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.

Megan Guy

University of Wollongong to sack 137 staff by Christmas

On 11 September, <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/why-were-right-to-disrupt-land-forces">more than 1,500 people gathered</a> outside the Melbourne Convention Centre to protest against some of the world’s most prominent purveyors of and profiteers from violence. Companies such as BAE Systems and Israel’s Elbit Systems were just two of the many bloody corporations displaying military hardware. 
They were here for the Land Forces 2024 International Land Defence Exposition, an event celebrating the defence and weapons industry. In the context of Israel’s war on Gaza, a convention filled with the manufacturers of war in our city felt like a punch in the face.
Since then, more than 100 activists have been charged for attending the protests. Most have been arrested in home raids, where police have shown up in large numbers to intimidate Palestine solidarity activists. Up to fifteen officers were sent to the home of two Melbourne students. The state has seized on the opportunity to ramp up the repression of Palestine solidarity activism after more than a year of protests.
Jos Downey, a member of Students for Palestine and one of those arrested, told Red Flag: “They were intimidating, following us around and all in body armour with guns. They were super aggressive when banging on the door and they got cranky about us recording and calling a lawyer”.
Jack Gardner, another member of Students for Palestine, related a similar experience when speaking to Red Flag: 
“I woke to three police officers in my bedroom, who arrested me for being at the Land Forces protest. I was patted down, searched and then handcuffed and told I would be taken to the station to be charged with several ‘crimes’ while another team of police went through my belongings and filmed my house for ‘evidence’. Six armed police officers were sent to arrest me, one university student, for the crime of attending a protest. It’s pretty nuts the lengths the police and the government will go to, to intimidate activists who are standing up against genocide and war.”
The groundwork for a heavy police response was laid before the protest began. The media campaigned in the weeks leading up to the expo, preparing everyone for a strong police presence. It was called the biggest police operation since the World Economic Forum protests in 2000, which attracted 25,000 protesters. The operation reportedly cost the Victorian government $15 million. NSW police decked in riot gear were bussed down for the event. 
Officers were equipped with rubber bullets, tear gas and OC spray. These weapons were fired indiscriminately as a line of police advanced into the crowd on the first day. By the end of the day, up to 100 protesters needed medical attention, according to the Melbourne activist legal support team. 
That evening in a press conference, commissioner Shane Patton defended the brutality of his force, saying: “I couldn’t be prouder of the officers down there and to see the way they used restraint when confronted by people intent on provoking violence”.
Sergio, a member of Socialist Alternative who was arrested, told Red Flag what that “restraint” looked like: 
“A riot squad officer raced forward and struck me on the back so forcefully that I fell to the ground. As I tried to get up, another officer pushed me from behind and I fell into the back legs of a riot officer in front of me. As I lay on the ground, the riot officer in front of me punched me repeatedly as I was kneed in the back and [had] my hands tied up.”
The arrests after the conference are a continuation of this aggressive approach. It’s clear that the state is using intimidation to try to shut down Palestine activism, and they’re creating a narrative to justify it. The anti-war protesters are being framed as violent criminals to justify the excessive force displayed by the police.
On 21 November, the arrestees had their first court hearing. At 9am, around 35 activists were called into the Magistrates Court for what’s known as a “mention hearing”, which sets the future date of the full hearing of charges. 
Almost an hour before the beginning of the hearing, a rally had been organised in solidarity with those charged. More than 50 people turned up, with signs that read, “Defend the right to protest” and “War mongers are the real criminals”. 
Oskar Martin, a representative from Students for Palestine, addressed the crowd: “We have the right to demonstrate and free speech—this means being able to stand for Palestine and being against a heinous genocide that has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions”. 
Moments after the rally began, a line of cops appeared, pushing protesters off the court’s steps, off the footpath and onto the road. Four arrestees tried to take a photo together and were promptly pushed off the pavement again. 
The hours-long proceeding was mostly at capacity in the courtroom. Nearly all the activists—those who had been charged and their supporters—stayed in the room for each other’s mentions. Despite the stultifying atmosphere of a magistrate courtroom, there was an air of solidarity. It was a visibly pro-Palestine crowd, a sea of black and white keffiyehs. 
Fundamentally, this case will be a test of the right to protest, something that must be defended. The police should be held accountable for their excessive use of force, and all charges against the Land Forces protesters should be dropped.

Alicia Page

Sam Rath

Land Forces protesters face court after home raids

On an average day, 200 people enter the round-the-clock Erskine Park Distribution Centre (DC) in western Sydney and bust their gut packing goods that end up in Woolworths supermarkets. But on Saturday 23 November, the two dozen in high vis turning up at the site weren’t there for the 5am morning shift. They were starting day three of an indefinite strike.
That is already a day longer than their last strike in 2017, and this time, it seems they are just getting started. The picket line looks built for long-haul, 24-hour operation: portaloos, a big box trailer of supplies, gazebos, barbecues, even a flat-screen TV powered by a generator. They are also joining five other warehouses in Victoria and Queensland. 
So far, the pickets are working. One worker said that the morning truck drivers don’t come to cross the picket line; they just come to greet and support the strikers. For Woolworths—whose shelves might start running empty later this week—the screws will turn tighter the closer we get to the holiday season.
“[We don’t care] if it takes one, two, three months—even if we’re here in the New Year”, a worker, Tee,* told Red Flag in an audio interview, as chill R&amp;B played from a nearby speaker. “And if anyone’s listening [to the recording in the future], happy New Year, merry Christmas. If you’ve got empty shelves in your local Woolies store, blame Woolies, not us.”
Almost all Erskine Park DC workers are members of the United Workers Union (UWU), and almost all voted for the indefinite strike. That sense of unity against management is a major point of pride. “I haven’t seen people in this high spirits in many, many years here”, Jamie, a UWU organiser, said. Despite the weekend’s heat wave, which could already be felt by 8am, workers kicked a ball around on the street, or crowded around a mate’s motorcycle.
The strike’s key demand, alongside higher pay, is to “<a href="https://unitedworkers.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Disciplinary-Power-in-Aust-Grocery-Warehouses-UWU.pdf">abolish the framework</a>”. Every worker seems determined to kill and bury it before they walk back inside the gates. The framework allows management to discipline any worker that fails to meet the “100 percent” target: a pick rate that the company can set and adjust with no oversight, rationale or accountability. “It’s trying to manage us for every second that we work, 24/7 non-stop”, Tee said.
At the best of times, work inside a Woolworths warehouse is rushed and strenuous. Workers on foot weave around forklifts, lay pickers and pallet movers in a mad rush to grab stock from aisles. 
With management constantly forcing the pace, Jamie, who worked for years at Erskine Park, described how extreme accidents are waiting to happen. “There’s a big risk of getting hit by machinery. Someone lost their life <a href="https://7news.com.au/news/nsw/woolworths-worker-killed-in-horrific-pallet-accident-remembered-as-beautiful-man-c-11173079">only a year ago</a>”, he said. “My first year on the job, I was a few inches away from being crushed by a machine myself.” But the recently introduced “framework”, Jamie said, “is gonna create chaos in there”.
The chaos is already starting. “We’ve got a lot of people that have been here for years, been doing their job perfectly fine, and now just last week, we had two people injured on Friday”, Tee said. “One of the guys had to leave in a wheelchair and they actually had to drop him home; he couldn’t go home in the vehicle he came in. On one day we’ve had more injuries than in the last couple of months.”
“Even those who can reach 100 percent, they can’t maintain it”, Jamie said. Humans cannot do what the AI program in their work-provided headset demands, such as moving 18-kilogram boxes every five seconds. “How can one person do this all day, every day? It’s 800 to 1,000 boxes per day”, another worker, Craig,* said. 
At the same time, the robot appears unable to do what human workers can, such as make sensible decisions about how to stack physical objects on a pallet. That creates even more work for employees. “The program is telling us to put medium-weight things on light things; it doesn’t work. So we have to take it all back off and repack it”, Craig explained.
Another striker who has worked here for more than a decade said the pressure to meet 100 percent every day adds a new layer of fear, stress and anger that’s affecting home and family life. “You don’t want to take work home with you; everyone will agree with you on that”, Ajay* said. “[But] when you go home to your families, you’re thinking about how you gotta do that again tomorrow.”
100 percent is not a fixed amount of work—it’s an efficiency aspiration. Management can continuously adjust it and reset working conditions to ensure that more profits are squeezed from the workforce. People are stressed about falling behind the target and losing their job. A few minutes lost here or there, and workers can be called in to meetings. 
“I’ve seen people hauled into the office for going 20 seconds, 30 seconds over their lunch break”, Jamie said.
“A lot of the guys have gone in there for a meeting and they haven’t come back out, you just see them getting walked off site”, Tee said.
That was all before the framework, which is giving managers even greater powers to bully and victimise. According to Jamie, management pushes workers harder if it wants them gone. “We’ve got ladies who’ve been with the company for 25 years, yet on a daily basis, they have to pick a lot more than others. It’s almost as if the company is trying to force them out, getting them to crumble and give up and walk out of their own accord.”
The union is also fighting for a proper wage rise to combat inflation. Woolworths says its pay offer is above the current inflation figure of 2.8 percent. But UWU members say this ignores the financial pain felt after years of rising grocery prices and housing costs, which are still worsening. 
“Sydney is one of the most expensive cities in the world”, Tee said. Like most workers here, he is renting and has only just now been able to move out and find a place for his growing family. “It’s $600 a week, so I asked the real estate agent, does it have two swimming pools and a Ferrari out the front?”, he joked. 
Those workers with mortgages are suffering from thirteen consecutive interest rate hikes. For each of the past two years, average wage increases have fallen behind average mortgage increases by around $1,000, according to Guardian economics editor Greg Jericho. Meanwhile, the big banks (as with their mates at Coles and Woolworths) are celebrating superprofit bonanzas. Little wonder that Reserve Bank governor Michelle Bullock came in for colourful rebuke around the picket line.
The pay claim is also about fairness. Across the country, wages differ from one Woolworths warehouse to the next. Erskine Park is praised by management as the most efficient distribution centre in Australia. Yet its hourly rate is much lower than at Minchinbury DC, just fifteen minutes’ drive away. “Align us with the other sheds”, one delegate demanded, echoing the union’s green placards cable-tied to the warehouse gates: “Every site, same rights at Woolworths!”
The first few days have seen a rock-solid shutdown, but it’s just the beginning. Workers at Erskine Park are assembling for an all-members’ meeting on Monday to discuss the next steps. 
Whatever comes next, Woolworths warehouse workers are prepared for a long, hot summer strike against one of Australia’s most hated companies. The rest of us workers should be offering moral and material support—and learning a thing or two. 
* Names have been changed at the interviewees’ request.
If you live in Sydney, show solidarity with strikers at their round-the-clock picket of Woolworths Distribution Centre, Sarah Andrews Close, Erskine Park.

Woolies warehouse workers keeping Sydney picket strong

Viraj Dissanayake is a former delegate at the Melbourne Liquor Distribution Centre, one of the Woolworths warehouses where workers are taking historic indefinite <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/woolies-distribution-workers-strike-for-everyone">strike action</a>. He helped lead an extraordinary four-day legally unprotected <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/inside-melbourne-warehouse-strike">strike at MLDC in 2015</a>, which succeeded in stopping management from introducing labour hire. 
Viraj was back at MLDC last week, one of many supporters who turned up in solidarity with striking workers on the first day of a new strike. Red Flag asked Viraj to share his reflections on warehouse work, organising and the 2015 strike.
--------------------
We’re on the picket line at MLDC. You worked here for quite a while. Tell us about what it’s like to work inside one of these places.
I started as a picker here in 2008 and worked till 2019. When we call these fast-paced distribution centres, they’re really like a big, automated machine where the workers are treated like just part of that machine. You come to work, you clock in, and then you need to go to either start picking or driving a forklift.
But if you spend one to two minutes extra between the clock-in and signing into the machine, there will be a team leader behind you asking why you took so much time. I think it gives you a sense of what this work’s going to be like. 
So when it comes to picking, that means you’re driving a transporter—you got two pallets behind that. And sometimes those two pallets can go to two different stores, which means you need to make sure you put the product onto the right pallet. Also, you’re wearing a headset pretty much telling you everything you have to do. And if you get stuck in the traffic and took ten minutes extra to wrap the pallet, you need to go to a manager. So that’s how this distribution centre works.
This is even before the new regime that management just introduced, which states that you have to hit 100 percent productivity 100 percent of the time?
Yes. I left this place five, six years ago. But at that time, what some of the health and safety reps did, we tried to get more gaps—they call them gaps, like you spend a few minutes in the toilet or if you spend a few minutes extra on the wrapping machine, we get some gaps [in the picking chain]. But it seems like now management will want to be harsh on you. They’re not giving you any gaps, but they’re expecting everyone to pick 100 percent. 
But when it comes to “100 percent”, this number is not a realistic number. It’s coming from something called “engineering standards”. Every six months, some people who’ve never picked in their life come here, looking at all the tasks, looking at how long it takes on average, and they’re doing this ridiculous time [estimation].
And then that “100 percent” needs to be aligned with this engineering standard. But I can be younger. Someone can be older. Someone can be taller. Someone can be shorter. But their [management’s] percentage seems like 100 percent for everyone. It’s very, very unrealistic. I’ve spoken to a few workers here—and the data, even five years ago, was the same—they said to me pretty much every worker here was injured at least once at work. That’s how bad the injury rate in this place is.
You spent a few years here as a delegate with the National Union of Workers [which merged with United Voice to form the United Workers Union in 2019]. Tell us something about some of the challenges of organising in this sort of a place.
I think the first and biggest challenge is that we don’t have an opportunity to talk to every worker. Even when it comes to EA time [when the company negotiates a new contract, called an enterprise agreement, with the workforce], we didn’t have mass meetings. But we had shift meetings. So if you’re in the afternoon shift, you’re having a meeting with other colleagues in the afternoon. But there was no chance for you to talk to your day shift colleagues about what your claims are.
This is an opportunity for management to divide the workplace. They’re trying to divide the workplace between permanents and casuals, between day shift and the afternoon, between the ones who have been here longer and the ones who have been here shorter. So one of the challenges is building a group. Like I said, the tasks are very time managed, so sometimes you don’t even have time to say hi to someone. So it’s very hard to find people interested in the union who want to do something.
So that was the first challenge, because there’s no toolbox meetings [where all workers on site can chat together before or after work or in a shared break] at these sorts of jobs. And there’s no permanent start time. From 5am to 5pm, people start every hour. They come, they grab their headset or go to their forklift and start work. So the first challenge: how are we going to build a group of workers interested in what’s happening around us, what’s happening to our conditions?
A lot of the workers here were part of the strike that happened in 2015 that you were involved in. Tell us about that.
Roughly a year before that strike happened, we had the official EA negotiation. Management wanted a claim to have labour hire [where they hire workers indirectly through a separate company to save money and undermine permanent company positions]. Somehow, we were better organised compared to the previous EA, so we knocked down the claim and management went quiet. They didn’t talk about that in the whole negotiation time.
But one thing we missed: there was an MOU [memorandum of understanding] that they can’t use labour hire. Somehow, it’s scrapped after six months, seven months I think. A few months after the EA, the distribution centre manager came to us casually and said, “I’m going to bring the labour hire”. There was shock and surprise. We didn’t want any labour hire people to come here, work with us doing the same task, not only taking some of the permanent people’s jobs, but also undermine the union site we built. Also, we didn’t want to treat them as second-class citizens.
We didn’t know what to do. There were no concrete plans. So the first small step we took: all of us came together. By this time we were lucky. We had built this small group between the shifts among all workers and we decided to wear a small pink sticker on our uniform saying “No labour hire”.
That was the first step, and it really pissed off the management. Everywhere they walked, they can see people wearing “No labour hire”. And then management tried to put more pressure. We tried to do a car park meeting. But management really intimidated the workers. Some of them were just finished at work, but management intimidated them not to go—so it wasn’t very successful. 
So then we decide no, this is not going to work. We can’t wait and ask for a proper meeting officially. Some of us decided to call a meeting on that Sunday. So out of 500, 600 people, 100+ turn up, which is a great number on a Sunday, on their own time, some of them with their family. One of the delegates starts talking to the people. He said, “We can talk about what we’re going to do, but I believe company’s not going to budge, not going to change their mind unless we picket the joint tomorrow”. Everyone put their hand up in support. That’s how we started the strike.
Obviously Woolworths didn’t see it coming. It had a huge impact. Your two demands were no labour hire and no repercussions for striking workers—and you effectively won those demands. What are some of your favourite moments?
There are a few. But the one thing I need to talk about is how we worked together. That night, after the mass meeting, we went home. Some people voluntarily rang their colleagues and they all worked together. That night, within a few hours, we decided who is going to man the gate, who is going to supply the tents, who is going to run the BBQ. Everything came from the workers—that’s the beauty of that strike.
But you ask me the favourite thing? We started the picket line on Monday 4:30am—we shut down the place. None of the workers wanted to go past their work colleagues on the picket line. Almost all joined us. But my favourite thing is next day. We all know the Australian laws about strikes, and especially about wildcat strikes. So the management went to Fair Work [Australia’s workplace court]. I don’t know what happened there. I wasn’t interested—we were more interested in organising the picket line.
It was a cold day. We had fire barrels everywhere. Management got some order from Fair Work—pretty much the commissioner asking us to go back to work. So they put that [notice of the ruling] everywhere inside. They stick these things on our union notice board without our permission. And these supervisors came out with the order to go back to work. Workers read it, laughed at it, put all [the notices] into the fire barrel. That’s my favourite moment of the whole strike.
What would your top bits of advice be for anyone going out on strike?
It is a simple one. It is always the ultimate truth. We had a big win, but I remember, some of us were hesitating that time. I remember some of us were on the fence. So it is clear: one thing you can do is withdraw your labour. Stick together. It might take a few more days. It might take a few weeks. We might lose some money. But just imagine how much money the company is going to lose. 
[Management] can take it to the Fair Work Commission, they can talk—but they can’t do the work you’re doing. They can’t pick the cartons like you’re doing. They can’t drive the truck like you’re doing. So just withdrawing labour shows them that you’re running this place.
Second, the need for an active strike. Finding ways to keep members engaged, and reaching out to other workers. That was really important for us.
A lot of people will be reading this who never worked in one of these places. Why should they support the workers on strike?
Injury to one means injury to everyone. Touch one, touch all. So you might be at the other end—the consumer buying the products from Woolies. But you need to remember we’re talking about a warehouse worker packing and picking these products for you and half of them injured their backs or they got another injury. So this is the time for you to show solidarity. That product is coming in time to your table because of what these workers are doing, not the advertisement you’ve seen on the TV. 
And these workers are standing up against this corporation, which takes the profits from fuelling the cost-of-living crisis. If the workers win against this company, it’s a message to workers everywhere that we can all win. 
So you need to show solidarity to these workers. You need to support them whenever you have a chance. If you’re in Melbourne, come here to the Melbourne Liquor Distribution Centre in Leverton or go to the Dandenong warehouse. Or if you’re in Sydney, go there, show them support [<a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/support-striking-woolworths-warehouse-workers-this-week-and-next">addresses here</a>]. Just <a href="https://chuffed.org/project/117264-emergency-bill-and-food-relief-while-workers-strike-for-safety-at-woolworths-warehouses">donate if you can</a>, whatever the support. Show these workers that we are with them.
You’re a socialist. What’s any of this got to do with socialism?
This is exactly what socialism is about. This is about who is running this world. This is about who is running this warehouse. I don’t have the numbers [about] how much the CEO took last year. But we all know how much these workers are taking home. Some of these people are performing 94 percent [efficiency] and [management are] not happy; they’re harassing the workers. They’re harassing you because you are an individual person. But you stick together here, they can’t harass you. That’s a tiny example of what socialism is all about: working together, collectivity, showing them who is running this world.
Finally, you’ve got a CFMEU shirt on. You’re a CFMEU delegate and you led a terrific strike where you are now at Knauf a couple of years ago. Any final reflections on that?
I’m very humble to become a health and safety rep and shop steward at Knauf plasterboard. And very proud to say in 2022 it was the same struggle. Knauf management wanted to bring labour hire, where they can use the second-class citizens. We spent 40 days [on strike]. We got great support from the CFMEU. We got great support from the socialists—Victorian Socialists were there all 40 days supporting us. We got what we wanted and we stopped labour hire there. So the struggle continues.

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