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

Jerome Small

Construction workers come out fighting against Labor

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

Labor set to impose dictatorial powers over construction union

In the middle of Brisbane’s legal district, spitting distance from the police headquarters and bustling Roma Street train station, dozens of striking construction workers congregate on a traffic island. A huge metal sculpture of a kangaroo looms comically over the impromptu camp, renamed by the workers “Solidarity Island”.
The workers, employed by CPB—the lead engineering contractor at the Cross River Rail construction site—have been striking on and off since May as they fight for a new workplace agreement. CPB is a wholly owned subsidiary of the industrial giant CIMIC, whose profits last year were nearly half a billion dollars. Somehow, no doubt perfectly legally, it paid only $55 million in tax, <a href="https://www.annualreports.com/HostedData/AnnualReports/PDF/ASX_CIM_2023.pdf">according to the company’s annual report</a>. 
The 150 striking workers have been consigned to Solidarity Island since 19 July, thanks to a court injunction banning them from being within 15 metres of a worksite entrance. Despite the whizzing traffic, persistently hostile media reports, and the looming threat of a federal government takeover of their union, the workers are confident and defiant. 
And they are right to be. The vast majority of CPB employees are taking part in the strike. The workers know that every time they stop working, so too does the site. They talk about receiving support from construction sites across the city. Even though the dispute has dragged on for months, they plan to win.
When the enterprise agreements for the huge Cross River Rail project in Brisbane were first negotiated in 2019, the CFMEU was locked out in preference for a cut-price deal between the bosses and the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU). It’s only now, more than four years later and after the expiry of that dodgy deal, that the CFMEU has been able to edge in by organising the workers on site.
The workers’ determination comes not just from their strength but because they know this is a fight to improve the industry standard. This includes pay rises, but, importantly, the CFMEU is also trying to ensure that workers employed by subcontractors (which is most workers on any construction site) are paid the same rates as other workers.
In addition to equal pay for all workers, the union also demands a heat policy in line with other CFMEU agreements. The union wants all work to stop once the temperature reaches 35 degrees (or lower if there is high humidity). 
There have been several deaths and other serious injuries on the $6.3 billion Cross River Rail project. Late last year, 29-year-old Daniel Sa’u died from heat stress after finishing a full day’s work. He left behind a wife and three young children. His wife Jeraldine later said at a CFMEU rally: “What happened to him is not right ... those in power who could have prevented his death need to be held accountable”. 
CFMEU members striking at CPB have been at the centre of many of the recent attacks on the union, which have come from the federal Labor government and the state Labor government of Stephen Miles, as well as the usual suspects: the corporate media, the right-wing parties and the bosses’ spokespeople. This strike predictably has been reported as emblematic of union thuggery. 
In a sense, the CPB workers and their strike are emblematic of what is at stake in the federal government and Fair Work Commission <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-02/fair-work-moves-to-appoint-cfmeu-administrator/104176634">move</a> to sack all elected officials—268 all up—in the CFMEU’s construction division (only the WA and ACT branches have been spared). While allegations of serious corruption and criminal dealings have been made in the Victorian and NSW branches, in Queensland, the main charge seems to be that the CFMEU is leading a strike.

Duncan Hart

Strike shows stakes for Queensland CFMEU

Labor knives out against CFMEU: workers’ rights on the chopping block

Except for a handful of insiders in the Teamsters and the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), few of us were aware that negotiations were being held to affiliate the ALU with the truckers’ union, until the recent <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/amazon-labor-union-affiliates-with-teamsters-2024-06-05/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announcement</a>. If anything, most of us stopped paying attention to the ALU, which two years ago had an important breakthrough in winning a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/01/tech/amazon-union-election-staten-island/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">union election</a> at Amazon’s JFK8 fulfillment centre in Staten Island, New York. Soon afterwards, the ALU was inundated with <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/04/06/1091130929/chris-smalls-amazon-union-50-warehouses" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">calls</a> from 50 Amazon workplaces across the country. A spark had been struck, but would it catch fire?
Disappointingly, the initial success was followed by a <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/10/18/23410675/amazon-union-vote-results-upstate-albany-new-york-alb" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">string of defeats</a>, and ALU supporters began pushing for change. Some of us were aware that there was a “<a href="https://labornotes.org/2023/07/reform-caucus-rises-sues-elections-amazon-labor-union" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reform movement</a>” in the ALU that was demanding a democratic structure and challenging the leadership of its president, Chris Smalls, who became an <a href="https://www.workers.org/2023/05/71148/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">international celebrity</a>. When Smalls incorporated the ALU in New York, it was more like a NGO rather than a recognisable union. The ALU was also similar to an NGO in that it was also heavily dependent on <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/21/business/amazon-labor-union.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">outside contributions</a>, not from a dues base of a membership.
ALU is <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10163934408876164&amp;set=a.10153734476311164" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">voting</a> on affiliation with the Teamsters, and it is likely to pass, especially given that the <a href="https://twitter.com/ReformALU/status/1798384859137937869/photo/1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reformers</a> in the ALU were part of the negotiations with the Teamsters and have endorsed the agreement. The Teamsters also helped fix the vote by unilaterally <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=868166402018829&amp;set=a.227247562777386" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announcing</a> that the ALU had already affiliated, with a social and mainstream media blitz. I would guess that affiliation will pass overwhelmingly, since no one in the ALU has put forward a fundamentally different strategy for moving it forward, rather than affiliating with the Teamsters.
Smalls has proved to be so unpopular with the ALU membership that he <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/chris-small-amazon-labor-union-president-not-seeking-reelection-2023-12#:~:text=Chris%20Smalls%2C%20Amazon%20Labor%20Union%20president%20and%20founder%2C%20tells%20Business,will%20not%20run%20for%20reelection&amp;text=Smalls%20led%20the%20union%20to,organizing%20than%20his%20own%20image." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announced</a> last December that he would not be running for president. While ALU members are voting for affiliation with the Teamsters, the election of a new leadership this summer has been <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/amazon-union-rivals-reach-court-deal-in-move-to-quell-hostility" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ordered</a> by the courts. I don’t have a position on whether the ALU should affiliate or not, but I would be suspicious of Teamsters bearing gifts.
Talking to several people over the last week, I’ve been trying to get a handle on some of the motivations for ALU reformers embracing the Teamsters, and what they expect will change for them.
Myths about the Teamsters being a “powerful” union persist to this very day. This was well on display during last year’s UPS contract campaign, during which widespread media coverage amplified this image—including much of the US left, which repeated continually that we were on the eve of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4e8jI_qzro" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">biggest strike</a> in modern US history. This, of course, did not occur, leading to the frustration and<a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/07/28/what-happened-to-the-big-ups-strike/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> demoralisation</a> of the hundreds of young radicals—many identified with the Democratic Socialists of America, <a href="https://www.dsausa.org/strike-ready-2023/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">DSA</a>—who went out and got jobs on some of the worst shifts at UPS to be part of this transformative campaign.
Let’s be clear that the Teamster leadership of General President Sean O’Brien and General Secretary-Treasurer Fred Zuckerman chose a social media campaign, despite their bloviating rhetoric. And, since the beginning of the year, UPS has ravaged its workforce by closing over <a href="https://www.freightwaves.com/news/ups-to-close-200-sort-centers-in-modernization-push#:~:text=Up%20to%20200%20facilities%20are,outlined%20by%20management%20on%20Tuesday." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">200 shifts and buildings</a> across the country, with the union acting like little more than a bystander. Revealingly, during the UPS contract campaign, <a href="https://www.freightwaves.com/news/yellows-demise-2-decades-in-the-making" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Yellow Freight</a>, one of the oldest freight companies represented by the Teamsters, went bankrupt and 20,000 union jobs disappeared without a fight from the union.
The hollowness of the Teamsters at UPS and Yellow Freight was clearly revealed when Shawn Fain, the president of the UAW, called <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/11/12/1211602392/uaw-auto-strike-deals-ratified-big-three-shawn-fain" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">strikes</a> at General Motors, Ford and Stellantis last fall. In sharp contrast to the bloviating from the Teamsters, the UAW actually struck at the auto companies formerly known as the Big Three. And while legitimate criticisms can be made of the conduct of the strikes and their final settlements, I think there is little doubt that <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/10/04/why-striking-matters/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">real strikes</a> are better than bloviating and empty posturing.
Some ALU reformers and supporters argue that for the ALU to succeed at Amazon it needs a “big gun” to back it up. While you can understand the allure of being affiliated to a larger union after a series of defeats, is this a solution to the existential crisis of ALU? Even recent history at Amazon doesn’t suggest this is a silver bullet solution. Way back in April 2021, the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union affiliated with the mammoth UFCW, but lost two to one in a union election at Amazon in <a href="https://tempestmag.org/2021/04/defeat-in-bessemer/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Bessemer, Alabama</a>, despite having a successful record of organizing in the South.
Part of the motivation for the Teamsters in wanting the shell of the ALU, I can’t help but think, is to deepen their claim on Amazon while doing little work to earn it. The 2021 Teamster convention, the last one presided over by James P. Hoffa, passed a series of resolutions on Amazon, including creating an Amazon department and plans for a campaign directed at Amazon drivers across the country.
So far, all the Teamsters have to show for their paltry efforts is a contract at <a href="https://teamster.org/2023/10/amazon-teamsters-bring-prime-week-strike-to-l-a-county-warehouse/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Battle Tested Strategies</a>, a former Amazon contractor, in Palmdale, California, with a resulting recognition “strike” and “roving pickets” at Amazon facilities that few actual Amazon workers participated in. It appears that the Teamsters are using the media strategy that they deployed in the UPS contract campaign. But the larger point is that the illusive “big gun” is not ultimately about affiliating with a larger union, but collectively organising workers for militant action to wrest a contract from the employer.
Chris Smalls initially had an inkling of this. He dismissed affiliating with Teamsters soon after the victory on Staten Island, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/jun/04/amazon-workers-staten-island-christian-smalls" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">telling</a> the Guardian: “If established unions had been effective, they would have unionized Amazon already. We have to think about 21st century-style unionizing.” He never elaborated on what he meant by this, but the Teamsters haven’t changed.
First published at <a href="https://joeallen-60224.medium.com/beware-of-teamsters-bearing-gifts-25ee74ffb645">Joe Allen on Medium</a>.

Joe Allen

What happened to the guy who organised US Amazon workers?

In 2023, the NTEU branch at Melbourne University undertook the longest strike action at a university since the union was formed in 1993. Activists, inspired by the long-haul strikes in the US and some significant wins at the branch in the past few years, decided on an ambitious campaign based around ambitious claims.
And yet, our branch has been left with an enterprise agreement (EA) that sends our rights backwards in key areas, and is far from the ambitious claims we set out to achieve. Understanding the promise and the limitations of the campaign, and particularly the role of union officials in dampening members’ aspirations, is important for future organising efforts.
The positives
The Melbourne University branch has seen some welcome developments over the past few years, based mainly around an attitude of more seriously organising members to fight for our rights. The wage theft campaign was an activist campaign, which also used the EA and the legal avenues provided by a strong clause around casual pay, and won the most back-pay for casuals out of any campus in Australia—$40 million and counting.
The branch also won a thumping victory against the university’s attempt to do away with one of our annual pay rises in 2021, following huge faculty meetings organised by the union. The union’s “vote no” campaign won more than double the number of votes as there are union members on campus.
Going into this EA round, we decided to improve on the usual process in order to increase rank-and-file involvement. Member working groups (based around work type such as casuals, professional staff, gender equity) met to discuss the core concerns of their areas and develop claims based on those. Six priority areas resulted: 
- Secure work—our key demand was for 80 percent of staff to have ongoing jobs, compared to less than 50 percent currently - Workload relief—filling all vacant positions, and a guaranteed 40 percent research fraction for all academic staff - Limits on restructures—no more than one for the life of this EA or no forced redundancies - Enforceable work from home rights - A pay increase of more than inflation - Gender equity—especially, dramatically improved parental leave
The branch also set up a strike committee. In the past, such groups had been called campaign committees, the idea being that this time we were making industrial action the core focus of the campaign. We began 2023 with a zoom link-up with activists from the incredible University of California strikes.
Our first four-hour strike resulted in around 1,500 staff and students joining a march to Trades Hall on 5 May—an indication of the widespread disgust and mistrust of senior management among staff. In the past ten years, the university has posted record profits and hoarded billions in assets while habitually sacking hundreds of staff. Workloads have increased and casualisation became entrenched.
The mood among staff at the university has been bitter for a long time, so the argument that we needed serious, sustained industrial action to change things for the better won an easy audience. 
Solid organising in the arts faculty, mostly among the casualised sessional tutors and lecturers, built towards a marking ban at the end of first semester. But two weeks before that was to begin, we got the first warning that the NTEU leaders were unhappy with our ambition. They announced that the union was not prepared to support the ban, as they were too scared that the university might take us to the Fair Work Commission.
They were particularly scared of section 242 of the Fair Work Act, and an unfavourable decision by the Commission in 2013 around a marking ban. This is an extremely repressive legal tool, but the fact that the union was unwilling to support industrial action that had the potential to affect students says a lot about the industrial strategy of the NTEU leaders. 
We will never be in a position to properly improve working conditions in the higher education sector unless we challenge that law. If the union leaders refuse to back action, we must be prepared to defy them, too. Unfortunately, this was the first time that many branch activists had experienced such a betrayal from the leaders, and we weren’t in a position at that stage to defy them. But it should have been a lesson better learned.
Two weeks on strike
The leadership’s refusal to support the marking ban threw the campaign into a bit of a quandary. Months were spent arguing about what sort of industrial action could be supported by the union leaders and effective enough to win ambitious claims. During this time, activists in Fightback, a rank-and-file group, proposed a one-day strike around the University Council meeting on 20 June, arguing that we couldn’t let the campaign languish without any action, even if a one-day strike was short of what we knew would be needed to win.
A plucky band of 300 members gave the vice-chancellor an eyeful during the council meeting. The strike also saw the emergence of members in student services as a backbone of our campaign. Members who previously had done little activity with the union picketed their workplace in the morning. They convinced enough of their workmates to join the picket (if they were union members) or even to join the union in order to strike, that we shut down the in-person student information centre for the first time ever. 
Unfortunately, because some activists were dismissive of the strike, it was not well built in areas outside of student services and the library. But the student services response showed the branch a way forward—take any action seriously, involve members in building and organising that action, and more members will get a sense of their power. It was a model we could have used in other, less organised sections of the branch
It was in this situation that the bargaining team proposed the first step towards undercutting our ambitious claims, in a “heads of agreement”. It was the first major debate in the campaign. Our argument was that we should not water down our claims before we had even tried to fight for them. It was a signal to the bosses that we were heading down the usual NTEU path—asking less so that we don’t have to fight for more. It was something of a positive that we managed to force the debate into the open.
With semester two approaching, the campaign had to decide on action, but was still going around in circles. The arts activists cut through with a vote in a faculty members’ meeting for a week-long strike in week six. Fantastic! While many activists (including Fightback) had argued for sustained, indeed open-ended, strikes from May, there was still some uncertainty about how other union members would respond to a call for a week-long strike. 
Activists from Fightback argued that the week-long strike should be made branch-wide—that such an action in arts alone would not have the same impact and risked being isolated and possibly open to retaliation. We argued that the strike and branch committees should support an all-branch week-long strike at the members’ meeting called to decide the question.
Unfortunately, many of the arts activists and the branch leadership insisted that only local areas (faculties, schools or non-academic divisions) could vote to join the week-long strike. The vote was narrowly won by the branch leadership, with around ten votes’ difference in a meeting of hundreds of members. Having lost the vote, we were still determined to try to ensure that the arts strike was not isolated. 
Fightback members in the library and student services called meetings and organised around supporting week-long strikes in those areas. Members in those areas correctly saw that such a piecemeal strike was less effective; some who had voted for a week-long all-branch strike, voted against local area week-long strikes. But others agreed that arts should not be left to go it alone, and the votes in those areas won out, as did votes in the Law School and one of the schools at the Victorian College of the Arts.
Once the votes were up, we had a short amount of time to organise a week-long strike program for each area! We organised pickets each morning at our buildings to speak to students and other workmates about the importance of the strike. We joined other areas’ in teach-ins and organised rallies at the areas we could, in order to bring members on strike from different areas together as much as possible. 
The students’ strike support tent in the centre of campus became a welcome rest hub and also a space where we held meetings on the radical history of Melbourne University, on explaining our log of claims, and on fighting repressive industrial relations laws. The members who participated in that strike, although losing a whole weeks’ pay, felt galvanised and united—we had stood together for the kind of higher education system we believed in. 
Student services and the library held a joint organising meeting on the last day of the strike. That meeting was one of the most inspiring things I have participated in during fifteen years of union activism! Listening to the conclusions drawn from colleagues who had only recently got active and felt their own nascent power as workers was something of a glimpse of those moments in history when that happens on a mass scale.
Going back to work felt a bit odd. We held our breath for a few days with no word from senior management or our bargaining team. And then, the university finally responded. After a year of refusing to even discuss our secure work target, they relented by responding to our 80 percent secure work target with an offer of 75 percent. Although there were plenty of loopholes, it was the first time any such ratio had been offered in higher education. At the members’ meeting following, members drew the conclusion that our strike had worked.
But still the question of what sort of effective industrial action we could take in the limits imposed by the union persisted. Some of the arts activists proposed an indefinite strike, limited to the arts faculty, but that was narrowly defeated. Such an action would have been even more isolating than the week-long. But there was little acknowledgement that it was a moot point anyway—we had been told that the union leaders would not notify for an indefinite strike. And so a second week-long strike was born.
Just before a members’ meeting was to vote on the second week-long strike, the bargaining team convinced the branch committee to defer the vote for a week, arguing that it jeopardised movement at the bargaining table. We knew that was a prelude to calling the strike off altogether. At the members’ meeting, against the recommendation of the branch committee, we moved a procedural motion to put the strike vote, which was supported by a large majority of members. A motion that the strike only go ahead if more than 60 percent of the meeting endorsed it was then voted down—members were in a bolshie mood! More than 60 percent of members in the meeting then voted for an all-branch, week-long strike.
We set about organising the next strike. We argued for all-in pickets at the major entrances to the campus with local areas picketing their own buildings if they chose. These pickets became a focal point for the strike and galvanised members who participated—especially when the head of the university’s bargaining team appeared to attempt to drive through the picket line on his motorbike. 
Rallies at student services and the VCA were highlights of the week, too. The testimony from rank-and-file members, many of whom had never given public speeches before, was compelling and even eye-opening, as they detailed the personal cost of working in a system that is broken. The repeated renditions of “Solidarity forever” at the pub at the end of the week was a beautiful way to finish. There was again movement at the table, with some of the more blatant loopholes in the secure work target being closed.
But the campaign now faced a crossroad. The union’s state secretary moved in, and under the guise of “getting the decision-makers at the table” imposed a new order on bargaining. Throughout the campaign, we struggled with a lack of timely, regular and written bargaining reports, and no bargaining chart. This was bad enough, but the lack of accessible, easy-to-read guides on the importance of our claims and how they were worded also meant that when the union leaders insisted on watering down the claims (“renegotiating” them), members were not as informed as they ought to have been.
Momentum is key to any industrial campaign. And powerful forces within both management and the union hierarchy were now moving to suck momentum out of our dispute. In the wash-up of the second week-long strike, the bargaining team agreed (or proposed—we’re not quite sure) to a “ceasefire”—in which they engaged in negotiations while imposing a ban on both industrial action and even communications to members about what was happening. They also presented to members a “package”—another rewrite of our claims—with little notice and threatened that negotiations would be derailed (and our strike would be in vain) if we didn’t vote for it. Members of Fightback argued for a deferral of that vote to give members time to debate the proposal, but it was narrowly defeated, and the package was approved.
Having lost two weeks of pay within a couple of months, it’s not surprising that some members were open to the suggestion that further strikes were unnecessary. State office was happy to oblige. The official union communications, backed by management, that things were progressing nicely at the table, but without detail, fed into a sense that all would be well. It was well into December that the proposed agreement, supported by the union bargaining team and management, was sent to members. Initially, the branch leaders wanted to give us just a few days to read it before voting to agree. Thankfully, that plan was rejected, and we were given until early February before the vote.
The more that we analysed the proposed agreement, the more we realised what a sell-out it was. Our lesser-paid colleagues would go backwards in terms of real wages, two of our end-of-year shutdown days were swapped for forced annual leave, work from home rights were diminished and the “pay for all hours worked” clause, which had been the foundation for the wage theft campaign, had been deleted.
There were some improvements, of course. The university proposed a better parental leave clause, we got gender affirmation leave (including for casuals) and a minimum 20 percent research clause for academics, which had not been written into the Melbourne University EA before. The tragedy is that these partial victories were accepted when we could have won much more if we had been clearer on our industrial strategy and willing to take on the union’s refusal to back effective action.
We decided to run a campaign to vote “No”. The proposal was an insult to members—dramatically diminishing our rights in our supposed “priority” concerns. To agree to such a proposal after such lengthy industrial action, particularly when there was plenty of potential left in our campaign, would undermine the organising that we had done throughout the year and make it more difficult in the future. Why should members trust that we should engage in lengthy (especially open-ended) strikes for ambitious claims if we were so willing to jettison such claims this time around.
We faced serious opposition from the branch leaders in organising the campaign. The branch committee refused to allow the circulation of vote “No” material, so we had only our own networks to distribute critical information. Despite this, at the largest members’ meeting ever, with more than 600 members’ attending, we won a “No” vote of 27 percent, the highest “No” vote in the country. That showed a significant minority of the active branch membership agreed that we should have continued to demand more.
Lessons to learn
Besides the historic defeat of the union leaders’ Jobs Protection Framework, the NTEU has a lengthy track record of successfully curtailing members’ interest for a proper fight for our working conditions. This campaign was no exception.
Unfortunately, this is a lesson that seems to have been ignored by some branch activists. A <a href="https://jacobin.com/2024/03/australia-universities-open-ended-strikes">sum-up of the campaign</a> in<a href="https://jacobin.com/2024/03/australia-universities-open-ended-strikes"> </a>Jacobin
magazine doesn’t once criticise the union leaders. Calling for open-ended strikes and recognising that solid rank-and-file organising will be necessary to get there is a good starting point.
But our union leaders said explicitly that they will not support such strikes, and in fact were the only reason that the arts marking ban did not happen. If we don’t confront their power over our campaigns, we’re kidding ourselves. The authors of the Jacobin
article rightly praise the University of California Santa Cruz vote “No” campaign, seeing that it played an important role in solidifying a left on that campus. Yet there’s not a word in support of the vote “No” campaign at their own campus.
There were other weaknesses in the campaign. It lacked regular spaces for members at different levels (branch, local, faculty, etc.) to get together to debate campaign strategy and tactics. These spaces need to be seen as just as important in rank-and-file organising as spreadsheets showing the outcome of one-on-one conversations. There were also no timely, regular, detailed communications from the bargaining table, and no accessible explainers of the original claims. These limitations made it easier for the union leaders and bargaining team to water down solidly worded claims with little scrutiny.
Despite the limitations, the campaign at Melbourne University was one that all members who participated should be proud. Our weeks of strike built our branch to the largest in the country. Hundreds of members gained experience in union organising for the first time. We had large and engaged strike committees, and plenty of debates that will mean these union members have more experience to judge debates in the future.

Katie Wood

Lessons from the Melbourne Uni enterprise agreement campaign

On 17 May, Victorian public sector nurses shut 800 beds, taking our first industrial action in more than a decade. Before the action, members of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) had rejected the government’s offer of a 3 percent annual pay rise, due to concerns about the rising cost of living and underpayment of women workers.
As patients were discharged throughout the day, the number of closed beds grew. By that afternoon, word came down from the union that the government had given us a reasonable pay offer and our industrial action was called off. Beds were reopened. 
But when details of the offer were revealed at a meeting of 3,000 union members the following Monday, it didn’t receive the warm welcome the union was expecting. Instead, nurses voted to reject the proposed deal, and pledged to fight for more.
The new offer kept to the government’s wages policy of 3 percent annually, with a $6,100 cash payment to sign on. There were small improvements to various allowances for more difficult, skilled or unsocial work, such as night shift. And a few popular but easy wins, like reintroducing permanent night shift for those who volunteer, and a minimum rest period after coming off night duty. But overall, the offer was not a significant improvement on what had previously been rejected.
Nor was the new offer the sole focus of the meeting, with the union also revealing that it had launched a gender parity case with the Fair Work Commission. The case argues that nurses and midwives are underpaid because we are mostly women, which is all true (a graduate nurse in Victoria earns a base rate of $67,500, well under the average for university graduates of $75,000). Following the recent success of a similar case in the aged care sector, the ANMF expect pay for graduate nurses to increase by between 5.5 and 13 percent if the case is successful. Of course, Fair Work would determine how much this increase would be, the timing of it, and whether it flows on to more experienced nurses and midwives.
While a pay rise to address an historic injustice is certainly needed, the possibility of it should not be used to sell nurses an agreement that fails to even come close to keeping pace with inflation. To maintain the existing standard of living for nurses, nurses need an agreement that offers pay rises commensurate with inflation. Separate pay rises intended to compensate for the historic gender pay gap must be in addition to this if they are to actually remediate the social inequality they are supposed to address. 
And while promises about gender parity pay rises are based more on aspirations rather than any firm agreement, the proposed offer is so bad that even with these promised increases, nurse pay will still in many cases fail to keep pace with inflation. I did the numbers based on my own income as a graduate nurse, comparing the proposed changes with my current pay.
Our last enterprise agreement gave a 3 percent increase to nurses in December 2022, when inflation for the year had run at 7.8 percent. There was no pay increase last year. So right now, I’m $125 a week behind where I would be if wages had kept pace with inflation. 
The agreement on its own would leave me $100 per week poorer by 2027 than if wages kept pace with inflation. If the Fair Work case is included, the best I could hope for would be to be $95 per week better off, but could easily still be $60 per week worse off, depending on how much they award. This neither adequately addresses the historic and continuing gender pay gap, not adequately compensates nurses struggling with cost-of-living pressures.
As the discussion wore on at Monday’s meeting, nurses became more and more animated that the agreement had to be sent back to the drawing board. The biggest criticisms were directed at the government’s 3 percent wage policy, with many comments imploring the union to challenge it head on. When it finally came to a vote, the offer was shut down by a show of hands, with masses of members cheering and whistling as the result was declared “not carried”. 
Where to from here? We have been told not to expect a better offer because the government is in debt. But there is plenty of money that could be used to boost the wages of healthcare workers. In March, The Australian <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=TAWEB_WRE170_a&amp;dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Fbusiness%2Fthe-list-australias-richest-250-of-2024%2Fnews-story%2Fbb2c07f8c90b86f90c35b62c7c509a8e&amp;memtype=anonymous&amp;mode=premium&amp;v21=HIGH-Segment-2-SCORE&amp;V21spcbehaviour=appendend">reported</a> that the combined wealth of the 250 richest people in the country had reached $591 billion—an increase of 86 percent on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia%27s_Richest_250">2019 figure</a> of $318 billion. These people and the companies they own should be taxed to pay for the healthcare system that keeps millions of people alive and healthy.
And though Victoria’s Labor government is crying poor in its recent budget, the Age reported this week that there is $76 billion squirreled away for spending closer to the election. For comparison, <a href="https://s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/budgetfiles202425.budget.vic.gov.au/2024-25+State+Budget+-+Statement+of+Finances.pdf">budget papers</a> show the total Victorian government spending on health of around $29 billion for the coming 12 months. So the money for the wage rise we deserve is there if we keep pushing for it. And a properly funded health system should be a priority for the government, and the last thing to be scrimped on. 
By standing up for ourselves, nurses are standing up for everyone in the health system—whether they be workers or patients—as well as the rest of the public sector. As the largest single group of staff in Victoria’s public health system, what nurses accept could shape the outcome for every other group. 
Ambulance Victoria paramedics have also rejected a state government offer, with 86 percent of union members voting to reject a deal late last year. Key <a href="https://vau.org.au/av-eba-update-016/">sticking points</a> were a lack of movement on wages and allowances, and staff working hundreds of hours of <a href="https://vau.org.au/ambosdeservealife/">forced overtime</a>. The result is that like nurses, ambos are burnt out, exhausted, and there is high turnover of staff. Now there is the prospect that nurses and ambos will be fighting for a better deal together. 
Workers in the health system have spent far too long making sacrifices to keep public health going, while governments skimp on what’s required. We need to keep fighting for a better deal.

ANMF Victoria member

Victorian nurses reject pay deal

Review of 12 Rules for Strife by Jeff Sparrow and Sam Wallman, Scribe publications, 2024 
From the first pages to the last, the hero of 12 Rules for Strife is: ourselves. 
Cartoonist Sam Wallman’s work is a regular feature of picket lines, protests, and union and radical publications in this country. In 12 Rules for Strife Sam teamed up with well known left-wing author Jeff Sparrow to create 128 pages of illustrations and argument, exploring how ordinary people collectively create and share thought, work, movement, controversy, and transformation—in other words, how we go about creating the “strife” needed to win a better world. 
Sam’s work, as always, is wonderful—both in the sense of “really great” and also “full of wonder”. The collective of strife-makers he portrays in this book is no mere accumulation of automatons. Human frailty, contradiction and uncertainty, as well as strength, well up out of every page. 
Sam somehow manages to capture the risk that each “ordinary” person bears in taking a single step on the path to extraordinary, history-making actions. His drawings capture that combination of nervousness and keeping our nerve when we take our first step to contradict a manager; the challenge in finding the courage (and the right approach) to start a conversation about workplace issues with a workmate; and how these individual acts flow out of and feed back into a bigger whole.
Changing the world is no walk in the park. A monstrous three-headed dog, recognisable to fans of Harry Potter and Greek mythology alike, makes an inconspicuous cameo in chapter three being walked by a (literal) cartoon capitalist. This horror then reappears in later chapters—off the leash, roaming at will, and on occasion being fed by some of our fellow workers.
This gets to one of the central political arguments of 12 Rules for Strife, which will be familiar to readers of Jeff Sparrow’s 2018 book Trigger Warnings: Political Correctness and the Rise of the Right. In Trigger Warnings, Jeff argued that the decline in the level of struggle since the 1970s is intertwined with a political degeneration within the left. 
It used to be common sense on the left to view workers as having a vital interest in combating the oppression and division that capitalism creates. Workers could challenge that oppression, and overcome those divisions, through a combination of struggle and political argument. By contrast, much of the left today effectively treats the mass of workers as irrelevant or even an obstacle to social change, due to their contradictory and sometimes reactionary views. 
In 12 Rules for Strife Sam and Jeff, in word and in illustration, take aim at this elitist conception. The chapter headed “Reject smug politics” is a direct and very welcome attack on the idea that struggle and politics should be reserved for those who have already passed some test of political clarity or purity. 
The “direct politics” that Sam and Jeff advocate puts the actions of ordinary people, and especially workers, at the centre of any project for social change. They contrast this with “delegated politics”, where we’re relegated to the status of passive observers. 
This is a useful distinction. It’s also one that leaves plenty of room for argument, given that “direct politics” could encompass the contending approaches of socialism from below, syndicalism, and the muscular do-it-yourself reformism of many progressive trade union militants. The role of “strife” in the sense of polemic between these various approaches isn’t explored in this brief book. 
Perhaps a more consequential omission is the role of political organisation: after all, throughout history it has been organised political forces that have played a crucial role in determining how far waves of struggle and radicalisation can go. No doubt the argument can (and no doubt it should) continue about which rule or rules we might like to add, or to tweak: 12 Rules for Strife
is an intervention into an argument, not the final word.
12 Rules for Strife is a wonderful political manifesto, released at an extraordinary political moment. The book came out on 1 May, just as student encampments in solidarity with the people of Palestine were spreading from Columbia University in New York to campuses across the US and around the world. 
In the week or so since I read Sam and Jeff’s book, I’ve been able to visit several of the student encampments around Melbourne. In a time of horror, it’s been a wonderful experience—again, in both senses of that word. 
At each of the camps, whatever was going on, there was an electricity in the air that came from the awareness that many thousands of people around the world were doing precisely what we were doing at that moment: putting up a tent, defending an encampment either physically or politically, leafleting and chalking, or engaging with students to draw more people in and to discuss the politics and history of the Palestinian struggle and the importance of solidarity. 
More than once, I’ve felt what Sam portrays as a recurring motif in this book: the tendrils of thought and human connection, energy, and purpose that bind us to each other, and to a bigger whole. Many thousands of us, perhaps many millions, are joining each other in strife.

Choose strife

The struggle of the Argentine working class against ultra-conservative President Javier Milei continues to evolve. Public sector workers are one of the key groups leading the resistance. Through strikes, protests and occupations of government buildings, state workers have pushed back against Milei’s plan to sack up to 70,000 people.
Milei took office in December and went straight on the offensive against the working class, moving to cut government spending, limit the right to strike and privatise state-owned industry. He also enacted draconian anti-protest laws that deemed any gathering of more than three people an illegal protest.
“They seek to destroy the public sector”, Leonardo Rando, a delegate in the State Workers’ Association (ATE) and a member of the Socialist Workers’ Movement (MST), told Red Flag. “They are not interested in continuing any public policy that improves the quality of life of the people.”
In many cases, management did not even tell workers they were sacked. Instead, they found out only when their access cards did not work one morning.
Fortunately, working-class resistance has thwarted major aspects of Milei’s plans. Argentina’s working class is strong, with a unionisation rate of around 40 percent in the formal economy and a large left. The resistance began almost immediately, with huge protests and strikes kicking off across the country. This culminated in a general strike on 24 January, in which half a million people joined the accompanying protest in the capital Buenos Aires.
Shortly after, Milei withdrew his proposal from congress when it became clear it did not have the votes to pass. The huge protests over the last five months have defied the anti-protest laws and rendered certain aspects of them a dead letter.
With his initial attempt to unleash a major attack on the entire working class defeated, Milei has changed tack. He is now targeting specific sections of workers, such as the public sector, while trying to pass a watered-down version of his original bill. 
The Argentine public sector has a proud history of resistance and remains well unionised. Over recent years it has won progressive reforms, such as minimum employment quotas for women and transgender and disabled people.
In response to the attacks, some public sector unions have gone on strike and taken direct action. During a national day of protest on 3 April, ATE workers pushed through police lines and occupied several government buildings in various cities, where they held open assemblies. Two days later, ATE followed up with a nationwide strike and a march on the Ministry of Economy.
State workers from the National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts (INCAA) have held large assemblies and protests for several months. Argentine cinema is world famous and plays an important cultural role in the country. Employing around 700,000 people, INCAA has long been in the firing line of conservatives for economic and ideological reasons.
“There is a tradition of independent cinema in our country that is also recognised and valued globally, which allows for storytelling from a diversity of perspectives, including critiques of the current political power”, wrote a group of INCAA delegates in a recent press release. “All of this is what they want to destroy in order to reduce Argentina to a cheap location for Hollywood productions.”
Inside the union movement, the socialist left has built itself into a considerable force. For instance, in Córdoba, the second most populous province, the left ran together in union elections last August and won the capital city section of the Union of Educators of the province, defeating two other campaigns. This section of the union has 16,000 members, and the whole union has 43,000 members out of around 80,000 teachers in the region.
But despite some victories for the left, the union movement is overwhelmingly dominated by Peronism, the political movement that occupies the space from centre left to centre right and has governed the country most of the time since the 1980s.
Socialist organisations, including the MST, are attempting to organise the unions’ rank-and-file members and encourage a more combative approach. Since Milei’s election, they have called public meetings, participated in large assemblies of workers and marched as a strong column independent of the union bureaucracy at the general strike in January.
“We believe that it is necessary to go to a large assembly of all state workers to define the necessary plan of action. There should be a new strike of 48 or 72 hours in the coming weeks. No action should be ruled out; we must continue to grow and think about the radicalisation of the struggle”, said Rando.
Public sector workers are not up against just Milei’s government. They face significant obstacles in the union bureaucracy, which is intimately tied to the Peronists. It has refused to call strikes in certain workplaces and industries, and even when it has called them, has not seriously organised and prepared workers. Instead, it routinely tries to channel workers’ anger and frustration into electoral campaigns for the Peronists, much as the Australian union movement does for the Labor Party.
The bureaucracy also overrides decisions made by the rank and file. For example, in the week prior to Milei taking office, delegates from ATE Capital (the Buenos Aires section) voted for a protest. But three days before it was to begin, the union’s general secretary announced that it would be replaced by a press conference in which union leaders simply requested a meeting with Milei.
 Despite this approach from the bureaucracy, the unrelenting attacks on key sections of workers have compelled it to call a second general strike for 9 May.
The political situation in Argentina remains open. Milei is determined to attack workers, the union bureaucracy refuses to organise a prolonged strike campaign, and the misery of mass poverty is a heavy burden on workers’ shoulders. But two general strikes in Milei’s first five months signal the willingness of the working class to resist his agenda.

Tom Sullivan

Argentine public sector workers take on Milei

Staff at RMIT University went on strike for three-and-a-half days last month. It was the longest and biggest strike in the university’s 127-year history. Their demands include reduced and manageable workloads, and a pay rise above inflation. Striking staff were joined by students at three major entrances to the campus.
In 2022, RMIT took in more than $1.2 billion in revenue. Vice-chancellor Alec Cameron takes home nearly $1 million a year. Where does this cash come from? Squeezing as much as possible out of overworked, underpaid and precariously employed staff. 
In a <a>damning report</a> about widespread wage theft in higher education released by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) last year, RMIT was the third-worst offender with $10 million in proven stolen pay. What the bosses can’t get by outright theft they manage by other means: maintaining inadequate wages and work conditions. 
The first day of the strike, 25 March, marked 1,000 days since the last workplace agreement expired. Since then, inflation has risen by more than 15 percent, while staff have been given only two pay rises of 2 percent and 3 percent. 
Workloads are also a major problem. RMIT staff, like many others in the education sector, are highly overworked and complete hours of unpaid overtime, particularly since hundreds of jobs were cut during the pandemic. 
“I coordinated seven courses across two degrees, both undergrad and masters [and] I’m a contact point for 300 to 400 students”, Dooyeon Park from the School of Media and Communication explained to Red Flag. 
Higher education is one of the most casualised sectors in the country. Over 60 percent of RMIT staff are casuals, meaning their work is unstable and precarious. 
One tutor in the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies who has been on a casual contract for seven years told Red Flag that they are “constantly wondering if [they] would have a job next semester”. 
Another striking staff member has worked at RMIT for more than ten years, most of that time in casual positions. When he sought a permanent position, management refused on the grounds that the classes he taught fell on different days from one semester to the next, and so didn’t qualify as regular work. 
On top of working conditions other bosses only dream of, RMIT management has deployed union-busting tactics by trying to cut the NTEU out of negotiations with multiple non-union ballots. That’s been coupled with a strategy of dragging out negotiations over a new workplace agreement for as long as possible. Liam Ward, a lecturer at RMIT and an elected member of the NTEU branch committee, told Red Flag:
“It is disgusting and outrageous that RMIT management has dragged this out for 1,000 days and refused to provide us a real agreement that would meet our needs as staff in this institution. But we are making it clear to them that we will take 1,000 more if that’s what’s needed. We aren’t going to sign any old crap, we are only going to sign an agreement that makes our life better. We will keep fighting and won’t stop till we win.”
Staff know it’s their labour that keeps the university running. As NTEU RMIT branch President Tricia McLaughlin said at the opening rally: “We are RMIT, and we deserve better!”.

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