En Passant

Five Australians died in Afghanistan the other day. It is time to bring the troops home now. Why wait till 2014? Nothing will have changed. If we cut and run now rather than in 2014 we will save Afghan and Australian lives.

Just to show I am an equal opportunity sort of guy and that it isn’t only The Australian which doesn’t publish my letters, here are some of mine which the Canberra Times has decided not to print this month. Fair enough. I may just be a grumpy old nutter with a computer. And they do occasionally publish one or two of my ‘gems’

One task for the Australian left is to link the fight for lives and against the bosses’ killing machine on building sites to the fight in Australia against the Australian ruling class’s killing machine in Afghanistan. That ruling class killing machine is in Afghanistan repressing Afghans to protect the system that produces Grocon’s safety practices and profits.

In breaking news, Judge Bronstein of the Supreme Court of Never Ever Gunna Happen has issued an injunction against Daniel Grollo, ordering him to stay 100 metres away from any Grocon Construction site. His actions, said the Court, amount to thuggery and intimidation. His underlings have been ordered to allow the building union, the CFMEU, […]

The only protection we have from the Daniel Grollos of the world, and their contempt for our safety and our rights, is a strong union that is independent from multi-millionaires and their goons – the issue at the heart of the Grocon dispute. And we’ve shown in spades that, if we’re given a fighting lead, we’re prepared to do what it takes to defend it.

And of course, there’s the most basic fact. The fact that infuriates the rich and the powerful, and that drives their bought and sold apologists in the media into a frenzy. That is, as we demonstrated in the streets of Melbourne on Tuesday, we have the power to fight and win.

The abandonment of the proposed floor price from the Australian ETS scheduled to start in 2015 is a political, not an environmental, decision. It means the Gillard government can say we are on track to be part of a global market in permits, although that market will do little or nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions if the price remains low. The neoliberal Greens have sold us yet another market dud.

Having Grocon in charge of safety is like putting John Howard in charge of refugees. Only union reps on site can really help enforce safety. Only the ability to walk off the job without loss of pay over safety issues can really force the bosses to take the issue seriously. It has been a long long time since workers as workers have fought the bosses and their police so successfully and drawn in other workers in their own city and elsewhere. A long long time. What a great day.

These are Julia Gillard’s laws which allow, encourage and enforce this state brutality – court orders, police, capsicum spray, horses, and now possibly fines and jail.

These are Julia Gillard’s laws which allow, encourage and enforce this state brutality – court orders, police, pepper spray, horses, and now possibly fines and jail.
The task at the moment is to support the Grocon Workers. If you are in Melbourne and you can, get down to the picket. Victory to the Grocon workers.

Given the overwhelming rejection of WorkChoices in 2007 and the fear it still engenders, Tony Abbott cannot come out publicly in support of a return to this industrial relations ‘Golden Age’. So he hides behind weasel words about limiting union control and militancy – militancy when strike days are at historic lows! – and restoring industrial relations ‘balance’.

This is code for giving even more power to the bosses.

This is not a reason for defending Labor’s WorkChoices Lite. The alternative is to take industrial action to defend and extend jobs, wages and conditions. No to a return to WorkChoices. No to Fair Work which is WorkChoices Lite. Yes to the right to strike. Victory to the building union in its fight against Grocon.

The rape accusations should never be trivialised or brushed aside. But if the Swedish authorities were serious about investigating them, they would guarantee that Assange would not be extradited to the US. That could clear the way for him to face his accusers.