paper sales, organising extra chalking and postering for demonstrations, selling far more copies of Red Flag than anyone else on stalls. Even when she was in her most depressed state, she always told me that socialist activism and fighting for a better world was the one thing that made life worth living. Rarely have I met a comrade so determined and dedicated.
Amber took her own life at the age of 20, unable to deal with her oppression any longer. Her death should not be viewed as a random tragedy, but as a product of transphobia and a lack of essential services for young people. Suicide is an epidemic among LGBTI youth. Studies in Australia show the attempted suicide rate among LGBTI people is between 3.5 and 14 times that of their heterosexual counterparts. A survey in the USA found that 32 percent of transgender people interviewed had attempted suicide.
It’s not hard to see why. Amber faced discrimination at every turn. When applying for a room to rent, she was told several times that only “real girls” were wanted. One homelessness service hung up on her after informing her that they “only had room for females”. She was consistently rejected when she applied for jobs or apprenticeships. Even when she was able to find a hostel to live in, she suffered from demeaning paternalism, including a curfew which often made it difficult for her to come to political meetings at night.
Amber was killed by the system she despised so much. Her death is a tragic reminder that institutionalised homophobia and transphobia cost lives. As Amber herself wrote in issue 4 of Red Flag, “Life as a transgender or gender diverse person is often characterised by difficulty and discrimination. Family rejection, homelessness, depression, attempted suicide – these are a regular part of our existence.”
Amber was a well-known activist for equal marriage rights, a fighter against the discrimination that killed her. She chaired the Equal Love rallies with her typical fiery tone and could electrify crowds of hundreds with her anger. On every demonstration, Amber was the first on the megaphone and the last off.
In her spare time she fanatically researched Perth labour history. She wrote some wonderful articles, including the one published below on the 1910 tram strike. She would enthusiastically regale us with stories she’d read of unemployed workers’ protests, wildcat strikes and battles against the fascists.
She especially loved the songs of the Industrial Workers of the World, Australia’s first serious revolutionary organisation, and would bust out the anti-Labor Party classic “Bump Me Into Parliament” whenever the opportunity arose.
She had the most wonderfully irreverent attitude towards all authority and her political enemies; she never cared about offending anyone. Amber could always be relied on to give off-the-cuff speeches about police brutality the moment anyone was arrested on a demonstration, to give the fences at refugee detention centres a solid kick with her steel-capped boots or to start up a controversial chant on the megaphone. She was a true revolutionary.
You will be missed so much comrade. Rest in peace.
When workers put the brakes on Perth
Amber Maxwell
Perth is often portrayed as a city with little interesting history. It may surprise some people to learn that Perth was once brought to an almost total standstill by a six and a half week tram strike, from July until September 1910.
An appeal to the arbitration court for a new award (setting out the wages and conditions of employment for all workers in the industry) had led to one with very loosely defined clauses. It allowed for the slashing of workers’ wages and conditions.
A new roster was issued for workers on split shifts that potentially put some on call for well over 14 hours a day. This was legal because the award specified the number of hours to be worked but not the number of hours “on duty”.
The award specified a new minimum wage, to which the Perth Tramways Company promptly lowered all workers’ wages. When the workers appealed, the presiding judge declared that he had “no business regulating industry”. Incensed, the workers voted to take action. One by one they stopped work and presented overtime claims to the company when they reached their specified maximum hours per fortnight. They even pulled in one freeloading scab who had up to that point refused to join the union.
For the duration of the strike there was, in effect, no tram service at all in Perth. At a time when most people did not have their own vehicles, this meant that the city was brought to a virtual standstill. Many shops did not open, and some of the larger department stores resorted to hiring private cars to ferry wealthy customers in and out. The tram company, unable to find many scabs, proceeded to board up trams inside the depot to prevent sabotage.
There was mass public support for the strike. The “Letters to the editor” section of the West Australian was full of letters urging people to boycott scab trams. The Westralian Worker (the paper of the Western Australia Labor Party) devoted considerable space to coverage of the strike.
Mass meetings were held on the Perth Esplanade and in places as far afield as Kalgoorlie; a lot of money was raised for the relief of the families of the striking workers. When the company attempted to train some scab drivers in August, a riot broke out, and the scabs were pelted with fruit and various other objects.
When the company was finally able to restore a limited service, police on horseback had to escort the trams up and down Hay Street to prevent hostile crowds from attacking them. The resumed service was also disrupted by sabotage, including the cutting of crucial power lines and the attempted demolition of the tram depot and line with dynamite.
For all this, however, the strike unfortunately ended in defeat. The workers were forced back to work on the conditions of the award that they had rejected at the start. The defeat almost broke the union. The leadership bowed out of the dispute and advised the men to make their own decisions about a return to work well over a week before they finally capitulated.
A large number of non-union workers were also now employed on the trams and were given seniority over the returning strikers. An attempt to begin a second strike a short time later in protest against this was quickly wound down.
Despite the defeat, the strike stands as an inspiring example of workers’ struggle. We can take from it important lessons of the need for rank and file organisation and the need for workers’ solidarity across industries.

WA bosses getting away with murder

Christmas on the picket line

Free speech banned at Edith Cowan University

Free speech under attack at UWA

Amber Maxwell, a rebel and a fighter

Other Media

Shop

Conferences

Manage Your Subscription

Contact Us