Red Report Back – Week Ending 29/05/2022

Non-Government Teachers Break 18-Year Drought

Teachers from the Independent Education Union walked off the job for 24 hours last Friday for their first strike in 18 years. They took action to join their public sector colleagues in the New South Wales Teachers’ Federation, who have also been striking to demand better pay and working conditions as the education crisis deepens.

18,000 teachers and support staff from more than 500 Catholic schools across New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory were involved in actions held from Dubbo, to Wagga Wagga, right through to Sydney. They demanded a wage increase of at least 10% to match the increasing workloads and overtime work that teachers have had forced on them, leading many to burn out from exhaustion.

Unless the government recognises the vital work that the education sector provides to the community, then society as a whole will continue to suffer. More pressingly, we must recognise that working class children and teachers are always the worst off from these policies and approaches that prioritise the interests of the rich and the connected, to the neglect of millions of children. Our children are being left behind as the quality and accessibility of education declines. We must stand up with teachers at moments like this and support them in saying #hearourvoice.

Paramedics Take Snap Action

In a similarly damning reflection on the NSW state government’s neoliberal policies, members of the Australian Paramedics Association have announced five days of industrial action until June 1st. The move comes about in response to ambulance services suffering some of the highest backlog and wait times ever over the last few months with the Delta outbreak, while receiving no support from the government.

Members of the APA are demanding, much like their colleagues at the NSW Nurse and Midwives’ Association, an end to the capped pay rise of 2.5%. The planned industrial actions have been selected to be of minimal inconvenience to the community, and rather seek to target the government. Patients who call triple-0 and receive emergency treatment from paramedics will not be sent a bill, as paramedics are refusing to log billing information.

Due to staff shortages, which have been compounded by many leaving the profession as a result of harsh conditions during COVID, the union is also calling for the employment of 1,500 more paramedics and a specialists network for community care. In response to the hollow words of Premier Perrotet, APA Industrial Officer Bree Jacobs said "Our health system is in crisis; the NSW government has a whole bunch of empty words for all kinds of workers in the health system … but they won’t actually take any action when it comes down to it." The priorities of the government have been shown to not align with the needs of the community. While they continue to dismiss the needs of healthcare workers, they also dismiss the right of the working masses to adequate public health care. Survival should not be determined by whether you have enough money to access private facilities.

Apple Isle Targets Right to Protest

Following in step with the rest of Australia, Tasmania is witnessing yet another attack on the democratic right to protest as the government once more seeks to push through new anti-protest laws.  This is the latest move by the state’s Rockliff Liberal government to criminalise the expression of dissent, introducing penalties that could see protesters being fined up to $12,975 or jailed for 18 months for a first offence, while organisations would be fined up to $103,800, if they were judged to have obstructed workers or caused “a serious risk”.

This follows similar trends nationally, as seen with NSW and Victoria’s respective state governments. What is interesting to note is that in both NSW and Tasmania, this legislation was passed with the support of the Labor opposition, while in Victoria it was the Labor Andrews government that spearheaded the move. Notable in the rhetoric of all these anti-worker politicians is that they have justified these laws by saying, without a shred of irony, that they protect the safety of workers.

The same zeal and concern for the safety of workers is not shown when employees steal from workers, nor force them to work in unsafe conditions and kill them on the job. These self-interested politicians always have a double standard when attacking the rights of working people.

Of great concern is that all these laws employ vague wording that leaves many open to punishment. Similarly, groups that lead protests or industrial actions targeting business interests are able to be heavily punished through financial means.

These events demonstrate how the weak ‘democratic’ institutions of Australian capitalism are eroding with each passing day. We have a duty to educate the public that lasting change for working class people cannot be won solely through institutions that are fundamentally geared against us. So long as we confine ourselves to the rules of the ruling class, we will be at their mercy. No amount of laws or threats will silence the working class in the fight for their interests.

New Approach, Same Bullshit in West Papua

Last week, imprisoned West Papuan revolutionary Victor Yeimo celebrated his 39th birthday in jail, hospitalised from the impoverished conditions he has been kept in since his imprisonment. At the same time, Indonesia has continued to push its New Approach plan in the illegally occupied nation.

The plan would seek to further entrench Indonesian colonisation by creating five new provinces. The government has stated that this part of a plan of ‘pacification-by-prosperity’, which would bring benefits to all in the area through improvements to administrative and economic governance.

However, it is clear that this is another shameful move that sees the sovereignty of a nation fall into the hands of capitalist colonialism, as the international community sits by and watches.  One West Papuan activist put it bluntly in condemning the move as ‘a form of state violence that seeks to eradicate the lives of Papuans’. The struggle of the West Papuan people is one that the Australian working class must support in solidarity. Let their voice be heard.