Victorian teachers and school staff face a crisis of unsustainable workloads and inadequate pay. We can address it this year as we negotiate for a new Victorian Government Schools Agreement (VGSA).
Our real wages <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_O83eLz-imC8uYDBNB_hzvXyK9Z4BB2kRMV3bBE8GQ0/edit?usp=drivesdk">have fallen by 11 percent</a> under the current agreement. By the end of this year, graduate teacher pay will be $8,489 per year ($162 per week) less than it would have been if our pay had kept up with inflation. 
Starting teacher salaries in Victoria are now the lowest in Australia and almost $10,000 behind those in New South Wales. We need a crisis catch-up pay rise that makes up for the value we’ve lost—17 percent would mean we’re back in front of inflation—and then future rises to keep us ahead of rising prices. 
It’s not as though the money isn’t there. The wealth of Australia’s billionaires surged by $28 billion last year, <a href="https://www.oxfam.org.au/2025/01/takers-not-makers-how-billionaires-profit-while-billions-struggle/">according to Oxfam</a>. And some state government workers have managed to win significant wage increases recently. Nurses in Victoria <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/victorian-nurses-reject-pay-deal">voted to reject</a> the government’s inadequate pay offer and won 28.4 percent over four years. Victorian ambulance workers <a href="https://vau.org.au/in-principal-agreement-reached/">won increases of 24-33 percent</a> for MICA paramedics in their new agreement last year. After a long campaign of strikes and rallies, teachers in NSW <a href="https://www.nswtf.org.au/news/2023/09/09/historic-boost-nsw-teachers-pay-will-tackle-teachers-shortage/">accepted a deal</a> in late 2023 that immediately boosted graduate salaries by 12 percent.
Teachers are also overworked, causing burnout at record rates. The result, according to <a href="https://www.aeufederal.org.au/news-media/news/2024/filling-critical-teacher-gaps">research</a>
by the education union, is that 83 percent of Australian schools have experienced staffing shortages. The 2022 VGSA included a 90-minute reduction in weekly face-to-face teaching hours. Unfortunately, that reduction came at the cost of three of our four professional practice days included in the 2017 agreement, limiting its effect. 
This modest reduction in face-to-face teaching hours has not solved the workload problem. According to a Monash University report, Victorian school staff continue to work a staggering unpaid 12.5 hours each week. One way to address staff burnout would be to reduce face-to-face teaching hours from 18.5 to 16 hours for both primary and secondary teachers. That would align us with secondary school teachers in Norway and Italy, who, according to the <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15K2ax5a3Mlbq3_I9mpLsxASAkdJaP0BW9MEmHpmd6rQ/edit?gid=445088422#gid=445088422">Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s 2018 Teaching and Learning International Survey</a>, average 15.8 and 16.8 hours, respectively, in the classroom each week. 
Reducing class sizes is also essential for reducing workload. According to 2022 <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/news/how-to-give-teachers-more-time-to-prepare-well-for-class/">research</a>
by the Grattan Institute, 92 percent of teachers report not having enough time to prepare effectively for classroom teaching, many blaming their heavy administrative workload. Capping class sizes at twenty would significantly reduce this burden.
We should also fight for a fully funded agreement. The<a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/victorian-school-staff-need-fight-workloads-and-wages">
education union’s 2021 demands</a> included that the state government fully fund all its provisions. That would make it harder for school principals to avoid implementing the VGSA by pointing to their limited budgets.
Winning a fully funded VGSA would be a step towards winning the minimum funding levels recommended by the Gonski review more than a decade ago. The recent<a href="https://ministers.education.gov.au/anthony-albanese/putting-all-victorian-public-schools-path-full-and-fair-funding">
announcement</a> by Victorian and federal governments of extra money to meet the Gonski minimums takes full effect only “by 2034”. Meanwhile, education researcher Trevor Cobbold<a href="https://saveourschools.com.au/funding/the-facts-about-school-funding-in-victoria-an-update/">
calculates</a> that government schools in Victoria are short of the Gonski minimums by $1.8 billion annually—an average of $2,750 per student, or a $1 million deficit at a school of 400 students. 
Just as important as our claims is our strategy for winning them. In 2021, union members put forward an ambitious list of claims, but much of it was dropped in the deal eventually agreed to by the union leaders. It’s little wonder that nearly 40 percent of members <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/big-no-vote-step-forward-school-staff">voted no</a>.
This shows the need to apply serious pressure to win our claims. When teachers go on strike, schools close and politicians are forced to take notice. Teachers in NSW went on a series of strikes in 2021-22, eventually winning an immediate pay rise of almost $10,000. 
The last strike of Victorian public-school staff, in 2012, brought 40,000 teachers onto the streets and closed around 400 schools in a show of collective power. If we want to win our claims, we’ll need an even more sustained campaign of strike action. It’s not as if there’s no appetite for this. In 2021, 97 percent of AEU members <a href="https://news.aeuvic.asn.au/aeu-schools-members-vote-yes-to-industrial-action/">voted in favour</a> of industrial action. 
We need to begin preparing for this fight now. The state of our profession, and our schools, depends on it.

Australian Education Union member

Victorian teachers are in crisis. Now’s our chance to fight back

On 11 January, 15,000 people travelled from across Germany in at least 200 buses and more sold-out trains to protest the conference of the fascist Alternative for Germany (AfD), which is polling second in the run-up to national elections next month. 
After its conference in Essen last year was met with 70,000 anti-fascist demonstrators, the AfD this year moved its meeting to the regional town of Riesa, in Saxony, where the party received 38 percent of the vote in the 2024 state elections.
Fascists lead the AfD. Its unofficial “führer”, Björn Höcke, who has been convicted for using Nazi slogans at rallies, has long won the fight for control over the party. Research last year by Bavarian Broadcasting, a media company, <a href="https://www.br.de/presse/inhalt/pressemitteilungen/afd-recherche-bundestag-mitarbeitende-rechtsextrem-100.html">found</a>
that the AfD employs more than 100 hardcore Nazis in the German parliament, including activists and organisers of street fighting groups.
The AfD dreams of a German ethnostate, to be realised through mass deportations of non-ethnic Germans. This plan to “return millions of foreigners to their homeland is no secret”, admitted AfD Brandenburg chair René Springer last year. “It is a promise.” 
Indeed, Höcke boasts of projecting a “politics of well-tempered cruelty”.
Two anti-fascist campaigns organised the blockades in Riesa under the slogan “Prevent the AfD conference!” Stand Up to Racism is a historic campaign formally supported by the Social Democrats, Greens and trade unions; Resist was formed last year to organise the blockades of the AfD conference in Essen.
An important development this year was the formation of Students Against the Right, which recently called mass student general meetings to oppose the AfD and mobilise for Riesa. Waiting for one of the dozens of buses from Berlin organised by the students, Phil Butland, a member of Socialism from Below and a contributor to the Left Berlin, told Red Flag:
“There were meetings at three Berlin universities where there were 4,000 at them [in total]. They were just student union meetings, but they were the biggest student union meetings in years.” 
Similar meetings across the country attracted thousands more.
“Most, if not all, also passed a motion on Palestine at the same meeting”, Butland said. “I think people were mainly there for the AfD thing, but it shows how much things have shifted at German universities that people who weren’t there for Palestine voted for a pro-Palestine motion.”
Once its fleet of buses arrived, the Berlin “finger” was stopped by the police for over an hour. As dawn broke, it finally began its march toward Riesa. A young, first-time protester told Red Flag that he knew he had to go when he saw the blockades advertised: “[The AfD] stand against everything that I stand for ... I’m scared of fascists, and even more scared of fascists that are successful with what they do”.
Amid economic stagnation, politics in Germany—and across Europe—has shifted sharply to the right. Racism has been used to paint refugees and immigrants, rather than bosses and landlords, as responsible for rising unemployment and rents.
It is not just the far right that is fuelling this shift. In 2023, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz argued for Germany to “finally deport on a mass scale”, and since his ruling coalition collapsed, all major parties apart from the crisis-ridden left-wing Die Linke (The Left) have begun a racist election campaign of which the AfD could be the primary beneficiaries. Prioritising campaigning for February’s snap election, however, Die Linke had a notably small presence in Riesa.
On the other hand, the trade unions were very visible. Germany’s second-largest union, ver.di, refunded half the cost of its members’ bus tickets and publicly promoted the blockades. There was even a small group called Tesla Auto Workers Against Fascism. 
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been promoting the AfD, but while he shared a livestream from inside the conference hall to his X account, outside, the Tesla workers who generate his wealth staffed the barricades.
After a couple of hours, sub-zero temperatures began to wear down the blockaders, but photos of a near-completely empty conference hall generated a triumphant mood. Unfortunately, this did not last long. Blockaders were cleared by police, who attacked with truncheons, pepper spray and dogs, Berlin’s Daily Newspaper <a href="https://taz.de/Protest-gegen-AfD-Parteitag/!6058447/">reported</a>. Nam Duy Nguyen, a Die Linke parliamentary observer, was beaten unconscious.
Protesters then marched through the town, carrying signs that read, “Björn Höcke is a Nazi” and “Stop the AfD-Nazis!” Red Flag spoke to Ahmed Shah, a member of Socialism from Below and a longstanding anti-fascist campaigner. “If Nazis march, and you don’t do anything, they grow”, he said. “So you have to act.”
With the fascist Freedom Party forming a government in neighbouring Austria and Donald Trump stepping into the White House, the far right is on the march. Days after its conference, the emboldened AfD distributed election flyers in the form of deportation tickets. 
The blockades in Riesa were important, but more actions will be needed.

Leon Whitehead

Inside an anti-fascist blockade in Germany

From 14 July last year, refugees ran a continuous protest encampment for 100 days outside the Home Affairs Department in Melbourne, demanding permanent visas. They braved icy rain, attempts by council workers and police to move them on, and being marched on by neo-Nazis. Red Flag
spoke to Aran Mylvaganam, one of the key organisers of the camp, about how it all went. 
Give us some background: what is the situation of the refugees who protested?
The refugees who initiated the encampment are part of the cohort of nearly 10,000 individuals denied permanent visas, leaving them on bridging visas or with no visa at all. Some have appealed to the minister, who can grant visas, while others have taken appeals from the Immigration Assessment Authority to the courts. It is important to note that they are not appealing the decisions themselves but challenging the government on grounds of unfair treatment and failure to follow due process. In the meantime, many are denied the right to work, access to Medicare, higher education and, most critically, the ability to reunite with their loved ones or leave the country.
These refugees arrived in Australia between 2009 and 2013, seeking safety and security. Many had already been here for a year when the Labor government lost power in 2013. However, the Gillard and Rudd ALP governments had delayed processing protection claims, leaving the refugees in limbo. When the Coalition government took over, it waited two more years before introducing the “fast-track” process and issuing temporary protection visas. This fast-track process was meant to address the backlog of protection claims, but it created a host of new injustices. 
Under the process, applications were unfairly assessed, often dividing families and granting one person protection while denying another with nearly identical circumstances. The process relied on questionable country reports—such as the flawed report used to assess Tamil asylum seekers, which was later discredited by a UK court. Labor itself acknowledged the unfairness of fast track while in opposition, and once in power, they abolished it. Yet the 9,500 refugees who went through the fast-track process remain in limbo. 
Labor has now been in power for over two years, fully aware that these refugees are victims of an unjust system. Yet they have taken no meaningful action to resolve their status, and we are now approaching another election. If Labor loses, as they might, the unresolved situation for these refugees could effectively be a death sentence. With this level of urgency, these refugees felt they had no choice but to protest. The encampment became a platform to make their voices heard, demanding justice and the fulfilment of promises made by a government that holds their futures in its hands.
How was the encampment organised?
The encampment started out as a spontaneous action organised by refugees. Tamil refugees joined an Iranian-led, 24/7 demonstration outside then Home Affairs Minister Claire O'Neill’s office in Oakleigh, and pretty soon, we all decided to make it an indefinite encampment. After visiting the RMIT Students for Palestine encampment, we got some inspiration and quickly adapted their set-up to work for us.
The big challenge was that we had no support for basics like water, electricity or shelter. We were camping right on the street, with everyone stepping up to organise the essentials on the go. A food team came together by the third day and grew to over 60 volunteers, making sure everyone was fed from morning until night. All meals were cooked by refugees on bridging visas. Even though there is a large number of Tamil-speaking Australians who have citizenship, they didn’t really pay any attention to our camp. But we kept going, organising our own rotation system, with shift coordinators covering morning, afternoon, evening and overnight shifts to keep everything running.
We held daily coordinators’ meetings to go over what was working, what wasn’t and ways to keep improving. Fridays were a big deal, with rally nights that helped us build momentum for the week ahead. Coordinators also used these times to get more people involved and to clear up any misinformation going around in the refugee community. These Friday gatherings were a way to bring everyone together and make sure we stayed united.
Keeping the camp clean was another priority. We had volunteers washing dishes, tidying up and making sure everything looked respectful and organised. We were really aware of how the public saw us and didn’t want to give anyone a reason to view us negatively. We also worked hard to make the space safe and family friendly, with no alcohol and no smoking in the area, so even children could participate. There was a library for reading and learning about politics, and if any issues came up, we had people ready to handle concerns quickly.
Over time, the encampment became more than just a protest—it turned into a community hub. People would bring ginger tea, snacks, and we’d play games like cards and chess. It was a meaningful, supportive space where people came together, despite the tough circumstances they faced. In the end, it became a strong, well-organised encampment, fully run by refugees on bridging visas. It showed the resilience and determination of refugees in their fight for permanent visas.
Did the encampment change the people involved? How?
Living in limbo for over twelve years had left many refugees feeling hopeless. But when they came together at the encampment, there was a powerful shift. At first, many believed they could achieve quick results with enough determination. But as the weeks went on, they came to realise that victory isn’t guaranteed. They saw that all they could control was their own commitment to the fight—and that to have any chance of winning, they needed to keep going.
This experience also broadened their perspectives, helping them see how their own struggle is part of a larger global fight for justice, one shared by Indigenous Australians, Palestinians, workers and other marginalised communities. Their solidarity with groups like the Palestine movement and the union movement underscored the interconnectedness of their cause with others facing oppression.
Over time, people found their own confidence and became leaders. They learned to stand up to government and state representatives who tried to shut down the encampment, and they organised everything themselves. People who had never imagined leading protests were now setting agendas, organising supplies and mobilising supporters. Their transformation was inspiring. For example, my friend Rathi, who once hesitated to attend a Palestine rally, recently told me she went on her own accord. She said, “A year ago, you had to drag me there, but now I feel like I need to be there”. The encampment awakened in people a sense of responsibility, a belief that they can’t just sit on the sidelines when injustice persists.
Various pro-refugee NGOs and charities tend to stick to a model of providing refugees with legal aid, food and other services, while lobbying the Labor Party for policy change. Why do you think that protest action and civil disobedience are important?
While pro-refugee NGOs and charities do crucial work, these efforts often fall short when it comes to achieving lasting change. Many of these organisations rely on government funding and work within a model that depends on lobbying and service provision, which is vital for meeting immediate needs but often hinges on the good will and timing of politicians. Too often, this leads to delays or evasions on decisions that directly impact refugees.
The reality is that, despite the presence of hundreds of advocacy groups spending millions to support refugees, thousands of people are still waiting—often over a decade—for permanent visas or even basic security. Politicians repeatedly break promises, like abolishing temporary protection visas, and when they do, many advocacy groups stay silent or only voice mild objections. Labor politicians, for instance, have made countless empty promises to create a pathway to permanency for the 9,500 refugees affected by the fast-track process. But even after two years in power, there has been no meaningful action. This shows clearly that polite meetings and petitions don’t create urgency for those in power—public pressure is necessary to hold them accountable.
This is why protest and civil disobedience are so important. When we protest, we’re showing that refugees and their supporters won’t sit quietly through broken promises and delays. Direct action brings these injustices into the open, forcing politicians and the public to confront the reality: people’s lives are indefinitely on hold because of political inaction or indifference. In fact, over the past two years, many of our actions have been intentionally kept out of the public eye. But with larger demonstrations, the message breaks through, reaching more people.
Direct action disrupts the status quo, challenging both politicians and the public to recognise how many people suffer due to policies rooted in racism. Civil disobedience builds solidarity, bringing together a broad community that also has grievances with the government. This form of protest empowers the refugee community, showing that they are not just passive recipients of charity—they are active agents fighting for their rights.
Protests bring this message to the forefront and remind the Australian public that refugee mistreatment is not an isolated issue; it’s part of a broader system of exploitation. The racism in these policies doesn’t just stem from Australia’s colonial past—it’s a tool the state uses to divide the working class, maintaining inequality and preventing unity. Racism toward refugees is a by-product of this system, which affects everyone. 
Supporting refugee rights is, therefore, in the best interest of all working people, not just refugees. Direct action brings this truth to light, aiming to unite everyone who should be fighting against policies that exploit and divide us.
During the encampment, a neo-Nazi group twice tried to march on and disrupt protests by the refugees. Melbourne City Council made various attempts to shut down the camp using police. What was it like to stand up to all of this?
The two incidents involving the Nazis were deeply concerning. For many refugees, their presence triggered painful memories of the oppression and violence they had fled in their home countries. While some were understandably frightened, the majority were determined to stand their ground and send a clear message: they would not be intimidated by a group spreading hate. In fact, many saw the presence of neo-Nazis as an opportunity to highlight how the Labor government's policies were appeasing groups like them, rather than addressing the needs of ordinary people. 
The encampment faced constant challenges from the council and Victoria Police. The council frequently cited by-laws to remove furniture, signs and megaphones, working with the police to disrupt and shut down the protest. Security guards from the Department of Home Affairs also added to the hostility. Meanwhile, some ethnic community leaders, aligned with organisations known for their strong connections to the Labor Party, worked to undermine the movement. They sought to divide the refugees, discourage their participation and create confusion through meetings designed to derail the protests. 
Despite these obstacles, the encampment became a powerful space of solidarity and resistance. Refugees and their supporters stood together, transforming the camp into a platform for raising awareness and demanding justice. Every challenge—whether from neo-Nazis, the council, the police or community leaders providing cover for Labor—was turned into an opportunity to organise and mobilise even more people. These efforts only strengthened the campaign and demonstrated the refugees’ resilience and determination to fight for their rights.
What advice would you give yourself if you could go back in time to the start of the encampment?
Looking back, there are a few things I’d have done differently, even though the encampment evolved organically and wasn’t planned from the start. If I could give myself any advice, I’d suggest studying the successes and challenges of other encampments to get a sense of what to expect. But ultimately, our circumstances were unique, and it’s difficult to prepare for all the twists and turns we faced.
If I could start over, I’d focus on establishing clear structures and roles earlier, forming teams for logistics, communications and security right from the beginning. Setting up political teach-ins and creating regular opportunities for people to reflect would have helped deepen everyone’s understanding of the broader movement, keeping us all motivated and focused. Finally, having daily debriefs could have allowed us to address issues as they arose and adjust more effectively. 
In the end, though, the encampment grew into something powerful because it was shaped by everyone involved. It was a collective effort that revealed our strength and resilience. And no amount of preparation could have anticipated the incredible spirit of unity and determination that came from everyone who participated.

Jasmine Duff

Lessons from a 100-day refugee protest encampment

This year has experienced the largest campus mobilisations for Palestine in Australian history. Thousands of students have marched, walked out of class, organised occupations and taken part in mass meetings to demand an end to the horrors we’re witnessing in Gaza. 
We attend classes at universities with direct links to companies profiting from genocide. At times this fact confronts us starkly, for instance University of Queensland students who might, between classes, wander past the Boeing Research and Technology Centre—run by one of the world’s largest weapons manufacturers and a major supplier to Israel. Elsewhere, complicity comes in the form of hidden partnerships and investment portfolios. All of this has sparked justified outrage. 
The first major student actions were nationwide walkouts, organised by Students for Palestine. These started in November last year when thousands of high school and university students ditched class to rally in the city. More than 1,000 students occupied Melbourne Central mall, raising Palestinian flags and chanting to demand that the government drop its support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The strikes continued this year in every major city in Australia. Why should students attend class as usual when every school and university in Gaza has been shut down? 
The right-wing media and politicians campaigned vitriolically against us. After the first student strikes, the Daily Telegraph wheeled out a psychologist to tell us that we couldn’t possibly understand what was happening in Gaza: “Young people’s brains aren’t fully developed yet”. The Victorian and NSW premiers told students that if they wanted to understand and change the world, they should stay in school. We didn’t listen. 
Next came the wave of Gaza solidarity encampments. Brave students at Columbia University in New York fought the Biden administration, university management and the police to maintain their encampment. Students for Palestine activists at Sydney University followed suit, pitching tents and sparking a movement that spread across the country. This movement was about the crimes of the Israeli government. But it was also about the crimes of universities that produce the research for weapons companies that arm Israel’s genocide and partner with the Israeli institutions that produce the propaganda required to generate support for it. 
On every campus where an encampment sprung up, there was an outpouring of community support. Fresh meals, snacks and toiletries were never in short supply. But support didn’t come just in the form of provisions. It was also made visible by the many people who mobilised when our camps were under attack. At Monash University, a dozen pro-Israel thugs attacked the camp on the first night. When they returned the next week, 70 supporters turned out to defend the encampment. At Sydney University, a planned pro-Israel rally of 200 right-wingers was met with a Palestine solidarity demonstration of more than 500 people. 
At Deakin University, management demanded that students leave under threat of disciplinary action after only six days. Students held out and kept their encampment going strong until the end of the trimester. At ANU, management called the police on students, who were then surrounded by a human chain of security guards and threatened with mass arrests if they refused to pack up the encampment. Students held an impromptu meeting, deciding to defend their camp and calling out for community support. Solidarity won out—after a long stand-off, the police were forced to retreat. 
The camps sprung up across the world. In Sydney, we woke one morning to find a video of a young boy holding a sign, hand-painted on a piece of cardboard, reading: “Thank you for the students of University of Sydney. Your voice have reached Gaza”.
More university students got involved in the movement for Palestine in semester two, as student general meetings swept the country. Everywhere they happened, hundreds of students turned out to call on their universities to cut ties with weapons companies and Israeli institutions. 
The University of Queensland kicked things off. On the night of the meeting, the registration line stretched across the campus, and by the time the vote was called students had filled two huge lecture theatres. More than 1,500 students voted to support Palestine and demand the university cut ties with the major arms dealer Boeing. When the meeting finished, students marched to the chancellery in what was probably the biggest ever campus demonstration for Palestine. 
Other campuses followed suit. More than 800 students mobilised at Sydney University, and 300 at the University of Western Australia. Two hundred attended at the University of Adelaide despite the right-wing student union’s attempt to stop the meeting altogether. A similarly obstructionist student union leadership couldn’t prevent 600 students from showing up at Melbourne University. On many campuses, students had to defy management’s attempts to stifle organising attempts. At Queensland University of Technology, university administrators called the police, who told activists they would remove from campus anyone who didn’t fit into the official meeting rooms.
The huge numbers at these meetings demonstrated that support for Palestine has grown rapidly over the past year. But we still have a major fight on our hands. 
Universities have cracked down hard on pro-Palestine activism—dozens of students have faced university disciplinary proceedings due to their activism this year. Now, under pressure from the Australian government and Zionist organisations, vice-chancellors are introducing harsh new rules like the campus access policies at Melbourne and Sydney University. These limit free speech on campus by restricting students’ right to organise protests. We now have less freedom of expression at university than we have in the streets. At Sydney University, the recent Hodgkinson External Review, commissioned to determine how to better repress dissent, recommends banning lecture announcements, the displaying of banners and protesting inside. 
The past year has proved that students won’t give up easily. Gaza has shown us the lengths our government and universities will go to shut down opposition to their support for Israel during a genocide. That they feel compelled to repress the student movement shows us that we are having an impact. We won’t stop fighting for Palestine.

Yasmine Johnson

A year of student activism for Palestine

“Step down, impeach, arrest!” chanted around one million protesters, according to rally organisers, in Yeoido, Seoul, on 7 December. They were demanding the impeachment of South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol, who days earlier had declared martial law. In front of the National Assembly, people chanted, sang and waited tentatively in the cold for hours for the outcome of the impeachment vote.
Seven years earlier, the incumbent right-wing party, now rebranded to People Power Party (PPP), faced another one-million strong impeachment movement that successfully brought down the Park Geun-hye government. “This time it’s very fast”, Seon-gyeong, a socialist student organiser with Workers’ Solidarity told Red Flag during the demonstration. She explained how it took many months of patient work to grow the anti-Park movement. In the end, rail strikes were the lynch pin for its success.
Striking workers spoke from the main stage. Three days into their strike, Kang Jeong-nam, head of the Seoul branch of the railway union, apologised to the crowd for any inconvenience. “It’s okay! ... Keep going!” thousands shouted back. “But it’s okay to be uncomfortable right now, right?” Kang said, which was met with a loud supporting cheer.
People in the crowd flew satirical flags from the anti-Park movement. Some held repurposed signs, crossing out “Park” and adding “Yoon”. The lively block of university students reached around 100,000—many hoped that such large numbers would guarantee impeachment. “Impeach Yoon Seok-yeol! Arrest Yoon Seok-yeol!” the crowd chanted in unison. 
There’s a sense of déjà vu at the demonstration: a corrupt PPP, rail strikes and impeachment. However, Seon-gyeong isn’t sure that the result will be the same as 2016, when impeachment led to a heavy electoral defeat for the conservative party. 
When the vote was eventually held, all bar a few PPP members left the assembly, resulting in a failed vote. The crowd was incensed. “Come back you traitors!” people yelled as the main stage called out the names of each absent politician. As the sham became apparent, people streamed out of the rally, cursing the PPP. Organisers asked people to stay, but most knew it was over. There were neither tears nor rage, just disgust and a determination to keep coming back until the job is finished.
“Next week! Next week!” people chanted as they left the rally. The opposition vowed to reintroduce another impeachment bill in a few days, but “it’s not just about how big the next rally is” Seon-gyeong said, but whether it will be large and sustained enough to encourage more workers to join the strike.
The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) have promised an indefinite general strike until Yoon is impeached. Some of the key areas covered are the Hyundai manufacturing plants in Ulsan, the site of historic labour struggles in 1987 and 2006. “Yoon Seok-yeol is most afraid of the union between the KCTU and the citizens”, KCTU Chairman Yang Kyung-soo said from the main stage.
Yoon is determined to cling on to power. But millions of South Koreans are even more determined to oust him.

Jayden Trask

One million protest for Yoon Seok-yeol’s impeachment

Seven thousand people mobilised for the People’s Blockade of the World’s Largest Coal Port in Newcastle, organised by climate activist group Rising Tide over four days in November. Despite unprecedented efforts by the NSW government to stop the “protestival”, hundreds took to the water. The blockade had three demands: the immediate cancellation of all new fossil fuel projects, an end to all Newcastle coal exports and a 78 percent tax on fossil fuel exports to fund a just transition and pay for climate loss and damage. 
Newcastle is the biggest coal export port in the world, shipping around 150 million tonnes annually—equivalent to 15 percent of the world’s coal. Earlier in November, investigative journalist Peter Cronau <a>reported</a> that coal from Newcastle had arrived at Hadera port near Tel Aviv, likely to supply Israel’s largest power station. It’s hard to imagine a better place to blockade in the interests of humanity and the planet. 
Since its establishment in 2005, Rising Tide has organised thirteen actions to block the port’s shipping channel. Last year, 3,000 people blocked exports for 32 hours, and 109 people were arrested. 
This year, the NSW government significantly dialled up the repression. Police took Rising Tide to the Supreme Court to challenge the group’s application to hold a public assembly, which would have protected activists from prosecution for 30 hours. Justice Desmond Fagan took the side of the police and the coal industry, determining that the planned interruption to the busy port “goes far beyond what the people affected should be expected to tolerate”. 
Unsatisfied with this victory, the NSW Labor government went even further in its slavish defence of the coal industry. On 15 November, Rising Tide organisers received a letter from Transport for NSW detailing plans for an unprecedented four-day exclusion zone around Newcastle harbour, banning all unauthorised persons and vessels from the water. Anyone found to be in breach could face an on-the-spot fine of up to $1,100. 
Rising Tide encouraged supporters to join them on the water from 3pm, Thursday, 21 November, (two hours before the exclusion zone was due to kick in) for what could be the only opportunity to get onto the water. But at 4pm, while out paddling, we received news that the exclusion zone had been overturned in the Supreme Court. A huge cheer rippled across the water, while supporters on the beach blasted Queen’s “We Are the Champions”. The Minns government had tried to use the Marine Safety Act improperly to criminalise peaceful protest—but failed. 
As 21-year-old Rising Tide plaintiff Alexa Stuart told <a>the Guardian</a>, “The NSW government was attempting to criminalise peaceful protest, but the real criminals here are the coal and gas companies who are continuing to put profit above all else and burn my future and the futures of all young people”.
The following morning, I walked to Horseshoe Beach to discover that police had implemented their backup plan. A series of yellow buoys marked out the perimeter of the shipping lane. Unmarked matte black boats, manned by cops in black balaclavas, remained on constant patrol. They were accompanied by cops on jet skis, a twenty-metre-long patrol vessel, several drones, a helicopter and horses on land. From a speaker system on the shoreline, they barked threats of immediate arrest for anyone who dared to cross the buoys. 
On Friday, these bullying tactics were largely successful. On Saturday, a few brave individuals were arrested for crossing the buoys. But with most remaining in the state-sanctioned swimming pool, coal ships the size of skyscrapers continued to pass through, flanked by those balaclava-clad cops. Frustration swelled at the camp. 
Then on Sunday morning, our side pushed back. Hundreds of kayakers took the channel, forcing a coal boat to turn away and closing the port for four hours. Later in the day, when a ship was scheduled to come in, hundreds again occupied the channel. In an enormous display of force, police cleared the channel by making more than 100 arrests and herding others back behind the buoys. According to a <a>Rising Tide Instagram post</a>, at least 40 were charged under draconian NSW anti-protest laws, which threaten fines of up to $22,000 and up to two years in prison. The actions of police sent a clear message: the state is prepared to protect and serve coal above people at all costs.
Mass direct actions like The People’s Blockade are important. According to the World Meteorological Organisation, 2024 is on track to be the warmest year yet, surpassing 1.5° C above the pre-industrial average. But in the face of climate catastrophe, governments across the world are pressing down harder on the fossil fuel accelerator. Since coming to power, the Albanese government has approved 28 new coal and gas projects. Australia is the second-largest climate polluter in the world when emissions from fossil exports are included, according to a recent report from UNSW Australian Human Rights Institute. 
The outlook is no less grim at a global level. The UN’s latest annual climate summit, COP29, has once again offered nothing but a veneer of legitimacy over the failure of global elites to ensure a livable future for the planet. The scale and speed of the climate action we need will require more mass resistance to those who profit enormously from planetary destruction.

Lily Campbell

Turning the tide: the fight to blockade the world’s largest coal port

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.

Jerome Small

Hope on the picket line

Sydney’s Condell Park High School recently banned a year twelve Palestinian student from his school formal for wearing a keffiyeh to his graduation ceremony. 
On the school’s website, the <a>principal’s message</a> reads: “We are proud of our diverse student population”. So proud that he is disciplining one of those students for displaying an item of immense cultural significance.
In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, the student said he was being punished for “making a political statement in a public school”. The Department of Education that ordered the keffiyeh ban and Condell Park administrators who enforced it are making a political statement of their own—that it’s not acceptable to express solidarity with those suffering a genocide, even if they’re one’s own family and friends. 
The ban caused outrage amongst students and staff at the school. High-schoolers and Uni Students for Palestine, with support from the affected student, called a protest outside Condell Park High on Tuesday, 26 November.
Noura, a Palestinian year twelve student and protest organiser, told Red Flag that she was protesting “to put pressure on the school to demand an apology for the student and let him go to his formal. He’s had to endure watching his family back home experience a genocide. He deserves to go to his formal wearing a keffiyeh”.
A year nine student at the rally said to Red Flag: “It feels amazing to be here! Everyone posted a photo online to say bring the keffiyehs, wear it on your bag. And if you get in trouble, don’t listen to them”. 
Eva, a year twelve student and activist with High School Students for Palestine who spoke at the rally, pointed out, “This is not the first time institutions are repressing support for Palestine. The NSW State Library security removed me for wearing a keffiyeh this year!”
School administrators attempted to deter people from protesting. They pulled students into meetings, and warned staff not to join the rally, ordering that the school would be under lockdown until 6:30pm. The affected student made a point of blaming the Department of Education, not the regular staff or students, who have no say in this and have been intimidated into silence. 
Despite these measures, the students were not cowed. The day before the rally, about a third of all senior school students wore keffiyehs on their bags in protest of the ban. More than 50 Palestine supporters joined the rally; as school finished, students flooded outside wearing keffiyehs and waving Palestinian flags. They held handwritten placards that read: “We all belong” and “Say no to racism”. Students riding the school bus chanted out the windows in support. 
But the Department of Education and Condell Park have doubled down. The affected student prepared a statement for the rally that said he had been told he could attend the formal only if he did not wear the keffiyeh, and that the school refused to apologise. Later, he was told that he must apologise in order to attend the formal (he refused). Dozens of students who wore keffiyehs to the event in solidarity with the student and Palestine had them confiscated at the door or were refused entry. 
Students made it clear that they will not be intimidated. They will continue to wear their keffiyehs with pride and speak up for Palestine.

Gina Elias

Condell Park High School students protest keffiyeh ban

The Woolworths warehouse strike in Sydney’s west continued to heat up through its fifth and sixth days as the city’s temperatures rose in tandem.
The United Workers Union (UWU) coordinated and organised the indefinite strike at Erskine Park distribution centre and four other warehouses in Victoria. Another warehouse in Queensland took action last Friday, 22 November. The 1,500 strikers nationwide appear more determined than ever to win above-inflation pay rises and terminate the company’s “coaching and productivity framework”—a new system that disciplines anyone falling short of a management-defined “100 percent” target.
Monday, day five at Erskine Park, was stinking hot. The sun lashed the backs of necks and boiled the bitumen. The liquid soap in the portaloos was half-scalding. Those who stood at the barbeque over sizzling onions to keep everyone fed deserved a 21-gun salute. 
The sight of 100 members in UWU-branded hi-vis on the main driveway at the peak of the day’s heat discussing their next steps was a sign of unity and commitment. UWU organiser Sharon Eurlings, reporting on Woolworths’ offer of a “reduced framework”, had barely finished her sentence when workers erupted in cries of “No framework!” to the bangs of a big drum. “Put your hand up if you want to stick to no framework”, Sharon said. One hundred hands went up.
Next order of business: the bosses only want a handful of delegates at negotiations. Cries, drums and one hundred hands: all delegates must be at the talks for maximum democracy and opposition.
The union also demands that all six warehouse agreements expire simultaneously and be negotiated together. This is an effort to counter a fragmented system of “enterprise bargaining” introduced by the Hawke-Keating ALP government of the 1980s and 1990s, which replaced industry-wide bargaining and weakened our side’s collective strength.
By now, striking workers have been getting calls from supervisors and managers. 
“‘Just doing a welfare check’, they say”, one reported. “I told them, ‘Yeah, I’m doing fantastic mate’. It’s intimidation and mind games.”
“Welfare” didn’t cross management’s collective mind until profits started going down the drain. 
After the meeting, Roger* and Jay* spoke about a case a few years earlier, when a Pakistani employee had his fingertips on both hands crushed by a closing van door.
“You know what [management] did?” Jay asked. “They said it was his own fault, and gave him a warning”. Two warnings and you’re out of a job. Later, they say, the man tried to cover up a mistake to avoid a second warning and dismissal. Management found out and sacked him on the spot.
According to picketers, the top manager at the time (“the biggest psychopath ever met on the job”, Roger said) is now overseeing the rollout of a new 66,000 square metre semi-automated facility in the southwest Sydney suburb of Moorebank.
Warehousing must be some of “the lucky country’s” most sweated and unsafe labour. The parallels with Amazon seem striking. As with the American logistics giant, very high turnover is part of the Woolworths business model: employing casuals through labour hire, working them to the bone, and then moving on to another batch. 
“When you’re casual, it’s non-stop”, Roger said. “The last intake was 100 people over a couple of weeks, and by the end of it, there were probably five to fifteen left.”
The “framework” is yet another attempt to intensify the labour process, after everything companies like Coles and Woolworths have already done to make this work more dangerous, exhausting and dehumanising. That’s why the workers say they won’t stop until it’s dead.
And it’s why Janet*, one of the oldest workers here with 26 years’ experience, stayed all through the night on Saturday to guard the picket and was back again Monday.
“Myself, maybe I’ve not got too many more years here. But I’m fighting for the young people”, she said as we caught some shade under a gazebo. “They’ve got young families—[management] shouldn’t be pushing them so much, getting injuries to their back and shoulders.”
Sitting next to her was one of those young workers, Lisa*. In her home country, trade unions aren’t even legal. The pace of work is severe and workers have no right to speak out. Yet it’s only after moving to Australia and working at Woolies that she suffered her first workplace injury.
A workmate interrupted to ask Janet for some of the sweet dessert drink she made for the picketers. He wanted to take some home to his kids. After sampling some, I could see why. I sampled continuously as she talked me through the recipe. 
Janet says she’ll stay out “as long as it takes” because she’s confident they can starve Woolies out. “In the next few days, there’s gonna be empty shelves for sure”, she said. “Because we move a million cartons a week and this is day five.”
Another mass meeting on Tuesday reported back from Monday’s negotiations.
Stonewalling and condescending, Woolworths insisted the meeting was only to “educate” workers about the framework. “They’ve never picked a box and they’re trying to educate us”, someone cried out. 
Management offered a 75 or 85 percent target instead of 100 percent, which delegates roundly rejected.
“If we agree with a number, they can change it; they always have things [to get] around it”, one delegate argued at the meeting. “Version 2.0 involves following you around like puppets. Meetings every few weeks to monitor performance. If you’re not picking what they think you should, then they’ll still get rid of you. We want to come here, work and go home. Fuck their framework.”
With negotiations going nowhere, UWU organiser Sharon proposed an escalation. Hoxton Park Distribution Centre, which supplies Woolworths’ Big W stores, is fifteen minutes away. Did workers want to go there and stop trucks from getting in and out?
“At first, not a lot of people jumped [at this prospect] because they'd never done it before. This is the first strike for many workers”, said Cherish Kuehlmann, a student activist organising carloads of young socialists to come to show support every day. “Then one worker asked, ‘Are the uni students coming too?’ And of course we were like, ‘Yeah!’”
Convinced, dozens of workers and supporters drove over to shut down Hoxton Park DC. The strike at Erskine Park is so solid that active picketing is usually unnecessary. So this was the first opportunity many workers had to block the movement of goods physically. Waving big red union flags and chanting in a line blocking the entry, the workers stopped ten trucks in an hour. “One day longer! One day stronger!” 
Managers came trotting out but, failing to scare off the strikers, slunk back into the warehouse as the picket line jeered: “Go back to the aircon!” 
One manager, Dylan, has moved from Erskine Park to Hoxton Park while the strike continues. Workers heckled and taunted, advising him to get back inside before the sun charred the top of his shiny head. 
Meetings with management were held again on Wednesday. If they went the way of Monday’s dead-end discussions, then surely Woolworths deserves many more escalations such as this.
But even this first small escalation showed how a strike can begin turning things the right way up in our topsy-turvy rich man’s world. 
Harassed, bullied and demeaned by managers day in and out, workers can finally get a serve back. 
Trucks arriving at a remorseless pace, hungry for stacked pallets, can be turned away.
Decisions, usually made only by managers in air-conditioned offices, are made in the blazing heat, discussed and voted on by union members. 
The isolation of the headsets, the unknowable efficiency targets and a fragmented warehouse floor—forklift driver pitted against pallet stacker, permanent against casual, morning shift against day shift—can be undone for a while by the workers’ unity. 
And the people called replaceable, disposable, a number or a cog, show that they are in fact indispensable.
A colleague of mine, with almost 50 years’ experience in our transport industry, reminded me of this as we chatted in the lunchroom. After I described the conditions in the warehouse, he paused, turned and said:
“You know, we go about our everyday lives and we totally forget how the food gets on the shelves, and who is putting in what kind of backbreaking labour to get it there.”
It’s only because of the strike that we are talking about it at all. And if Janet is right and Woolies shelves soon start running empty, then many more people might begin pondering the same question: who’s really creating all the wealth in this country?
One thing’s for sure: it’s not Dylan and his toasted scalp.
* Names have been changed at the interviewee’s request. Except Dylan’s.

April Holcombe

Sydney Woolies workers striking while it’s hot

One hundred and thirty-seven staff at the University of Wollongong are facing the sack by Christmas. According to information provided to the National Tertiary Education Union local branch, these sackings are the first of three rounds. To add insult to injury, the union was told that some staff will receive their letters on 20 December. 
On 8 November, students received an email from management announcing that 25 study disciplines were facing cuts under the “UOW Transformation” plan. These cuts are being forced through under the managerial leadership of Interim Vice-Chancellor John Dewar. The former chair of Universities Australia has a notorious track record of slashing jobs and streamlining courses, including sacking hundreds of staff at La Trobe University when the pandemic hit. Dewar also helped implement the “Melbourne model”, in which 96 undergraduate courses were reduced to just six when he was provost of Melbourne University in 2011.
The UOW Transformation plan stipulates that cuts will be made to entire study disciplines, such as cultural studies and human geography. Languages will no longer be offered in 2025, forcing an entire cohort of staff out of a job, and leaving students already enrolled in language courses in the lurch. Additionally, the university plans to reduce subject offerings and jobs in disciplines including history, maths, statistics, physics and engineering. 
These cuts are part of a longer-term plan to overhaul UOW’s degree structure. This overhaul, set to be implemented by 2026, will create a new type of “comprehensive” degree for non-accredited courses. The degree will be more generic and standardised, and follow an 8-8-8 subject structure: all students enrolled in a Bachelor of Arts will be required to study eight of the same core subjects, regardless of their chosen major and minor. This will limit the amount of specialist subjects the university needs to offer at any given time. Disturbingly, the document outlining the restructure flags a potential “no-major option” for degrees. The university is likely to cut professional staff numbers as part of this process, citing that the current degree structure is “complex for UOW staff to administer”. 
These attacks are part of a longer-term trend in the commodification of degrees and the corporatisation of universities. Scandalously, Dewar is a partner in consultancy firm KordaMentha, the same firm that has been awarded two contracts to advise the UOW in its slash and burn policies. Universities function like any other corporation, primarily interested in raising revenue, undermining staff pay and conditions, and gaining lucrative research partnerships. Citing a loss in revenue of $35 million less than forecast due to lower international student enrolments, management is attacking staff and students to boost margins. 
NTEU members held a rally to protest the cuts on 20 November to coincide with the university’s academic senate hearing. Student activists are planning to fight the cuts into the new year.
Follow @fight_uow_cuts on Instagram to get involved in the campaign.

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