Union fight-back sign-on statement

[The following statement calls on all trade unionists who want to see a united fight-back against the Coalition’s anti-worker and anti-union agenda to sign on to it.

[Trade union and other movement leaders who have signed the statement to date include: Martin Kingham (CFMEU state secretary, Victoria); Dean Mighell (ETU state secretary, Victoria); Jack Mundey (former BLF state secretary, NSW), Chris Cain (MUA state secretary, WA); Hughie Williams (TWU state secretary, Qld); Tim Gooden (assistant secretary Geelong TLC); Andrew Vickers (CFMEU mining & energy division state secretary, Qld); Howard Guille (NTEU state secretary, Qld); Joan Doyle (CEPU communications division postal & telecommunications branch state secretary, Victoria); Bob Carnegie (CFMEU construction labourers division organiser, Qld); Rae Frances (Australian Society for the Study of Labour History federal president); Greg Mallory (Brisbane Labour History Association president); and Bob Anderson (Aboriginal elder, Qld).

[All Socialist Alliance members are urged to distribute and collect signatures on the statement. To sign-on to the statement, people should email: United Fight-back ]

Howard has declared all-out war on our unions and right to organise

Now’s the time for a united fightback!

The Howard government is about to begin an all-out attack on working people’s right to organise to defend our wages and conditions.

If Howard and his big business backers get away with their plans, minimum award conditions will be shredded, unions’ ability to organise crippled, and anti-union penalties massively increased. The sort of attacks that Howard has launched against the building industry union will be extended to all unions.

We reject the idea that the union movement should not try to resist Howard’s anti-union agenda. The less that unions resist these attacks on our rights as workers, the bolder Howard will be about making new anti-union legislation as wide-ranging and anti-democratic as possible.

If unions don’t resist these anti-union laws, we’ll have less chance of convincing millions of Australians - many of them workers - that the Coalition’s laws are an attack on everybody’s democratic rights.

That’s why we, the undersigned, say that the union movement can’t hold its fire until after Howard gains control of the Senate—the fightback must begin straight away!

Defeating Howard also requires combined action by all unions. Although unions will need to take industry-specific action, restricting our resistance to a union-by-union response would allow Howard to pick us off one by one. In 1998 the Maritime Union of Australia needed the solidarity from all sections of the union movement and from the community at large to survive.

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