By Liam Mitchell (Marrickville branch)
When 60 workers at the Morris McMahon factory went on strike in March, Socialist Alliance members from branches around Sydney were quick to begin organising solidarity.
With little coverage of the dispute in the mainstream media, SA activists took it upon themselves to get the word out to other workplaces and unions, and to the public generally. In the process of building regular community pickets at the factory gates to confront the scabs in buses crossing the picket line each day, Socialist Alliance members and other activists helped break the silence about this dispute.
Members of many unions and communities joined the picket line in the early mornings and afternoons, and the strikers, members of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, most of whom had never before been on strike, greatly appreciated this solidarity.
Alliance members concentrated on ensuring that the workers’ demands had a public face. By reporting about the dispute on hundreds of email lists, distributing thousands of leaflets on the street and in workplaces, postering local areas, fundraising, producing community TV programs about the dispute, mobilising students for the picket line, and simply talking to the many people we come across in our day to day work, we have played a role to be proud of in this campaign.
Solidarity with struggles such as at Morris McMahon is vital to help strengthen the fighting spirit of working people. This dispute has now entered its 13th week and a victory seems imminent. If these workers win, it will boost their confidence, and that of other workers, to engage in militant struggle, and win, in the future.