Like most workers, employees at Woolworths distribution warehouses watched their real wages decline while their bosses took home fat pay cheques over the last few years. But rather than shrug and accept falling living standards, they’re doing something about it.
At four sites today, hundreds set up picket lines and went on strike for a pay rise and equal pay for equal work across the distribution network. They are also fighting against a recently introduced performance management program, referred to by Woolworths as the “framework”, which is designed to monitor and evaluate the workers’ every move to increase the pace of work dramatically.
“This program utilises engineered standards to enforce a universal and highly standardised measurement of worker movement and speed”, the United Workers Union, to which many of the workers belong, <a href="https://unitedworkers.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Disciplinary-Power-in-Aust-Grocery-Warehouses-UWU.pdf">noted in a report</a> earlier this year. “Engineered standards assumes that every task of a warehouse worker can be pre-determined, categorised, and assigned a time limit. Should a worker fail to meet the designated speed of work at 100% capacity of every measured minute of their shift, they are placed on a twelve week ‘coaching’ program.”
That the company is being unreasonable is an understatement. Whatever way you look at it, Woolies has done better as its employees’ real wages have declined and as its customers have had to <a href="https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/coles-woolies-secret-pricing-deal-undercuts-inflation-claims/">pay more for groceries</a>.
Profitability, as measured by the ratio of earnings to sales, has risen by nearly one-third in recent years—from 4.7 percent in 2018 to 6.1 percent last financial year, according to the company’s annual reports. (Compare <a href="https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/content/dam/wwg/investors/reports/2018/195396_annual-report-2018.pdf">2018’s figures</a> [page 16] with <a href="https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/content/dam/wwg/investors/reports/f24/f24/Woolworths%20Group%202024%20Annual%20Report.pdf">those of 2024</a> [page 31].) The return on funds employed, another measure of profitability, has increased similarly—from 24.8 percent in 2019 to 32.2 percent more recently. And the company’s “cost of doing business”, the expenses incurred to keep its operations running, has declined.
But as the old capitalist adage goes, too much is never enough. Not for CEO Amanda Bardwell and other overpaid managers. Incentive payments for “key personnel” make up one-third or more of their total pay—and most of those incentives relate to increasing profitability and shareholder returns. Just 20 percent of short-term incentives relate to worker safety; none relate to lifting workers’ living standards or giving them a better return for the countless hours they have invested in keeping the company running.
Yet, despite being paid generously, key managers last year each could have “earned” several million dollars extra had the company increased its margins by even more than it has. Woolworths’ 2024 annual report shows that the managing director of the supermarket division, Natalie Davis, was paid $1.67 million of a possible $4.57 million. Outgoing CEO Brad Banducci was paid $3.97 million of a potential $10.9 million.
From management’s perspective, there is much room for improvement—among those they boss around, at least. Is it any wonder that distribution workers are fighting to tread water with their wages and face the imposition of this odious “framework”? Clearly, the worse it is for them, the better the managers’ pay will be. 
But this should surprise no one: workers create the company’s value. The harder they are made to work and the less they are paid, the greater the profit for the owners. That’s true of all companies, which is one reason the whole union movement should support these striking Woollies workers. If they can secure a win, then maybe others can too. The whole working class desperately needs a pay rise after the last two years of inflation­. These workers are setting an example for everyone to follow, if only our side gets organised and confident. 
Many socialists have joined the picket lines in solidarity with the Woolies workers and are helping to raise funds for and awareness of the strike. Several have sent in reports, which are published below.
Melbourne Liquor Distribution Centre, Laverton North
By sunrise, Interchange Drive is a sea of hi-vis. Around 70 warehouse workers and dozens of supporters stand together over coffee and breakfast, an hour into their indefinite strike against Woolworths. 
Strike placards line the warehouse gates. Beyond them looms the gargantuan Melbourne Liquor Distribution Centre (MLDC). About 500 workers are employed here to pack supplies for Woolworths. Ninety percent of these workers, as many proudly tell Red Flag, are United Workers Union members. 
There is a mood of assured defiance. Speaking to them, it is not hard to understand why. They know their conditions of work––where surveillance, intimidation and injuries are norms––must change. “It is inhuman to make us work like this”, Mitch* says. 
He has worked at MLDC for sixteen years. When he started, he did ten-hour shifts. Chronic injuries sustained on the job, made worse by ever-increasing, impossible performance standards, have left him unable to work for more than six-hour stints. And even now, it is a struggle to go back day after day. “Management want to break you”, he says.
In a typical shift starting at 6am, he has exactly eight minutes to start packing supplies. If he is late, he risks a reprimand. Each hour, he is expected to pack one pallet, which usually holds one ton of goods. He is made to carry around a device to record how long each packing step takes. 
His efficiency rate––measured by AI calculations––is constantly displayed. If he finishes his shift with an efficiency rate of less than 100 percent, the team leader will reprimand him. If it happens several times, he risks being fired—especially under the draconian new “framework” introduced by management.
“We’re not robots”, he says. Woolworths thinks otherwise. 
Kit*, who has worked at MLDC for fifteen years and can now also work for no more than six-hour shifts, has many memories of workplace injuries. “The ambulance has come here too many times”, he says.
Making warehouse work safer and more sustainable is a key reason for his decision to strike. Pay rises matter, he says, but the conditions are key. “We’re doing this for future generations of workers, so they don’t have to face what we do”, he says. 
*Names changed 
Erskine Park Distribution Centre, NSW
At what is reported to be the most efficient distribution centre in the country, 50 to 60 workers are lined up against the outer fence in camp chairs. After a breakfast barbeque organised by the union, the vibes are good as the day progresses. One worker brought a big drum, which provides some rhythm between a few trucks honking their horns in solidarity as they pass. 
“We’re fighting for our rights and for good conditions—such as no ‘framework’—and a fair pay rise”, Mohammed says. “It’s really intense [working here]. They call you up on the PA, where everyone can hear and they will call you by your pin number to come to the handout room. And yeah, it's like a Squid Game here [the South Korean survival horror/thriller Netflix series]. 
How does he feel to be out on strike?
“I’m really excited, it feels like a vacation [laughs]. Yeah, but hopefully, I have trust in the union, and we’re gonna get what we want. The whole shed is out and we still have afternoon shift coming. So it’s gonna be a good turnout.”
Another worker, Nithi, says that he has lost some of his hearing from having to wear a headset for the entire shift. Out of the earphones comes an automated voice, which tells pickers “where to go and how long [to] be at any given station”, he says.
“Also, at this shed, they only hire casuals. After you prove your performance, you can get permanency. Some people waited two years. It’s an open secret that if you claim workers’ comp you won’t get a permanent position.”
Some of the workers here are thrilled to be on strike for the first time and say they hate the company, hate the team leaders and hate the “framework”.
“We do everything; we feel unrewarded”, says one. 
“They can’t do anything without us”, says another. 
Melbourne South Regional Distribution Centre , Dandenong South
The mood close to midnight is excited but reserved. Some are nervous—this is the first distribution centre to walk out. Some workers stand around and chat; others dance to 2000s hits.
One of the main things people talk about is the bosses’ surveillance and obsession with productivity targets. The workers say that managers never actually disclose to them the exact rate of packing needed to reach “100 percent efficiency”.
Automation is also topsy-turvy: people are often forced to carry heavy boxes while automated forklifts carry the light ones. This, and the constant harassment to meet KPIs, is exhausting, they say. And they are often unable to take the time to properly sanitise their stations for fear of falling behind, compounding the problem.
All are keen for a pay rise. They call the initial offer by the bosses of 3 percent plus a “sweetener” of $500 cash “insulting”.
Matthew, a student and part-time night shift worker, says he wants a pay rise in line with other warehouses in the area, some of which make up to $7 an hour more. “It’s Woolworths, you know, they can afford to be more giving”, he says with a wry smile.
“I’ve always wanted to go on strike”, he continues. “It makes me proud—96 percent of us voted to reject the company’s offer.” He sees political potential in the strike. “Labour is a gateway to more progressive ideas ... regardless of who you are, who you vote for, we all have to work, y’know?”

Woolies distribution workers strike for everyone

United Workers Union (UWU) members in six warehouses supplying Woolworths supermarkets across the eastern states are walking off the job this week. Industrial action of this scale is unprecedented in warehousing. The UWU has led many strikes in individual warehouses across Australia, but never this many at the same time.
The workers are striking for better wages and conditions, and for Woolworths warehouses to be covered under a single enterprise agreement. They also want to get rid of the company’s “productivity framework”, which requires all workers to meet 100 percent of targets unilaterally set by management or face harassment, discipline and, eventually, dismissal.
Warehouse work is difficult and repetitive. Each worker is expected to pick hundreds or even thousands of boxes a day to be stacked on pallets, loaded onto trucks and sent to store shelves across the state. The weight of items varies widely, from packets of chips to slabs of beer and crates of milk weighing up to 20 kilograms each. This repetitive, endless lifting and shifting of often heavy loads significantly strains the body and mind. Forklifts, loaders and other heavy machinery wizz around these pickers at ever higher rates to keep up with productivity targets. 
The workers in these warehouses experience constant <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn7GtoiiLNM">surveillance and performance monitoring</a>. They are told by a computer exactly what to do at all times. They are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/05/amazon-workers-protest-unsafe-grueling-conditions-warehouse">treated like robots</a>. And there is evidence that the drive towards automation may be making things more difficult, rather than easier. According to Amazon’s <a href="https://revealnews.org/article/how-amazon-hid-its-safety-crisis/">internal safety reports</a>, the rates of serious workplace injuries are 50 percent higher in warehouses with robots than in those without.
Finding reliable statistics on workplace injuries in warehouses is difficult, as pickers and packers are usually lumped in with truck drivers and other labourers. However, the broader statistics paint a damning picture of the industry as a whole. According to the <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/earnings-and-working-conditions/work-related-injuries/latest-release#occupation-and-industry">Australian Bureau of Statistics</a>, the transport, postal and warehousing industry suffers from the third highest workplace injury rate in the country. <a href="https://data.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/insights/key-whs-stats-2023">Safe Work Australia</a> has found that roughly 80 percent of workplace injuries are caused by body stress: falls, slips and trips; being hit by moving objects; and mental stress. These incidents are endemic to warehouse environments and will likely only worsen under Woolworths’ drive for even higher productivity.
But it gets worse. <a href="https://data.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/insights/key-whs-stats-2023">Safe Work Australia</a> has also found that the transport, postal and warehouse industry has the highest number of fatalities of any industry, and the second highest fatality rate. Machine operators and labourers perform the deadliest types of work. 
These statistics were <a href="https://7news.com.au/news/nsw/woolworths-worker-killed-in-horrific-pallet-accident-remembered-as-beautiful-man-c-11173079">tragically brought home</a> in 2023 when Basel “Baz” Brikha was crushed by falling pallets in the Woolworths distribution centre in Minchinbury, NSW. Basel later died in hospital. Two of his workmates suffered head injuries when they tried to help him.
These workplace tragedies result from Woolworths’ endless drive for higher profits. The company squeezes workers at one end by increasing productivity at the expense of safety, and it squeezes consumers at the other by price-gouging in the supermarkets. 
From the perspective of Woolworths investors, the strategy has worked marvellously. <a href="https://thedailyaus.com.au/stories/woolworths-group-reported-a-1-7-billion-profit-for-the-financial-year/#:~:text=The%20Woolworths%20Group%20has%20reported,0.6%25%20from%20the%20previous%20year.">The company reported</a> $1.7 billion in profits last financial year. The four leading Woolworths executives pocketed more than $8.8 million in pay, which was down on their “earnings” of $18 million the <a href="https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/content/dam/wwg/investors/reports/2023/f23-full-year/Woolworths%20Group%202023%20Annual%20Report.pdf">year before</a>. 
No doubt Woolworths’ Melbourne South Regional Distribution Centre workers, who earn roughly $66,000 per year if they work 38 hours per week, will be deeply concerned about how these executives will make ends meet after this pay cut. 
Corporate greed is driving the cost-of-living crisis in Australia. Since the COVID crisis, one of the greatest transfers of wealth to the capitalist class in history has taken place. The richest 1 percent now owns half of the world’s wealth. Our side, the working class, needs to start fighting back.
That is precisely why strikes—like those beginning in Woolworths warehouses this week—are so important. Previous strikes have demonstrated the considerable industrial power of these workers. 
The just-in-time revolution has turned warehouses into gigantic logistics factories employing hundreds. All the goods that reach the hundreds of Woolworths supermarkets in each state pass through only a handful of warehouses, and little excess stock is held in the supermarkets. Deliveries from the warehouses arrive daily and go straight to store shelves. This means warehouse strikes can be incredibly disruptive. Store shelves begin to empty within a day or two, or even hours, of work stoppages.
These workers deserve the support of the entire union movement. Come to one of the picket lines in Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane. Bring your workmates, your classmates, your friends and family. Pass motions of support in your union and pass the hat around to raise money for the strike fund or to buy food to bring down to the pickets. 
Let’s show solidarity with these workers as they stick it to a corporate goliath.
--------------------
Workers at the following warehouses will be striking from Thursday morning this week:
From 12am Thursday morning:
Woolworths Melbourne South Regional Distribution Centre (MSRDC), 2 Portlink Dr, Dandenong South VIC.
From 5am Thursday morning:
Melbourne Liquor Distribution Centre (MLDC), 1 Interchange Dr, Laverton North VIC.
Logic Wodonga, 28 Bilston Dr, Barnawartha North VIC.
Woolworths Distribution Centre, 29 Sarah Andrews Cl, Erskine Park NSW.
From 2am Friday morning:
Lineage Cold Storage, 60-68 William Angliss Drive Laverton North VIC - from 2am Friday.
In addition, Primary Connect in Heathwood QLD, another distribution centre supplying Woolworths, will be holding stop-work mass meetings from this Friday to discuss industrial action.

Ryan Stanton

Support striking Woolworths warehouse workers this week (and next)

Australia has one of the most unfair education systems in the developed world. Federal Labor’s new Better Fairer Schools Agreement, which recently passed the House of Representatives, promises to make things even worse.
According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Education at a Glance report, the federal government spends double the OECD average on private schools. This is while 98 percent of public schools don’t receive the funds they need for most students to meet national minimum funding standards, known as the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS)—according to a 2023 report commissioned by the government. 
The result is that elite, high-fee private schools like the King’s School in New South Wales can, according to a Sydney Morning Herald editorial, receive almost $20 million in public funds while also pocketing $58 million in fees, charges and parent contributions annually. The school’s <a href="https://www.kings.edu.au/discovering/our-facilities/">website</a> boasts of seventeen sports fields, nine “halls” and 480 acres of space for its students to “explore, live and grow”.
Compare this to students’ exploration at Sunshine College North Campus in Melbourne’s west. A couple of years ago, students shared <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/student-video-urging-to-rebuild-sunshine-college-north-20221117-p5bz8v.html">videos</a> online of large cracks in the walls, fallen ceilings, unusable spaces and black-mould-infested rooms. 
This divide in Australian education is the result of years of putting working-class communities last—by both Labor and Liberal governments. 
Labor has often led the charge. In 2010, the Gillard federal government’s Gonski plan promised increased funding for states and territories that signed up to a standardised curriculum and NAPLAN testing regime. The plan failed to secure full funding for public schools but succeeded in maintaining the flow of public funds to private education. Later, Liberal governments pushed for more standardised testing and further entrenched Labor’s funding divide. Analysis by public school advocacy group Save our Schools in 2022 found that private school funding had increased at five times the rate of public schools in the previous ten years.
The Albanese government’s Better Fairer Schools Agreement follows in Gillard’s footsteps by attempting to lock in funding inequality for the next ten years. It removes the Liberal government’s cap on education funding and promises a path to full funding by 2034—but only if states and territories agree to its package and to a funding framework that would leave the federal government paying 22.5 percent of the SRS, short of the 25 percent demanded by the states. Most states have rejected the deal, meaning the current failed framework remains in place. 
The removal of the funding cap and deadlock between the federal and state governments are useful distractions from the real issues with the agreement. Not only does it protect the flow of public funds to elite private schools but, even if the states sign on, Labor’s “pathway to full funding by 2034” is about as trustworthy as its “net zero emissions by 2050”. Governments have already rhetorically committed to full funding for many years, while continuing to leave public schools empty handed. 
There is another problem: Labor is using the promise of more funding to implement a range of other changes through the agreement. These include more standardised tests. Labor is joining the chorus of conservatives who use a supposed lack of synthetic phonics instruction in primary schools as an excuse to blame teachers for poor literacy scores and to distract from the disadvantage fuelling the crisis in education. 
In a welcome move, the national executive of the Australian Education Union has placed a ban on any changes resulting from Labor’s agreement until it deems that there is a “genuine pathway” for all public schools to be fully funded at the SRS standard. But as the failures of “full funding” under previous schooling frameworks suggest, there are reasons to doubt how genuine any of Labor’s pathways might be. 
In the meantime, the King’s School can expect to add a few more sports fields to its collection, while public schools will continue to lack the resources necessary to meet staff and students’ most basic needs.

Tyler Anya

Labor is trying to make schools worse—again

The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) has passed landmark motions calling for an institutional academic boycott of Israel and condemning the “scholasticide” in Gaza—the systematic destruction of educational institutions and academic life.
At its national council meeting in Melbourne in early October, a motion supporting the institutional academic boycott of Israel passed overwhelmingly. This followed calls from Palestinian civil society going back many years, as well as campaigning from the union’s rank-and-file members and left-wing delegates at national council. 
The motion encompassed refusing cooperation with Israeli academic institutions, promoting divestment from Israel by international academic institutions and supporting Palestinian academic institutions directly.
The union is calling on Australian universities to conduct a nationwide audit of their connections to the Israeli military and its suppliers, and is pushing for an immediate end to any such ties. 
Another motion opposed recent attempts to curtail protest rights at universities. University administrations have increasingly attempted to restrict Palestine solidarity activism across Australia, including through disciplinary actions against students and staff. The NTEU’s motions are a significant push back against this development, asserting that the right to protest and debate remains central to university life.
National Council also formally recognised and condemned the scholasticide. The motion refers to the Israeli military’s demolition of every university in Gaza, the killing of hundreds of students and academics, and the destruction of libraries, museums and archives.
“These motions are a step forward in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign”, said Robin Laycock, a national councillor and member of Socialist Alternative. “At a time when university managements are trying to silence protest and debate about Palestine, union members have stood up for the fundamental right to organise on campus.”
The motions also reflect an important shift in sentiment. Ten years ago, in the wake of an Israeli bombing campaign in Gaza, the union’s national council narrowly voted down a BDS motion.
The motions distinguish between opposing Israeli state policies and antisemitism, the union reiterating its stance against all forms of discrimination including antisemitism, Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism.
The union also calls on universities to provide scholarships to Palestinian students and scholars and to support the rebuilding of Gaza’s destroyed higher education system.
Alexis Vassiley is a national councillor of the NTEU.

Alexis Vassiley

University union endorses academic boycott of Israel, defends right to protest

The Labor government’s deregistration of the Builders Labourers Federation (BLF) in 1986 was a pivotal moment in Australian trade union history. Backed by most unions, including the peak Australian Council of Trade Unions, the move against the BLF was brutal. 
The union and its members were stripped of their rights federally, in the ACT and the strongest branches: NSW and Victoria. BLF members were forced to join other unions, such as the Building Workers Industrial Union (BWIU) or Federated Engine Drivers and Firefighters Union (FEDFA), or be sacked. The BLF could no longer represent members or win legally binding gains in the industrial relations system. A code of conduct was introduced, enforcing fines or cutting off utilities to the construction companies if they allowed BLF members to stay on their jobs. 
The BLF, initially a union of downtrodden labourers, had built itself into one of the most militant Australian unions by the 1970s. Like several unions in construction, the waterfront, mining and manufacturing, it was led by the Communist Party of Australia and contributed to rising militancy in Australia, mirroring a worldwide upsurge during the 1960s and 1970s. Back then, workplace activism accompanied more political demands and action, including anti-apartheid and anti-Vietnam War movements, and support for Indigenous, women’s and gay rights. As the 1960s and 1970s militancy ebbed and bosses went on the offensive, the crucial question was which way the workers movement would go. 
Most unions embraced the politics of cosying up to the bosses. In Australia, the class collaboration of the ALP-ACTU Accord propelled the Australian Labor Party to electoral victory in 1983. Union activist Ronnie remembers “a whole layer who were sold on taking that corporate unionism line. They thought it was going to give them a power base and an ‘in’ in decision making [while] providing a minimum of protection for the working class ... a trickle-down effect”. It was “an easy option to say nothing, to sign up and shut up and collect your job and fees”. That’s the kind of unionism that rank-and-file labourer Ivor Lawrence dismisses as “just revenue making, like the bloody poker machines”. 
Apart from direct attacks, the Accord process continued to weaken union organisation. In the building and construction industry, union coverage fell to 47 percent by August 1988. The period between 1986 and 1988 marked the most dramatic decline, a fall of 58,000, the largest since 1929. 
Militancy fell off equally as dramatically, meaning that a construction boom in 1986-88 didn’t benefit workers. “I’ve been in the game since ’49”, said lifelong BL Kyran Nicholls. “I can’t remember any boom, at any time that we didn’t get something out of it. This was the biggest boom of all and we went backwards, thanks to the BWIU, the FEDFA, ACTU and mainly the Labor Party.” 
In the end, that was what even the architects of the Accord were forced to admit. The BWIU’s Tom McDonald later acknowledged that the Accord “disempowered workers and in the end undermined unionism—it took away workers’ right to struggle for higher wages and conditions with everything decided at the top echelons”. 
One of the keys to that disempowerment was the BLF deregistration. From the late 1970s, when the Liberal-National Party was in government, to the Hawke ALP government from 1983, the union was constantly investigated and threatened with fines and other legal penalties for its militancy and workplace gains. 
In 1986, after the latest investigation, which cited the union’s “addiction to slogans such as ‘Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win’” and its ability to act first and negotiate later, Labor used the combined forces of the state, the union bureaucracy and the employers against the BLF. When federal Labor delivered the deregistration blow, a triumphant industrial relations minister—or “minister of war”—in Victoria, Steve Crabb, was on the Sun’s
front page “beating [the union] into submission”. 
BLF leader Norm Gallagher dismissed the threat: “We have been deregistered before. We survived and during that time our membership increased ... We will look after ourselves, just wait and see”.
It was true that the BLF and other unions had previously overcome deregistration, or the draconian anti-union laws of the 1950s and 1960s. But this time was different. Then, other unions had rallied around the unions under attack. Now, almost everyone was acting against them.
Deregistration—D-Day 16 April 1986—and chaotic scenes spread across the industry in three states. Members were shocked on that first day. Melbourne shop steward Ivor and others felt, “How the hell can this happen? How the hell can workers do this to other workers? Disbelief”. On his job, Ivor Lawrence called a meeting, and they walked off, refusing to sign over to rival unions. Some went to the federation’s office, where other meetings and demos were being organised, determined to fight to get their jobs back.
Despite members being told the BLF had no legal status, no industrial rights and could no longer protect their wages and conditions, defiant BLs went to work determined to stay only on their federation tickets. “BLs arriving at work ... were faced with a combination of government officials armed with ‘union transfer’ documents, organisers from other unions, police on a number of sites and employers who had themselves been threatened”. As the
Age had warned earlier, solidarity would have to be broken by force. The paper assumed the government “must ... be ready to use police to clear the sites and make sure construction work can continue”.
The union kept up the struggle to survive for the rest of 1986 and into 1987. Members, many of whom kept their BLF tickets, also reluctantly joined the BWIU or FEDFA to continue the fight on the job, to fight for a principle—the right to be in the union of your choice. However, after the first few months, most of the action was in Victoria because NSW and the ACT branches were too weakened to respond effectively. 
The blows kept coming. On 13 October 1987, the BLF headquarters in Melbourne was raided by 150 Special Operations police in full attack gear amid government claims the union was funded by “Libyan money” and had $6 million in the bank. As the raid launched, a distraught unionist called out: “It’s World War Three! They’ve smashed the office like you wouldn’t believe, had a go at the staff, the women, cut the phones, tried to seize all the assets!” 
Outraged, protesters marched on parliament and again the next day as unionists walked off the Tennis Centre job and the waterfront shut down for three hours. On 15 October, a Trades Hall delegates meeting condemned the raid. At another protest, tramways union leader Clarrie O’Shea, whose jailing had led to a general strike in 1969 in defiance of anti-union laws, backed the BLF.
The raid wasn’t aimed just at the BLF; it was designed to undermine the ultimately unsuccessful attempts by ex-BLF members inside the BWIU to build a rank-and-file challenge in the 1987 elections.
Though the BLF survived the raid, the government had dealt a nearly fatal blow. It appointed a custodian and, on $1,000 a day, former Judge Ian Sharp was given control of all the funds and investigative powers over the running of the branches. Instigating a raft of charges against officials and organisers, he mired the union in court cases and in May 1988 froze the union funds until 1991, also refusing to pay the union’s wages and bills. 
Even when the BLF was forced into amalgamation with the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union (CFMEU) in 1994, the custodian held control of the BLF funds and assets until the state finally relinquished them in 2002. Not one charge was ever laid over the original accusations.
Despite all this, amid a dramatic decline in Victorian labourers’ jobs, from 21,000 to 12,000, the remaining hope for a comeback was dashed when deregistration was extended for another five years. From 1991, the only choice left was amalgamation.
In the end, the BLF’s industrial militancy wasn’t enough. Most inside the union acknowledged the federation needed a more politically based response to the Accord and more organised opposition. After deregistration, there were attempts to build such opposition with groups such as “Defend the Unions, Defend the BLF” and a Fightback Conference pulling together activists and several unions and left-wing groups. But in the lead-up to the Accord, the BLF didn’t develop and cohere a more political opposition to counter the class-collaborationist politics of unions such as the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), one of the key backers of the Accord. 
The federation was seldom able to go beyond the limits of trade union struggle and, up against the power of the state, Kyran Nicholls pointed out, no union on its own could have won. Nonetheless, it was more prepared than most to take that struggle to the edge. As John Cummins said: “If we hadn’t fought, hadn’t run the distance, it [the sacrifices of rank-and-file BLs], it would have all been lost”.
Organised building workers prepared to fight not just for themselves but also for the rights of other workers and many oppressed groups—that is what brought the BLF up against the forces of capitalism and led to the campaign to smash it. This is why we remember the union to this day.
All quotes are from Liz Ross’ book Dare to Struggle! Dare to Win! The 1986 deregistration of the BLF, available from Red Flag Books.

Liz Ross

The last time Labor deregistered a construction union

Around 250 union members and supporters rallied on 16 October against sweeping cuts at the Australian National University, which are set to eliminate 638 full-time equivalent positions.
The university expects to save $250 million between now and 2026, $100 million of which will come from workers’ wages. According to the National Tertiary Education Union, this equals a 12 percent cut in annual salary expenditure.
The proposed changes, which the administration has dubbed “Renew ANU”, involve abolishing the College of Health and Medicine and merging its constituent schools into other colleges. 
So far, 50 college staff have been told they will not have jobs next year. But staff working in other university areas have discovered that rolling job losses are expected to continue. No one knows whether they’ll be next until they receive an email calling them into secretive meetings with senior management.
“Renew ANU” was announced in an all-staff address, which staff were only notified about 24 hours before it happened. During the address, new Vice-Chancellor Genevieve Bell said that the cuts would make the ANU a “smaller university”. 
According to the chief financial officer, the university’s expected 2024 deficit of $60 million has ballooned into a projected $200 million deficit. Exactly how this happened is unclear, which is why the union is demanding that the university open its books. 
ANU is the first university to announce major job cuts since the federal government introduced a cap on international student numbers at Australian universities. The indicative caps will reduce ANU’s total number of international students by 14.5 percent compared to 2019. The university has justified the cuts by stating that it can no longer expand its way out of debt by enrolling more full-fee-paying international students. 
Initially called against the proposed job cuts, the NTEU’s rally came a day after management announced that it would ask all staff to forgo their scheduled 2.5 percent pay rise in December, a move the union was not notified about. Predictably, the winding up of last year’s enterprise bargaining campaign, which involved calling off planned strike action, has emboldened management to sideline the union and unilaterally attempt to slash pay.
During the pandemic, staff at ANU narrowly voted to defer two annual pay rises on the promise that it would save jobs. Months later, the university announced that hundreds of jobs would go anyway. Now, union members are much more suspicious of management. Staff who voted yes last time have said they won’t be doing so again.
In the email notifying staff of the intention to cut their pay, Bell revealed that she would immediately reduce her salary by 10 percent. She failed to mention that this would be a reduction from $1.15 million—far more than the average university worker.
It would be hard for Bell to be a more unpopular vice-chancellor. These unprecedented cuts come after a year in which ANU called the police on student protesters, attempted to privatise on-campus childcare, declared that parking fees will nearly triple next year and announced a new draconian postering and advertising policy that may breach the enterprise agreement.
A majority will need to vote to change the enterprise agreement if the staff are to forgo their scheduled pay rise. After a resounding vote of members at the rally, the union is now gearing up to run a “vote no” campaign. A win for the union’s campaign will be an important victory—not only for ANU staff struggling with the cost of living but also because of the message it will send to any other vice-chancellor considering similar cuts.

Elliot Downes

Staff rally against ANU cuts

Joe Allen is a former Teamster and the author of <a href="https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1441-the-package-king">The Package King: A Rank and File History of United Parcel Service</a>. In this article, he discusses the iconic Teamsters union, the largest transport union in the United States. The union’s image lately has been tarnished by President Sean O’Brien’s association with the far right. O’Brien’s courting of Donald Trump and his appearance at the Republican National Convention have provoked a backlash among rank-and-file union members and a debate about how the Teamsters should orient in the lead-up to the presidential election next month. 
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The Teamsters’ <a href="https://teamster.org/2024/09/teamsters-no-endorsement-for-u-s-president/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">backhanded</a> endorsement of Donald Trump for president has caused an uproar in the US trade union movement. Teamster General President Sean O’Brien, who just a year and a half ago was being touted as a new militant leader of the union, hosted at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAkjSm3m3FA" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Labor Notes</a> conferences, <a href="https://www.wgbh.org/news/2022-08-21/bernie-sanders-joins-cambridge-rally-for-workers-rights-highlighting-massachusetts-union-battles" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">toured</a> the country with Bernie Sanders and Sarah Nelson, and received enthusiastic coverage in the left media, is now considered toxic.
His open courting of the far right began last autumn, followed by a private meeting with Trump, donations to the Republican National Committee (RNC), his speech at the Republican convention all culminated in the vote by a majority of the union’s General Executive Board (GEB) <a href="https://teamster.org/2024/09/teamsters-no-endorsement-for-u-s-president/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">not to endorse</a> any candidate for president, while releasing dubious <a href="https://teamster.org/2024/09/teamsters-release-presidential-endorsement-polling-data/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">polling</a> that the majority of Teamsters supported Trump. This was a shock to many <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/09/teamsters-union-sean-obrien-harris-trump.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">observers</a> of the US labour movement, but this side of O’Brien has been hiding in <a href="https://newpol.org/where-are-the-teamsters-going/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">plain sight</a> for a long time.
The polls for the presidential election are either balanced on a knife’s edge or show a Trump lead, especially in the <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/10/02/us-news/donald-trump-shows-strength-in-upper-midwest-which-kamala-harris-needs-to-win/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">upper Midwest</a>. Teamster votes could make the difference in the outcome of the race. So, it’s understandable that anger and bewilderment at O’Brien and the Teamsters is widespread. A <a href="https://cosmonautmag.com/2024/08/letter-open-rebellion-against-teamsters-gp-sean-obrien/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">backlash</a> against O’Brien’s embrace of the far right has been building, however. <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4826837-national-black-caucus-teamsters-endorsement-kamala-harris/">The Teamsters National Black Caucus</a> first broke ranks, along with Teamster Vice-President at-large <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/20/politics/video/teamsters-union-vicepresident-harris-endorsement-john-palmer-trump-musk-ebof-digvid" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">John Palmer</a>, and endorsed the Harris-Walz ticket.
At the same time, in a confusing political summersault, those members of the Teamsters’ GEB who <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=512018861785335&amp;set=a.273224618998095" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">voted not to endorse</a> any candidate nor to go record against Trump, or who skipped the meeting entirely, returned to their <a href="https://www.teamsterslocal705.net/teamsters-local-705-endorses-kamala-harris-for-president" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">local unions</a> and Joint Councils and quickly issued statements—representing as many <a href="https://www.wispolitics.com/2024/harris-campaign-councils-representing-one-million-teamsters-endorse-kamala-harris/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">1 million</a> out of total Teamster membership of 1.3 million—that endorsed Harris and Walz. Even members of Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), the former reform organisation, which is now comfortably part of the leadership of the Teamsters, have played a central role in launching <a href="https://act.teamstersagainsttrump.org/pledge?utm_source=20240830-google_nat-80&amp;gad_source=1&amp;gclid=CjwKCAjwx4O4BhAnEiwA42SbVIDnqLCJGI5YIe6LHfUtXZbMPj3wcm543CPpypB1X65z8SoP5xbITRoCC5MQAvD_BwE" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Teamsters against Trump</a> to mobilise Teamster votes for the Democrats.
It appears that a majority of the Teamsters GEB and the leadership of TDU, though, are desperately trying to avoid a clash with the white nationalist sympathiser leading their union, who they have invested heavily in for several years now. For many trade unionists, Trump represents an existential threat to trade unions and broader democratic rights in this country. Yet he also receives significant support among union and non-union workers across, despite his <a href="https://aflcio.org/press/releases/donald-trumps-catastrophic-and-devastating-anti-labor-track-record" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">long anti-union record</a> and <a href="https://usa-works.org/prevailing-wage/afl-cio-exposes-anti-worker-policies-in-trumps-second-term-the-afl-cio-has-raised-alarms-about-the-anti-worker-policies-embedded-in-former-president-donald-trumps-proposed-second-te/?gad_source=1&amp;gclid=Cj0KCQjw6oi4BhD1ARIsAL6pox1vou6WXWjrESWwRg2CRFZp_c_Bzt3M2dNb_1OQteinvmy0sUZt1vEaAg0bEALw_wcB" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">plans</a> to dismantle many of the legal rights of trade unions.
Can partisan Democrats on the Teamsters’ Joint Councils across the country and Teamsters against Trump beat the MAGA vote in the union? If it can or can’t, what does that say about the state of rank-and-file politics in the Teamsters, and what comes after?
Joint Councils to the rescue?
John Nichols of the Nation magazine enthused about the Teamsters’ Joint Councils’ endorsement of Harris across the country, which appeared to have check-mated the Teamster leadership’s non-endorsement. He enthused:
“The Harris campaign may not have won over the national leadership of the Teamsters in Washington, it has ended up with something more important: a bonanza of endorsements from Teamsters units in the battleground states that will decide the presidential race.
“In fact, Harris received so many endorsements from Teamsters joint councils and union locals in states across the country that her campaign is now touting endorsements of the Democrat from units representing more than 1 million of the labor organization’s 1.3 million members. And they’ve gotten a boost from James P. Hoffa, who led the union for decades as its general president. Hoffa ripped into the current leadership, calling the failure to back the Democratic ticket this year ‘a critical error and, frankly, a failure of leadership by O’Brien’.”
Reading Nichols, I was struck by several things about his take on developments in the Teamsters. I find his embrace of the former general president of the union James P. Hoffa, Jr. bewildering. Nichols ignores Hoffa’s two-decade-long, disastrous leadership of the Teamsters, including endorsing every Democratic Party presidential candidate from Al Gore in 2000 to Joe Biden in 2020. While O’Brien was the first Teamster leader to address the RNC, Hoffa was lavishly courted by the GOP in 2000. According to the <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/2000/08/01/party-gives-hoffa-the-podium-to-play-field/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Chicago Tribune</a>:
“For the first time in 20 years, the Republican National Committee threw a bash for a Teamsters chief. The glad-handing assembled included Republican senators like Michigan’s Spencer Abraham and Pennsylvania’s Rick Santorum, who face tough re-election races in union-heavy states, and old-guard stalwarts like Orrin Hatch (Utah) and Ted Stevens (Alaska).
“Hoffa, a delegate to this month’s Democratic convention in Los Angeles, obviously was thrilled. ‘I didn’t know I had so many Republican friends,’ he said.”
One of those Republican friends was fascist sympathiser <a href="https://fbaum.unc.edu/lobby/040_PNTR/Organizational_Statements/Teamsters/Hoffa_Leads.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Pat Buchanan</a>, whom Hoffa leaned on to ramp up anti-Chinese xenophobia. Hoffa was close to Trump during his one term in office. In late 2019, I <a href="https://newpol.org/where-are-the-teamsters-going/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">wrote</a>:
“Despite having endorsed Hilary Clinton in 2016, Hoffa who earned a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/video/2017/01/27/hoffa-pledge-to-work-with-trump-where-it-helps-organized-labor.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reputation</a> as one of President Donald Trump’s most reliable union supporters on trade and infrastructure projects, including the environmentally disastrous <a href="https://teamster.org/news/2017/01/teamsters-applaud-executive-orders-advancing-pipeline-projects" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Keystone</a> XL and Dakota Access Pipelines and the ongoing <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-the-teamsters-president-supports-trumps-new-tariffs" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">trade war</a> with China.
“Hoffa admitted in an October <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/teamsters-union-james-hoffa-trump-promises_n_5dbb26ace4b00d83f724e5a3?guccounter=1&amp;guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&amp;guce_referrer_sig=AQAAADFfEoKh5m0A0DLPBS0Dtd0Jy2JZYRFBl8NNUrwV6dBtsHrx6AKu5bLiRoxdTMxsMDl5pe3uF8qbY_UZIwlZQPa_Wcs4rLIW4-zIItrrAIxFy9Wdr5evQoJ8Nty-8msHRx4JUAxcwMabY9UtEBmB9Wn0FZkp-enfRQT_9_rzj1GW" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">interview</a> that many Teamsters voted for Trump in 2016. Hoffa also predicted that many ‘Teamsters are likely to vote for Trump again in 2020, regardless of who the Democratic nominee turns out to be’.”
Hoping that Hoffa can push back the MAGA vote is an act of political folly. “But, pretty much the same can be said about the Joint Councils across the country, also.” Joint Councils are important administrative bodies in the Teamsters but are obscure at best to the broad membership. They have also been derided for decades by union reformers as undemocratic, stuffed with patronage employees, and an easy way for local union principal officers to gain another paycheck for little work. Earlier this year, I <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/03/18/chicago-teamsters-are-still-stuck-in-the-past/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reviewed</a> the role of Chicago’s Joint Council 25 in local elections:
“Despite some changes, the JC 25 remains pretty wedded to the old ways of doing things in their own unions and in city and county politics. For example, last year the largely immigrant, non-English speaking members of Tom Stiede’s Local had to overcome the retaliatory behavior of their employer, the Anthony Marano Company, a major produce distributor in the Chicago area, and the hostility of their union over wage and working conditions documented by Labor Notes’ Luis Feliz Leon, <a href="https://labornotes.org/2023/03/chicago-grocery-teamsters-face-firing-and-retaliation-exercising-their-rights" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">here</a>. With this kind of record, how is someone elected to a leadership position in the Chicago Teamsters?”
In August, West Coast Teamster and UPS driver Edgar Esquivel took a <a href="https://cosmonautmag.com/2024/08/letter-after-sean-obriens-spectacle-at-the-rnc-teamsters-withdraw-premature-endorsement-of-racist-kevin-de-leon/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">deep dive</a> into the backstabbing, racist world of Los Angeles area Joint Council 42:
“In the aftermath of Sean O’Brien’s embarrassing homage to the most <a href="https://oaklandsocialist.com/2024/07/17/republican-convention-teamster-reform-leader-channels-gregor-strasser-and-betrays-the-working-class/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reactionary</a> and xenophobic Republican party in generations at their party’s National Convention last month, the largest Teamsters joint council (JC) in the union, JC 42, had prematurely voted in mid-July to endorse the reelection of Democratic party xenophobe Kevin de Leon for Los Angeles city council’s 14th district—only to withdraw it two weeks later. The city councilman gained national notoriety when he compared a colleague’s adopted black son to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/20/kevin-de-leon-reelection-la-00116827" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">luxury handbags</a> almost two years ago. De Leon’s remarks triggered protests in the second largest city in the US and calls for his resignation.”
Chicago’s Joint Council 25 and Los Angeles’ Joint Council 42 are two of the largest in the Teamsters. How anyone can think that these people can fight the MAGA vote is beyond me. But, it does reveal, I think, that many of the professional, middle-class liberal and social democratic observers of the Teamsters actually know very little about how the union operates and interacts with its members.
Teamsters against Trump
Teamsters against Trump <a href="https://act.teamstersagainsttrump.org/pledge?utm_source=20240830-google_nat-80&amp;gad_source=1&amp;gclid=Cj0KCQjw6oi4BhD1ARIsAL6pox241j4D9tlhK9AWxYe8y1pXCiJe6ftxUI2L0KUKz5eosq6qCGM3aJ8aArYEEALw_wcB" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">(TAT)</a> is different from the Joint Councils that have endorsed the Harris-Walz ticket, if only by a few degrees. It’s a pretty bare-bones operation initiated by members of TDU and held its first online meeting for volunteers on 28 September. It also leans heavily on a few staff members of Teamsters Local 89 in Louisville, Kentucky, the home local of Teamsters General Secretary-Treasurer Fred Zuckerman. Zuckerman ran with O’Brien on the same Teamsters United slate that won a landslide election in 2021.
Listening in on the discussion, it struck me that TAT acts largely as a campaign vehicle for marshalling votes for the Harris-Walz ticket. It made no demands on the Teamsters union or the Harris-Walz slate, and this was largely reflected in the discussion, which emphasised getting our side out to vote in key battleground states and, most importantly, not to engage Trump supporters in the union. So far, it has put out one <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7IGFErp5Es" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">video</a>. With only a few weeks to go in the election, this may strike people as very practical, but it is also short-sighted. Far-right politics, particularly around anti-China and anti-Mexican xenophobia, has been stoked for decades in the Teamsters. It’s hard to see how one defeats the MAGA vote without taking it on.
The other major problem for TAT is that it has to carry the burdens of the Biden-Harris administration. The American Rescue Plan saved <a href="https://act.teamstersagainsttrump.org/pledge?utm_source=20240830-google_nat-80&amp;gad_source=1&amp;gclid=Cj0KCQjw6oi4BhD1ARIsAL6pox241j4D9tlhK9AWxYe8y1pXCiJe6ftxUI2L0KUKz5eosq6qCGM3aJ8aArYEEALw_wcB" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Teamster pensions</a> across the country, which didn’t get one Republican vote, and is reason alone that many Teamsters in the upper Midwest will vote for the Harris-Walz ticket. (Their broader appeal on this issue could be undermined by a recent report that Governor Tim Walz <a href="https://pensionwarriorsdwardsiedle.substack.com/p/ny-post-minnesota-teacher-pension?utm_source=post-email-title&amp;publication_id=1498647&amp;post_id=149859330&amp;utm_campaign=email-post-title&amp;isFreemail=true&amp;r=nn3z2&amp;triedRedirect=true&amp;utm_medium=email" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cooked the books</a> on the Minnesota state teachers’ pension.) Trade unions, however, only represent 10 percent of the US workforce and a minuscule 6 percent of the private sector. Issues like labour law, important to unions, don’t necessarily resonate with the broader working class, whose lives are very precarious, from housing to food costs.
A recent article in the <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/inq2/philadelphia-working-class-voters-republican-20241001.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawFvuk5leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHRXI9w4P5itkfD_UvCY6zX7c9t9CjiUWoGB16QJoRkSuUvWcJx8UxIJahA_aem_XdAJQRIaBEJJRuReIjR-Jw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Philadelphia Inquirer</a> captured this well:
“Jim Kohn voted for Democrats much of life — that is, until Trump came along in 2016. Kohn, a retired truck driver who lives in South Philly and for years voted along with the Teamsters union, is still a registered Democrat. But he’s planning to vote for Trump for the third time, and he believes more of his neighbors frustrated with inflation and the high cost of goods will, too. ‘When Trump was president, everything was cheaper,’ he said. ‘Now, everything is so sky high.’”
Another Philadelphia resident told the Inquirer:
“They’re saying Kamala is going to save our democracy. That means very little for people who can’t keep the lights on.”
TAT also has to carry the burdens of Teamsters and TDU into the election. One of the battlegrounds that they are planning on intervening in is Michigan, with its large Arab and Muslim population. The Teamsters are one of the few major unions to have not called for a ceasefire in Gaza. This will work against their credibility, but TDU also<a href="https://cosmonautmag.com/2023/12/a-tale-of-two-resolutions-why-is-tdu-so-hostile-to-anti-war-activism/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> tabled</a> a motion for a ceasefire at its last convention. That the wider war initiated by Israel in the Middle East is tied so intimately with the Biden-Harris administration’s policies will be a huge barrier in their campaigning. With less than a month to go in the presidential election, anti-Trump Teamster campaigners being so closely tied to the Democratic party may, once again, prove to be a false road taken.
First published at <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/10/07/can-teamsters-against-trump-beat-the-maga-vote/">CounterPunch</a>.

Joe Allen

Can Teamsters unionists in the US beat the Trump vote?

Bec Barrigos is a workplace delegate with the Queensland Teachers Union. She’s spent years building union power and radical politics as a unionist, an activist with the rank-and-file group QTU Fightback and a member of Socialist Alternative. 
Bec successfully moved a motion in solidarity with the CFMEU at the QTU’s quarterly State Council meeting in August. She followed up with this speech to 5,000 striking construction workers in Brisbane on 17 September, explaining what’s at stake for every unionist in the current attack on the CFMEU.
The Queensland and Northern Territory ETU has posted a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z02fWg2Fykw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">video of Bec’s speech on its YouTube</a><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z02fWg2Fykw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> channel</a>. This is a slightly edited transcript.
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I’m a rank-and-file member and activist of my union, who thought that the most important thing that we could do last month when my state council met—the highest decision-making body of my union—was to move a motion of solidarity with CFMEU members. 
I saw it as a responsibility of all unionists in this moment to extend that solidarity. Because this attack that the Labor government has launched on the CFMEU is a precedent-setting attack on democracy and all unionists in this country, and it must be resisted. 
Support for democracy for union members should be unionism 101 in this country, but unfortunately, it isn’t. Honestly, as a rank-and-file delegate, I can say that my union is too wanting on this front, with officials who have been too often prepared to collaborate with bosses, too prepared to accept shitty deals that cut against the interests of our members, too prepared to make excuses for governments that have shown no interest in workers’ rights and to ignore ballots from members for strike action when we need it to fight for our conditions—and that’s a shame.
For decades in this country, workers’ interests have come last in our industrial landscape. Our rights definitely don’t rate in the disgusting scum media! If you needed evidence of that, you can see them opportunistically attacking unions in this country to line up with the bosses and their profits—shame on you! [Cheering and applause]
It’s been the bosses who have been able to set the agenda of industrial relations. And the Labor governments and politicians—when the bosses say we want to attack workers, they just lie down and say how high can we jump for you! Shame on you! [Applause]
They’re meant to be on our side, aren’t they? The truth is that we need more democracy for union members in this country: we need more democracy to safeguard our industrial rights and unions that will defy the bosses and their industrial courts in the interest of our rights. We’re only going to win it if we fight for it, and that’s what this fight is about. 
I’m also extremely proud to say that the QTU is the only teachers’ union that I know of in this country that has put a vote to their members about whether or not we side with the CFMEU. That was me who moved that motion and my members in my union said yes we’re with you all the way! [Applause]
I couldn’t stand before you as a union militant and a teacher militant without recognising that last week there were some disgraceful comments made by women union leaders like Sally McManus [boos] and the so-called federal education union officials of my great industry. Those women unionists shamefully lined up with the administrator using the rhetoric of support for women to attack unions, and attack the CFMEU—shame on you. [Applause]
I’m a unionist from a women-dominated industry, and I can say with confidence that the only way to defend women workers’ rights is to build fighting unions that will challenge the bosses who benefit from our oppression. They benefit from the gender pay gap, they benefit from the poor conditions at work, the conditions that compromise our safety. 
For too long education unions have shied away from a fight for their members’ rights . And we’ve seen our conditions worsen precisely because of what’s at stake now—[because of] class collaboration, obeying the industrial courts and accepting subpar pay offers from our employer, the government.
New South Wales nurses: I want to shout out to them today as well because they’re another women-dominated industry, and this week they’ve gone on strike for the second time this year to demand a 15 percent pay increase they deserve. And those women workers who are prepared to strike—to disobey the official establishment, the industrial courts, the framework of the government and the bosses—they’re showing the way! Because they show us that if we don’t fight, we lose. They show us that bad laws need to be broken, and the only way workers in this country have ever won our rights is where we’ve been prepared to use our industrial muscle, withdraw our labour and strike. [Applause]
And on that note, I want to give a massive shout out to our comrades on the <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/strike-shows-stakes-for-queensland-cfmeu">Cross River Rail project</a>. [Applause] You comrades have been fighting a battle for months for an agreement to secure equal pay and safe work conditions, to prevent deaths on site. And I want to reiterate the solidarity that was in our motion for the QTU rank and file today, and say we are with you in that fight. Thank you for showing the way. 
We all have a lot to learn from you comrades, because it’s about common interest, isn’t it. That’s what’s at stake. It may not look to a lot of people on the outside—definitely not in the media—like we have common interests. Me and you. White-collar workers, blue-collar workers. Teachers, construction workers. But we do have common interests, make no mistake. 
Public school teachers are workers whose safety is under threat every single day on the job—and our employer, the government, has done nothing to improve those conditions. 
So the solidarity we extend to you is not just words—it’s about recognition that we’re in a common fight to secure the safety of workers in Queensland. That’s a fight that depends on safeguarding our democratic rights to use our industrial muscle and strike when needed, and to elect officials who will pull the trigger and stop work to save their members’ lives—that’s in all of our interest. 
I want to end by saying that the only response to a historic attack on unions has to be a historic battle of resistance. For those of you wondering what I teach, I’m a history teacher as well as an English teacher. And one thing I do know is the history of trade unionism and of workers’ rights in this country shows us: that when we dare to struggle as a class together, we dare to win. And we dare, don’t we? We dare. 
Thanks comrades, solidarity to you.

Daring to win: a teacher’s message of solidarity with the CFMEU

Chants of “One, two, three, fuck the ALP!” rang out across Sydney in late September as several thousand striking construction workers protested in city streets. Around 5,000 workers struck and rallied in Sydney and Brisbane. But the construction unions in Melbourne once again put the biggest crowds on the street—upwards of 25,000, according to police estimates. 
It’s just over a month since the federal Labor government appointed a barrister to take total dictatorial control over the main construction union, the CFMEU. It is the most draconian attack on a union in living memory. All elected positions in most state branches have been replaced with a single unelected administrator who has publicly committed to strict adherence to Australia’s restrictive industrial laws. 
The strikes and rallies in response, and the stationary tower cranes dotting the skyline that formed their backdrop, illustrated a fundamental truth that no amount of spin from Labor ministers or highly paid administrators can wish away: it is construction workers, not overpaid administrators, cabinet ministers or Fair Work commissioners, who keep the whole industry going—and who can stop it in an instant. 
This industrial strength is sorely needed. 
Part of Labor’s attack, via the Fair Work Commission, has been dramatically slowing the approval of new enterprise agreements (EAs) in Victoria. This has sent a signal to employers, some of whom are now clearly dragging their feet about signing and lodging these new EAs. Several thousand Victorian CFMEU members who were already getting the first 5 percent pay increase under the new pattern EA have now had those pay increases withdrawn.
Over the past two weeks, an average of just one new Victorian EA per day has appeared on the dedicated Fair Work Commission <a href="https://www.fwc.gov.au/work-conditions/enterprise-agreements/find-enterprise-agreement/cfmeu-construction-agreements">web page</a> showing new CFMEU agreements being lodged. This is a fraction of the number usually lodged as a new EA gets rolled out. 
All of this poses a serious threat to a core piece of the architecture of the CFMEU’s industrial strength: the “pattern” enterprise agreement governing the wages and conditions of tens of thousands of construction workers. Without this pattern EA in place, a “race to the bottom” could quickly take hold in the core of the commercial construction industry. 
A battle to get the EA over the line in Victoria will take various forms. 
The last serious attempt to break the pattern EA in Victoria was Daniel Grollo’s ill-fated 2002 attempt to win a non-union ballot at his Grocon company. The CFMEU organised an industry-wide publicity campaign and targeted doorknocking, CFMEU members doorknocking members in their own language. T-shirts with the slogan “I’m not Daniel’s Donkey” were a popular fashion item, off and on the job. 
The union campaign was a huge <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/grocon-workers-say-no-20021219-gduydw.html">success</a>, 75 percent of the workforce voting “no”. Renewing this sort of detailed organising work will be important to defeat any similar employer ballots this time around.
Industrial action, protected or unprotected, aimed at particular employers will also be crucial in forcing recalcitrant bosses over the line—as will further industry-wide stop-works and rallies. The chair of the Melbourne rally, Electrical Trades Union Secretary Troy Gray, got the biggest cheer of the day when he threatened to shut down the industry with a three-day strike if there were “an orchestrated, continued attack on the working conditions and the living standards of Victorian construction workers”.
The rest of us have a stake in this fight as well. 
The break-up of industry bargaining into myriad enterprise-level agreements, pioneered by Labor in the early 1990s and continued by every government since, has fragmented solidarity and allowed conditions to go backwards. 
In contrast, the CFMEU and other construction unions have been more effective than any other private sector industry in maintaining a common standard across different employers. Enforcement is often a problem. For instance, the “finishing trades” such as plastering and painting have been a basket case in Victoria since 2005, even on unionised commercial sites: many workers flying a union flag don’t actually get the union rate.
Nevertheless, the construction unions have demonstrated in practice that it is still possible, despite enormously restrictive industrial laws, to achieve the most basic union goal of taking wages and conditions out of competition by imposing a common standard across the core of an industry. This living, breathing example of effective unionism is what’s now under threat from Labor’s attack.
The government claims its attack is necessary in response to a series of media stories in recent months. These have included serious allegations of corruption and criminal gang involvement in the structure of the Victorian and NSW branches of the CFMEU. We shouldn’t fall for the government’s spin. 
As Red Flag has <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/labor-knives-out-against-cfmeu-workers-rights-on-the-chopping-block">previously noted</a>, these problems can be tackled only by a revival of union democracy: regular election and re-election of all on-site delegates, full accountability to the membership regarding any allegations (and actions taken to address them) and most importantly a revival in the industrial action and politically informed debate that are the lifeblood of any real union democracy. 
But of course, the Labor government moved in the opposite direction—<a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/labor-set-to-impose-dictatorial-powers-over-construction-union">abolishing</a>
all democratic rights for CFMEU members in five states, and appointing an unelected administrator with dictatorial powers over the union and with precisely zero obligations to report to any member. 
The only serious “crime” of the Queensland CFMEU branch in the eyes of Nick McKenzie, the main journalist who broke the stories, was <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/cfmeu-members-are-right-to-rage-but-they-re-railing-at-the-wrong-people-20240827-p5k5t9.html">failing</a>
to prevent “ugly scenes in public streets” in Brisbane. This is a reference to a picket at the crucial <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/strike-shows-stakes-for-queensland-cfmeu">Cross River Rail dispute</a> in Brisbane—probably the most important dispute in the country right now. In other words, the real “crime” in the eyes of the political establishment and their mouthpieces is effective unionism.
Whatever the public justification for Labor’s attacks, they have led directly to a growing assault on workers’ wages and conditions—especially in Victoria over the new pattern agreement. 
For decades, many union causes in Melbourne and beyond have benefited from the solidarity of construction union members. Rallies for workers’ compensation or for better industrial laws, pickets large and small for all sorts of workers—all of them have benefited when the CFMEU turned up. Without that practical solidarity, and without that living example of a union that has maintained significant industrial strength when so many have let it peter out, we’d all be that much poorer. 
It’s now our turn to show up for the CFMEU. Anyone who values effective unionism in this country has a stake in this fight.

Jerome Small

High stakes for all workers in construction battle

I could hear the car horns blaring as soon as I turned into the airport parking lot. 
Hundreds of Uber and taxi vehicles idled outside Terminal 4 of Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport on 20 September, with a group of a few dozen striking Uber drivers at the rank exit, waving down other drivers to recruit them to their strike. A few of them tussle with airport security, while others explain to other drivers the importance of the strike, sometimes in heated exchanges. 
You wouldn’t know it based on the near-total media blackout they’ve been subject to, but these workers have spent the last four weeks going head-to-head with the biggest rideshare company in the world. Uber raked in US$1.1 billion in profits last year, and according to a technology industry source quoted in the Australian Financial Review, the Australian market is the “crown jewel” for the global gig economy company.
So how does this billion-dollar behemoth treat the drivers whose gruelling and often unsafe work is the source of all their wealth? You get a sense of it by talking to Zahir (not his real name), one of the organisers of the strike, who has been driving for Uber for nearly 10 years. He told me that earlier this year drivers found out through an email from the company and reports in the media that Uber would be reducing fares for customers by up to 5 percent. 
Uber says this is because demand has dropped as a result of the cost-of-living crisis, but drivers at the picket claimed that the company’s real concern is with lowering the bar before it has to negotiate minimum standards for the industry as part of Labor’s 2023 Closing Loopholes Act.
All of this was done with zero consultation with the drivers, who Zahir reports were kept in the dark on what the changes would mean for them. Then the payment reductions hit. At the start of this month, Zahir reports that trips that used to earn him $50 dropped to around $35. Clearly more than the 5 percent Uber had knocked off the fare price. 
Drivers already struggling with the high cost of living are now being crushed by 20-30 percent pay cuts, as others on the picket confirm. Zahir describes it as “trying to strangulate us when we’re already hardly breathing”. 
To make matters worse, Zahir also said that the reduced or “grandfathered” cut that Uber takes from him and other experienced drivers, 22 percent instead of 27.5 percent, had been revoked, with Uber now taking the same giant 27.5 percent cut from everyone. Some reward for their years of service.
“Uber is a multimillion-dollar company,” Zahir says. “They are operating in so many countries. Surely they can provide that discount [to passengers]—but not off the driver’s backs.”
These changes build on Uber’s carefully designed and deeply unjust relationship with their workers. From its inception, Uber has operated on the premise that its “driver partners” are independent contractors, not actual employees. This allows the company to dodge whatever limited protections workers are usually afforded by industrial relations laws. 
The result, Zahir explains, is that “Uber provides drivers with nothing. The car, petrol, insurance and maintenance all have to come from the driver’s pocket.” When asked if Uber offers any cover for drivers in case of injury or otherwise, Zahir told me that the company provides none. “They have insurance to cover their own ass but that’s about it” he says. 
The recent pay cuts have pushed drivers over the edge. Now, they’re fighting back. Their demands include weekend and holiday rates, and that Uber reduce its commission from 27.5 percent to 15 percent. 
The determination and solidarity among workers collectively fighting for their rights is always a sight to behold, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a picket as inspiring as the one organised by these drivers. To say the odds are stacked against them is an understatement. Uber has a long track record, documented by The Guardian’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/uber-files">Uber files</a> investigation, of using its obscene wealth and political muscle to flaunt laws and punish opponents. Airport management wants the striking drivers gone and regularly sends security to monitor and harass them. The media have given them barely a mention. The Labor government has kept silent about Uber’s dirty tactics despite the move undermining the small pay rises resulting from their Closing Loopholes Act. 
The drivers are also fighting against the atomisation that results from Uber’s “driver partner” system. Zahir explained how this is often reflected in drivers’ behaviour towards each other, which he said can be competitive and even aggressive.
Staring down this mountain of obstacles at Tullamarine is maybe a few dozen drivers, slightly damp from the rain. In their arsenal is one banner, a small table with tea, a box of samosas and custom shirts with messages like “drivers protest for better pay”. All of it paid from their own pockets. 
But they will not go down easily. As the rain comes down a bit harder, they continue talking to drivers. One picks up a megaphone and gives a short and impassioned speech about their right to protest.
“We started on our own. We’re still on our own,” Zahir tells me. “But I am a member of the Transport Workers Union and we are requesting that other drivers join too.” The TWU is the largest union covering ride-share drivers, but it has so far not supported the strike. 
What the drivers lack in funds and institutional backing they make up for in determination and a strategy to expand their ranks. The picket stops cars exiting the ride-share rank and two or three strikers explain to drivers why they should join them, with a QR code to their WhatsApp chat. 
Another driver says that on their first strike day four weeks ago, he noticed that among the drivers participating “unity has increased”. This growing solidarity in a normally atomised industry is evident in my chat with Joseph, a taxi driver. The taxi drivers are traditionally hostile to the ride-share drivers, whose lower fares deprive them of customers. I ask him if he supports the strikers. He says he does. “Would you work for $10 an hour?” he asks. “Sometimes we wait 45 minutes to an hour just to pick up a rider. It’s like modern slavery.” 
The burgeoning unity and determination of the drivers is an example of how workers can overcome all sorts of divisions and challenges in their collective struggle for dignity on the job. And it’s not just Uber that are getting away with punishing workers while raking in billions. Big business has made record-breaking profits in the last few years while workers’ wages have lagged well behind inflation. The fight that these Uber drivers are waging is one that we all have a stake in. 
Come to the Terminal 2 ride-share rank at Melbourne Airport at 3pm on Thursday 26 September to show your solidarity.

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