Red Report Back - Week Ending 04/09/2022
Train Workers Keep the Thunder Rolling
As the industrial action of the Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) continues in Sydney, we are once again getting a good look into the modern industrial relations landscape in Australia and the strategies and tactics involved in playing the game. Major developments emerged this week as the union stands strong in defence of safety and liveable wages against government threats and media slander.
Firstly, last week the Liberal government gave the RTBU an ultimatum: cave in to government demands or we will tear up your enterprise agreement. Here, we bear witness to how the modern industrial relations framework is fundamentally geared to favour the ruling class, and even when workers are able to utilise it, they are threatened by a government that is frequently allowed to break the draconian rules they established.
Suprisingly, due to the political flac they received, the government withdrew the threat after the RTBU called their bluff took them to the Fair Work Commission (FWC). Alex Claasens, Secretary of the RTBU, said in response that “We have no intention of stopping our protected industrial action and the premier shouldn’t be surprised if more industrial action is called next week.” Were the RTBU not as industrially strong as they are, and if another union were in a similar situation with a workforce and membership that was in a state of disunity and disorganisation, the government would have rolled them with the full support of the FWC. If workers lack unity and strength, then they have no chance for justice in the anti-worker institutions of the capitalist class.
Workers would do well to note how the government will use any means necessary to stifle workers taking action against their destructive policies. Those who call for safe working conditions are labelled terrorists. Those who refuse government bribes to stop democratically decided industrial action are slandered for acting in ‘bad faith’. Those who stand up against government threats to overturn enterprise agreements are called thugs. The capitalists show no shame in trying to tear down and destroy workers and their organisations. We must show no mercy, coupled with class solidarity, when fighting back against them. Up the RTBU.
Party Gets Down to Support Striking Nurses and Midwives
In response to the NSW Government refusing to address dangerous staffing levels and unsustainable workloads, members of the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association (NSWNMA) once again went out on strike last week. General Secretary of the NSWNMA, Shaye Candish, said that “The NSW government is ignoring what’s desperately needed to ensure patients are getting the best possible care in their local hospitals.”
She went on to add that “Our members are frustrated more than anything else because their concerns for patient safety have not been heard, and their professional perspectives and pleas for short and longer-term safe staffing solutions are not being acknowledged.” This industrial action is another in a long-line of actions that have taken place over the last two years as the state Liberal government refuses to listen to the demands of workers and their communities.
Striking nurses and midwives on the picket line outside Westmead Hospital, NSW.
Members of the Australian Communist Party and volunteers from the Community Union Defence League were invited to attend the 24-hour picket outside of Westmead Hospital in Western Sydney. There, our members and CUDL volunteers served refreshments and snacks to the striking nurses and midwives, engaging in material solidarity support as these workers take on a government that continues to prioritise profits over the safety of its own workers and citizens.
We hope that the militancy of the NSWNMA over the last two years is maintained as the system reaches breaking point. Unions, particularly those in the public sector who provide vital services, must hold the government accountable for meeting the needs of workers and the community as a whole. We must use our power to address systemic corruption and focus on addressing the privatisation-for-profits drive that has attacked Australia since the 80’s. If the last few months have shown anything, it is that the government will use every weapon in its arsenal to attack and demonise unions. We need to build wider working class solidarity, for when we do, we all win. All power to the Nurses and Midwives!
Half-Measures and Some Gains from the Jobs and Skills Summit
Last week’s Jobs and Skills Summit left several key takeaways for the Australian working class. While there were many improvements to the hellish landscape forged by years of domination by the Liberal and National Parties, we would be foolish to not address the ongoing shortcomings.
Foremost, the government pledged $1 billion towards fee-free TAFE through joint federal-state funding, as well as the accelerated delivery of 465, 000 fee-free TAFE places. They also promised to modernise Australia’s workplace relations laws, including making bargaining accessible for all workers and businesses. However, this only increases accessibility to a bargaining structure that is determined by institutions which are overwhelmingly controlled by hand-picked representatives of the ruling class, known for their staunch anti-worker attitudes and rulings.
Likewise, the government expressed a commitment to amending the Fair Work Act to strengthen accessibility to flexible working arrangements, making unpaid parental leave more flexible and strengthening protection for workers against discrimination and harassment. While these are all overdue changes needed in workplaces, once again these piecemeal reforms are still contained within an overwhelmingly anti-worker legal apparatus. These commitments on paper rarely address the in-person difficulties of accessing these benefits, with employers being permitted to run roughshod over legislated improvements that hardly ever translate into real-world changes for the majority of workers.
Labor also committed to ‘greater flexibility’ in utilising $575 million from the National Housing Infrastructure Facility to invest in social and affordable housing, aiming to attract financing from superannuation funds and other sources of private capital. This is problematic as rather than focusing on funding sources such as higher taxes on multinational corporations that funnel billions out of Australia each year, they are targeting private sources of capital. Similarly, rather than building government-owned public housing that provides accommodation of a liveable standard, they are channelling funds towards developers that construct subpar ‘affordable’ housing that is expensive and out of reach for the majority of working class people.
In criticising these shortcoming, Antipoverty Centre spokesperson and JobSeeker recipient Jay Coonan accused the government of politicising the poverty crisis, stating that
“poverty is by design and Albanese has committed to keeping millions below the poverty line while we face a cost of living crisis.” They went on to criticise the government, as “they pat themselves on the back for the Jobs Summit ‘consensus’, but all it means is they agree with the millionaires and billionaires that our lives are worth nothing”. Indeed, as Communists we have a duty to hold the government accountable and should take everything sold to the working class as a victory with a grain of salt. This is critical for addressing the propaganda of the government, whether they be Labor or Liberal. This must also be done in a way that highlights these shortcomings in a relatable form, helping working people to see capitalism’s true nature.
NSW Spending $700, 000 A Year to Keep Kids Imprisoned
In the Budget Estimate hearings last week in NSW, it was revealed that the cost of holding youths in detention in the state had risen to $1956 per child, per day. As a total for the year, this adds up to a sum of $715,940 a year. Indigenous youth incarcerations are also up, jumping from 36% of the imprisoned youth population to 51%. Furthermore, it came to light that at least 9 children imprisoned are under the age of 14, with children as young as 11 known to be locked up in NSW prisons. These concerning developments have been attributed to politicised policing, as well as targeted bail refusals for people on lower incomes.
These shameful facts and figures highlight how the prison industrial complex has blossomed under consecutive governments. The capitalist legal system sees fit to uphold an age of criminal responsibility that tears children as young as 11 away from their families to be imprisoned in a cell for up to 23 hours a day, locking them in a recidivist cycle that enables the prison system to secure funding indefinitely, fostering their future ‘clients’.
This is the true nature of the capitalist ‘justice’ system laid bare – a system that preys on the most disadvantaged elements of the working class until they are trapped in the prison system in a cycle of recidivism, allowing the capitalists in control of these jails to reap profits off of their misery.
Time and time again, governments of all stripes refuse to address these shameful practices. They won’t address kids being locked up, Indigenous people being murdered for eating crackers in their cell, women being killed by abusive partners and thousands of other issues they could change in one parliamentary sitting. Every working class person must recognise that this legal system is not one of justice. It is a system to maintain and protect the rule of the capitalist class.