(en) Australia, Rebel Worker Vol.34 No.2 (223) July-Aug. 2015
- Debate on the General Strike from Rebel Worker
Paper of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Network www.rebelworker.org ---- Debate on the General
Strike ---- The Campaign for a General Strike to Stop Tony Abbott(Liberal Australian Prime
Minister) is developing, but needs to go a lot further and a lot faster. Each day that
goes by without an organised working class response is a day that Liberals harm working
class people and democratic rights in Australia further, a day to destroy the environment,
torture refugees, wage imperialist war in West Asia, stoke reactionary social forces and
stack public offices with Right wing zealots. To wait till the next election is to concede
Tony Abbott the right to commit any crime, no matter how appalling. ---- The Senate Won't
Save Us Firstly, many of the atrocious measures contained in last May's Budget were waved
through because they were part of the appropriation bills which give the government
authority to spend public money.
This is how cuts to school and hospital funding for the States, cuts to higher education
and many program cuts have gone ahead uncontested. Secondly, relying on the Senate allows
the Government to wangle deals with Right wing independents and minor parties if they have
to - neither Labor nor the Greens can be trusted to oppose government attacks
consistently. The Government got the abolition of the mining tax and its anti-refugee
legislation through, so placing faith in the Senate is a recipe for disappointment. The
Labor Party Won't Save Us The ALP, whatever its previous philosophy, is now a thoroughly
neo-liberal party. Many members continue to fight the good fight inside it, but decades of
rule changes have ensured that the leadership always wins.
Labor's differences with the Liberals are marginal and, left to their own devices, when in
power they would implement most of the attacks they now profess to oppose. We have seen it
already under Hawke, Keating, Rudd and Gillard. Now the ALP serves Big Business even more
slavishly. Anybody who thinks Bill Shorten would chart a substantially different course
from Abbott, let alone reverse his attacks on workers, has rocks in their head. The Union
Officials Won't Save Us Virtually the entire union bureaucracy is loyal to the Labor Party
(most of the exceptions having thrown in their lot with the Greens - good luck with
that!). The limit of their ambitions is a return to a Labor government, with the more
photogenic of their number landing plum parliamentary seats for themselves.
The officials will not challenge the neoliberal consensus unless their own positions are
threatened - and not necessarily even then. They quake in fear before the State apparatus
and have no faith in their rank and file members. They cannot even defend the institutions
over which they preside, let alone mobilise a movement that can stop broader government
attacks on the working class. We Have to Save Ourselves Only by organising a movement at
the base of our unions can we fight back. We have to mobilise a rank and file groundswell
in favour of a general strike to stop all of Tony Abbott's attacks. Once the movement is
strong enough, we must be prepared to act independently of the union officials. When we
create facts on the ground, the officials will be forced to either lead the struggle
against Abbott or be bypassed. Take Back Our Unions, Take Back Our World The organised
rank and file necessary to build the general strike against the Abbott Government is also
necessary to fight subsequent attacks on the working class by Australian capitalists. The
union bureaucracy must be shattered and those genuine elements within it must dissolve
into the rank and file movement. By its nature, capitalism continually attacks workers and
siphons off ever more wealth and power to those already rich and powerful. To end the
attacks for good, our rank and file movement must link up with similar movements overseas
and rise up in worldwide revolution against capitalism. To contact the Campaign for a
General Strike to Stop Tony Abbott, look for that name on Facebook, or E-mail:
generalstriketostopabbott@gmail.com From The Anvil.
Reply:
Your discussion of the proposed campaign for a General Strike seems quite vague, abstract
and lacking in consideration of significant historical precedents and the nitty gritty of
actually getting it going in the harsh conditions of contemporary Australia. The typical
abstract propaganda churned out by leftist sectlets.
In particular there is an absence of discussion of "Strike Waves", which often result in
General Strikes. The most significant and largest was the General Strike of May 1968 in
France. It was called by the union hierarchy for one day as a measure to gain control of
the spreading waves of wildcat strikes and factory occupations. However, the grass roots
disregarded this ploy and continued with the General Strike. As a result of the union
hierarchy's rorting of a ballot among Paris underground workers regarding the continuation
of the strike, it was able break its momentum. These workers initially returned to work,
but subsequently went back on strike, when the ballot rigging was discovered, but the
damage had been done. Workers in other sectors had been demoralised and returned to work.
In the Australian context, the union hierarchy in Sept. 1999, played an important role in
orchestrating a small public sector strike wave. The State Sec. of the now, Rail, Tram and
Bus Union, intervened in a campaign by the grass roots to fight moves to restructure
Sydney Trains stations for privatisation. Forming an important spearhead of the employer
offensive. Militants, assisted by the ASN and the Sparks network, had won a mass meeting
to support the campaign. Following intervening in the campaign, the Union State. Sec.
called next day a NSW wide lightning rail strike. It formed the apex of a strike wave,
which also included NSW nurses and Sydney garbage collection workers. It was aimed at
achieving a variety of goals e.g. influencing an ALP conference in Sydney on the weekend,
so to gain a greater hold on the NSW ALP Govt., preventing militants organising a public
information campaign about privatisation and taking direct action, alienating commuters,
so as to head off grass roots industrial action by public transport and other workers
during the upcoming Sydney Olympics in 2000, etc. (1) Whilst, one of the most significant
strike waves in recent times, which culminated in several one day general strikes called
in Victoria, by "Left" sectors of the union hierarchy was the campaign against the penal
provisions of the Industrial Court and the freeing of Clarrie O'Shea in 1969.
In regard to the "rank and file" movement, which you consider will play such an important
role in work to get a general strike going, the rarity these days of workplace papers,
illustrates its current poor health. One of the very few notable exceptions is the
"Sparks" network based in Sydney. It's currently, assisting militants to establish the
grass roots organisation, which would be vital in initiating future strike waves, which
can lead eventually to major action against the Abbott Government and create the
transitional steps leading to the emergence of breakaway mass syndicalist unionism. (See
"State Transit Newsflash" page 4 in RW Vo1.34 No.2(223) July-Aug. 2015)
In conclusion, if you are talking about getting a formidable "rank and file" movement
going and building the capacity to launch strike waves and ultimately a general strike,
work to assist Sparks is vital. Particularly in regard to developing new sections e.g.
Victorian tramways and buses, Qld railways and Brisbane buses, etc, and so assisting
militants in the day to day class struggle. It's this type of serious sustained activity,
which is required, rather than the easy stuff of "abstract" appeals for general strikes
via banners and occasional leaflets at demos, articles, etc, favoured by leftist sectlets
or wasting much time manufacturing the micro bureaucracy of a so called "anarchist"
federation and salivating over the "clockwork" operation of its structures and the holding
of likely its exotic, navel gazing jamborees.
Ed.
Notes:
1. See "Anarcho-Syndicalism: Catalyst for Workers Self-Organisation" and
"Anarcho-Syndicalist Strategy for Australia Today", in the archive section of
www.rebelworker.org
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