WA unions rally against privatisation

Hundreds of unionists rallied outside the West Australian state parliament on 15 November to demand that the state’s electricity provider, Western Power, remain in public hands.

The rally was initiated by the Use Your Power campaign, jointly organised by the WA branches of the Australian Services Union and the Electrical Trades Union. Speakers argued that privatisation will lead to higher electricity prices, unreliable service and worse conditions for existing and future Western Power workers.

The Liberal state government has already sacked 500 workers, mostly from the maintenance division. The number of new apprentices has dropped from 50, two years ago, to zero today. These redundancies have a devastating impact on the workers affected, their families and their former workmates, who are left to pick up the slack.

The cuts to maintenance jobs are particularly concerning given the finding that poorly maintained, privately owned electricity infrastructure caused many of the worst bushfires on “Black Saturday” in Victoria. For these reasons and many more, Liberal WA premier Colin Barnett was heckled and booed as he confronted the crowd to make his case for privatisation.

Unfortunately, however, the campaign follows Unions WA’s standard script of focusing solely on electing a Labor government. The weakness of the campaign is that supporters are asked to “use our power”, but not where we are strongest – organised in our workplaces, where we can use industrial power to pressure businesses and governments alike.

Although WA Labor leader Mark McGowan committed at the rally to not privatising Western Power if he is elected, he disappointed a large contingent of MUA workers by not declaring the same for the proposed sale of the Fremantle Port. Labor governments have a fraught record on privatisation: a NSW Labor government tried (unsuccessfully) to privatise the state’s power, while a Queensland Labor government sold off both freight rail and power distribution.

The electoral strategy was underscored again the following day, when the United Voice union held a “Big Burgundy Wave Goodbye” rally in the same location. Again the union called on its members and other attendees to vote Labor in the next state elections, expected in March.

If we are successfully to defend publicly owned utilities against privatisation, we need to do much more than vote out the Liberals.