Red Report Back - Week Ending 03/04/2022

Homeless Services Slashed by Nearly $40 Million

In a typical move, the Liberal party plans to cut funding to homelessness services by $39.4 million from mid next year. Naturally, this cut in funding has a knock on effect that will most likely result in existing services cutting their programs or firing employees. One source from Homelessness Australia said that the loss of funding could result in around 500 jobs being lost in the sector from next year.

On the other end of the spectrum, the government was happy to provide tax cuts to its ultra-wealthy mates, with Liberal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg no doubt winning a few brownie points with the tax-evading corporate crowd. Of course, if Australia hadn’t spent $982 million on designing yet another new submarine, this pressing issue could perhaps be addressed.

Yet, as the cost of living continues to rapidly climb, the Australian government has once again shown what should be clear to the majority of the population. These professional, opportunist politicians with all their posturing don’t represent the interests of workers or the disadvantaged. Rather, they are subservient to the interests of big business, and will leave people to die on the street if it means them and their mates can make a bit more money.

Sounds About Right - Government Displaces Homeless Flood Victims for Pleasure Seekers

More than 60 homeless victims of the Bundjalung country floods in Northern New South Wales have been kicked out of emergency accommodation by the government to make way for tourists over the Easter period. They are to be displaced across different locations in Queensland and northern NSW. A representative for the Department of Communities and Justice said that those who did not want to be relocated elsewhere from their current emergency homes could simply find their own lodgings.

The Department of Communities and Justice prioritises the importance of tourist dollars from the mega-wealthy, such as Matt Damon and Chris Hemsworth, over the interests and wellbeing of their own community members. It only goes to show where the loyalties of the state and federal governments lie regarding the wellbeing of those who are most at risk in our society. If you aren’t making them money you can be dumped on the street. Those who are thrown into these situations must stand together in solidarity against a state that neglects and humiliates them for the sake of private profit.

Police State - New South Wales Continues Push for Most Draconian State in Australia

In near-record time, the New South Wales parliament has quickly rushed through a new draconian anti-protest law with support of both the Liberals and Labor. The new law, introduced in response to climate activists protesting at Port Botany, would implement penalties for protestors including a $22,000 fine and 2 years jail time for ‘damage or disruption’ to major roads and other transport avenues.

Unions and human rights groups have expressed concerns over the anti-democratic legislation, with an open letter from 39 groups saying that the move was ‘a serious threat to democracy’. This attack on civil liberties represents what is effectively the revocation of the right to protest, silencing the ability of millions of oppressed people in this country to openly express their voice. Though Labor approved the police state policy, several Labor MP’s have nevertheless expressed dissatisfaction with the move by the NSW Party’s leading right faction in supporting the criminalisation of the very type of protests that have underpinned the labor movement since its foundation.

Coalition MPs were overwhelmingly supportive of crushing one of the few remaining freedoms the public has, and justified this with the ‘significant inconvenience’ that climate protestors caused them when travelling to work in the city from the wealthy enclaves of the Northern Beaches. Yet, the same support has not been shown for those who addressed the ‘significant inconvenience’ of more than 500 Black deaths in custody, domestic violence murders, climate catastrophes such as bushfires and floods, and the degradation of workers’ rights to name a few. Apparently, politician travel time is more important than solving humanitarian disasters or the democratic rights of the Australian public. All in all, workers and the oppressed masses of this country must remember one key lesson from our past – none of the rights we have achieved came about from the goodwill of the government of the day. Each and every victory came about from gruelling battles and suffering the full brunt of the state and its armed forces. As it was then, so it is now.

CFMEU Construction Workers at Probuild Site Continue Actions

International construction giant Probuild recently announced its withdrawal of financial support for all building projects in Australia. In response, the Construction Division of the CFMEU has taken action, and is now entering its third week of rolling actions calling on the developers, Frasers Property, to provide clarity to workers and their union representatives following Probuild’s collapse.

With the withdrawal of financial backing from the billion dollar company, the construction union is seeking guarantees of job security and entitlements for workers and subcontractors that have been left up in the air. State Secretary Darren Greenfield criticised the developers for refusing to come to the table to negotiate, warning them that ‘this job will not move, it will not be built as long as they don’t look after our members.’

Similarly, National Secretary Chisty Cain spoke to the picketing workers about how in relation to this issue, they could advance their interests by using their vote strategically to vote for the Labor party, rather than supporting the anti-worker agendas of the Liberals and Clive Palmer.

Cain prophesised that ‘if 2.2 million workers and union members in this country voted Labor, then we wouldn’t be getting sued and could get on with our business’. To his credit, he also reminded workers and unionists of the need to hold politicians accountable in defending the interests of the working class, and they would expect Labor to ‘get rid of the ABCC, more Australian jobs, more Australian content, manufacturing in this country with decent wages and decent conditions of employment’ and warning any potential political opportunists that ‘if they don’t do what we want, we’re fucking going to give it to them, march on them and protest until they fucking do what they said they’re going to do’. One can only hope that this emphasis on militant accountability towards politicians regarding the interests of unionists and the working class will be found elsewhere in the trade union movement as we move into the typical Labor Party apologism that is common around election time. Workers must stay militant and hold accountable any who would sell out their interests.

WA Newspapers Strike

Over the last 56 days since February 4th, production workers and members of the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union have been locked out without pay after they refused to accept drastic cuts to wages and conditions imposed by management at WA Newspapers’ Osborne Park print works. Workers have repeatedly walked out on management after they attempted to introduce conditions that would lower redundancy packages and take-home pay.

WA Newspapers are attempting to introduce these reductions to working conditions despite making a net profit of $318 million last year and earlier receiving $33.4 million in taxpayer money through the JobKeeper program. This shameful practice is symptomatic of most companies in Australia at the moment. These parasites double-dip by hoarding the wealth produced by labourers as profit, and then help themselves to public money that came from taxes on workers!

If that wasn’t low enough, they then try to take away the conditions that workers have fought for and won over decades, if not centuries. It’s not enough that they fire workers so they can outsource or digitise labor, but in addition to that they want to rob current and future workers of the right to live, work and retire with stability and dignity. For those who wish to make donations to their solidarity fund the details are as follows:

Account Name: West News Chapel

BSB: 805-050

Account Number: 1872-2897

Workers Strike Blow at Amazon in the United States

A trade union first occurred this week– thousands of workers voted to form the first unionised Amazon warehouse in the United States. The announcement came at the end of a long, gruelling campaign that saw Amazon attempt to destroy the grassroots movement through a series of union-busting techniques. An Amazon worker who was fired for protesting for workers’ rights, Christian Smalls, has become the president of the new Amazon Labor Union. This is an important first for what is the capitalist superpower’s second-largest employer, headed by oligarch Jeff Bezos.

The campaign was notable in that the new union was formed only in April last year, staffed entirely by current and former Amazon workers in combination with volunteers and GoFundMe donations. The victory came despite Amazon hiring consultants to harass workers with anti-union messages, throwing $4.3 million into their propaganda scare campaign. However, the grassroots campaign resonated with workers and spoke to their needs, campaigning for a $30 an hour raise, longer breaks and increased job security. Despite intimidation and arrests for delivering food to their co-workers, the campaign pushed on. Let this be a lesson to all workers in the West. There is power in a union!

In Australia, this lesson must be translated into our own workplaces, where the interests of members are so often sold out by bureaucratic leaderships that have become a part of the system and preserve its status quo. At the end of the day, workers must remember that no one else can represent their interests but themselves, and anyone who sells them out must be held accountable. All power to the ALU, and good luck to them in their next campaign at JFK8 on April 25th.