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.

There’s not much being held back in the jeers hurled from the picket to those crossing the line to work. At the union protest outside the Longford gas plant in Gippsland, accusations that scabs “betray the spirit of Eureka” are directed towards those in sight of the picket line among a cacophony of recorded monkey noises and other cries from the crowd.