I’ve had my head down for a few years now for personal/family reasons. Recently, I’ve been getting the urge, to be active again. Not because my ‘personal/family reasons’ have gone away. Rather it’s the opposite. They haven’t, they won’t, and I can’t wait for ever for them to change. That’s enough time out.
Looking out the window, at the overcast sky and neighbours dirty white walls, I remember my earliest act of ‘critical thought’ and resistance.
My mother was, and still is a Mormon. When I was 8 years old, she wanted me to get baptised. According to the Mormon religion children can’t get baptised until they are 8 years old. This is meant to be a concession to the concept of ‘free agency‘, the chance to decide for yourself if you will be a Mormon.
Well, I took them seriously. I thought about it. And I decided that I was too young to actually know if this religious was real. I was only 8. I could not know if I was being lied to or not. So I decided NO. I will not be baptized until I was old enough to know if I was being lied to or not.
As it happened it seems my mothers closest friends were also strongly against it. So maybe I picked up some vibes from them. As it also happens, I was being lied to by what was essentially a cult that had grown large enough to be called a Religion. Kinda like the Catholic Church. Sensibly, I became an atheist instead.
My first memory of political action was the SEQEB strikes of 1985. My father was an electrician for SEQEB and participated in the strikes. It was one of the most significant industrial disputes in Queensland’s history. You can tell by the way there is very little freely published about it, except from right-wing think tanks trying to discredit it and rewrite history.
At the time I didn’t know what was going on. I remember the Union’s Christmas party in Gympie. It seemed thousands of people where there with kids running everywhere. I remember over hearing bits and pieces. And I remember being told we did have enough money for some clothes because dad had been fired (because he went on strike), I remember walking about a kilometre to the neighbours garden to pick a pumpkin so we could have dinner, I remember dad leaving to find work in the city while we stayed in the bush outside of Gympie.
I’ll explain the SEQEB strikes in a brief historical detour.
I think it is crucial to know history, otherwise we live in a bubble bouncing around with no context or roots. Being in a bubble means you can be bounced around to serve other peoples agenda, with no control over your own understanding or destiny.
All the trade unions in Queensland had been having running conflicts with the National Party government since they came to power in 1968. The National Party was in practise, but not in name, an Agranian-Neo Fascist party, lead by Joh Bjelke-Petersen.
In 1978 power workers in Gladstone ran a successful strike which really pissed off the government. So Russ Hinze (of the National Party) drafted up the Essential Services Bill, which in essence made any industrial action illegal. The unions went straight into action, in 1980 the power workers went on strike for 48 hours and the government gave up.
1982 saw the start of numerous unions coming together to fight for the 38 hour week, with some of the most militant being the power workers and the Railways Union. From midnight on Sunday, 15 August, the Railway Workers Union called a 48 hour stop work action. Workers from the AWU came on board on mass, while some of their union leaders argued against it. The next day, Monday 16 August, 1982, tens of thousands of workers from different unions did not turn up for work.
The National Party declared a State of Emergency, Union Leaders were urging workers to cut the strike action to 24 hours instead of 48 hours, and the Labor Party Bureaucrats were getting worried the workers were out of control. By that Monday afternoon, Joh Bjelke-Petersen had suspended 3500 railway workers, with the promise to reinstate them if the strike ended. Workers in Gladstone were threatening to shut down production in the city. By Friday 26 August, the Government gave up, and the Railway Workers Union won their demands.
That week-end the Trades and Labor Councils tried to capitalise on this win and called for a General Strike. They demanded across the board shorter working hours for all workers and for Joh Bjelke-Petersen to resign. Most of the trade Unions answered this call and participated. But the General Strike collapsed within days due to a lack of widespread grass-roots support. However 10000 workers still turned out for mass meetings in Brisbane, hundreds of students went on strike at University of Queensland, and most Trade Unions did participate, if only to observe the call.
All this set the stage for the National Party to plan it’s revenge. Which it did in the form of the Electricity Authorities Industrial Causes Act 1985 and the Electricity Continuity of Supply Act 1985. These acts targeted specifically the power workers, and essentially banned them from any form of industrial action. The objective to destroy the electricity workers involved and their union, and make them join the government controlled ‘Queensland Power Workers’ Association’.
I’ll add the details later. But this time the Government won, in a brutal campaign in which various Trade Union Leaders and Labor party bureaucrats sold out the electricity workers, left them alone and isolated. Because those leaders feared the same thing the National Party feared, workers independent, in control, with democratic power.
Must have been the Steve Towson gig I went to on Saturday night that reminded me of this. http://www.stevetowson.com/
BTW his new EP is very very good. Go buy it.
