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SEP meeting calls for establishment of rank-and-file workers’ committees to combat CFMEU management

Harry October 29, 2024

On Sunday the Socialist Equality Party held a public meeting calling on construction workers to form independent rank-and-file committees in opposition to the Labor government’s appointment of a manager over the construction division of the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union (CFMEU). ).

Dozens of young people and workers, including many CFMEU members, attended the meeting, which was held in physical locations in Sydney and Melbourne. Participants from across the country and from international countries, including the United States and New Zealand, also participated via Zoom.

The event provided a comprehensive analysis of CFMEU management and revealed the connection between this attack on construction workers and the crisis of capitalism in Australia and internationally.

Crucially, the meeting revealed important historical experiences of construction workers and other segments of the working class that hold important lessons for today. These experiences were brought to life by working-class SEP members who described the party’s struggle for a socialist perspective at some of the key turning points in the class struggle in Australia over the last four decades.

SEP member Luch Lopez, who chaired the meeting, declared that the administration was an attack on the entire working class.

Placing the meeting in a broader context, Lopez noted that the meeting was held the day after Israeli airstrikes against Iran, which pointed to the serious danger of a region-wide war and world war. He also expressed the need for workers to recognize the global character of their struggle, particularly highlighting the recent rebellion of American Boeing workers against a union-backed sales agreement and the fight for rank-and-file committees of the SEP (USA). strategic segment of workers.

The opening report was presented by SEP National Committee member Michael Coggins, who played a central role in WSWS coverage of Australian workers’ struggles.

Coggins gave a detailed outline of what management entailed, its purpose, and the political problems it presented to workers. He explained: “Mark Irving KC, a lawyer hand-picked by the Labor government, is now the de facto dictator of the construction department. Any industrial action that CFMEU members wish to take to fight for their jobs, wages and conditions is now subject to approval by a senior lawyer accountable only to the state.

“It has the power to dismiss union officials, employees and workplace delegates, expel union members, determine when and under what conditions elections can be held, and supervise the day-to-day activities of the union.”

Even in the context of Australia’s brutal industrial relations regime, this marked a new phase in the attack on workers’ rights. It had nothing to do with the completely unfounded media allegations of the CFMEU’s involvement in crime.

Providing a detailed timeline, Coggins found that the imposition of management involved a “conspiracy” hatched by “the Labor government, police forces, construction companies and the union bureaucracy” who “all colluded to carry out this attack on construction workers”. The aim, as is increasingly made clear in the financial press, is to reduce the wages and conditions of construction workers.

The speaker explained that this attack was facilitated by the CFMEU leadership itself. He had blocked any mobilization against plans to impose administration, focusing instead on behind-the-scenes negotiations and agreements with government and industrial officials.

The sole concern of CFMEU officials was to try to maintain their privileged position within the oppressive industrial relations framework. Coggins said it was an expression of the transformation of entire union bureaucracies into a fully corporatized force determined to impose the dictates of governments and big corporations.

He summarized the SEP’s call for rank-and-file committees to fight against the administration and contrasted it with the fake “grassroots” groups established by pseudo-left groups such as the Socialist Alliance. These functioned as a front for the CFMEU leadership, uncritically repeating its statements and leading workers to lobby Labor and the rest of the union bureaucracy.

On the other hand, SEP was fighting for a “real grassroots movement”. Such a move would amount to an all-out rebellion against both the overthrown CFMEU bureaucracy and the CFMEU leaders who remained within the union and cooperated with the executive.”

Through genuine rank-and-file committees that they control, workers can come together to organize an industrial and political struggle to end management throughout the construction industry and more broadly. This was a political struggle against the Labor Party and all the institutions of the capitalist state, revealing the need for an alternative socialist perspective.

The second speaker, Morgan Peach, is a leading member of International Youth and Students for Social Equality, the youth and student wing of the SEP. Peach revealed that the Labor government that led the attack on construction workers also supported the Israeli genocide in Gaza. As part of this, Labor oversaw a wave of crackdowns on protesters and university students opposing war crimes.

Peach said the two issues are related. The return to war was not limited to Gaza. This included Labour’s support for a US-NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and its transformation of Australia into a state at the forefront of a devastating war against China. This program could only be implemented with dictatorial measures.

Peach emphasized that students and young people should turn to the working class, the revolutionary power in society that has the social power to end the war, authoritarianism and the capitalist system that is their source. This meant a political struggle against the Labor Party, the union bureaucracy and pseudo-left groups, who over the past year had subordinated opposition to the genocide to clumsy appeals to the government.

The final report was presented by SEP National Secretary Cheryl Crisp. Crisp explained that the attack on construction workers occurred as follows: “Humanity has once again reached an economic, social and political abyss characterized by financial crisis, a return to far-right, fascist forms of government, and terrorist war.”

Crisp said the world was at war, expressed in Israel’s attacks on Iran, the barbarism inflicted on the Palestinians, and the US-led attacks on Russia and China, all of which were supported by the Labor government. The old so-called democratic forms of government were being destroyed, which was expressed most starkly in this month’s US presidential election between fascist gangster Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, whose main policy is world war.

Reviewing the administration’s implementation by Labor and the CFMEU’s refusal to challenge it, Crisp said: “This action was actually planned almost 40 years ago in 1986, when the Hawke/Keating Labor government deregistered the Building Trades Federation (BLF). Pioneer of CFMEU.”

This was a key element of the Agreements that the Labor government implemented with big business and the union bureaucracy in the 1980s. BLF leader Norm Gallagher was released from prison on contempt charges to attend and vote at Treaty conferences, playing a central role in getting the deal passed. The agreement’s agenda included the dismantling of shop stewards’ committees, the disciplining of workers, and the destruction of all sections of industry that were not deemed sufficiently profitable; All of this was done to increase the profits of Australian capitalism.

While the CFMEU leadership comes to power today, Gallagher suppressed any challenge to the deregistration of the BLF at the time. Unions had always defended capitalism, but the 1980s were a turning point. They were “turned into open police of the working class in line with the interests of capitalism. Secret agreements, agreements and conspiracies carried out behind the backs of its members are designed to ensure that the working class does not embark on an independent political and socialist path.”

However, Crisp emphasized that this was precisely the perspective needed to stop the deepening barbarism and called on workers to study the lessons of history and join the SEP.

This path was concretely drawn by two long-serving SEP members during the debate period.

Ken Mantell described his experiences fighting against the deregistration of the BLF, of which he was a member, as a member of the Socialist Workers League, the predecessor of the SEP. Mantell outlined the betrayals of various union leaders at the time, most of whom were affiliated with one wing or another of Stalinism. They all defended capitalism and therefore sought to prevent any mobilization of workers against the sweeping attacks in the 1980s.

Mantell outlined a mass meeting at which he would speak, despite attempts by the union bureaucracy to suppress him. The overwhelming majority of the more than 1,800 workers who attended the meeting voted for the motion proposed by Mantell, which called for a working-class movement against the deregistration of the BLF and the Accords and outlined a revolutionary socialist program, including the nationalization of the BLF. banks and large companies. Mantell said this refuted anyone who claimed that Australian workers were too backward to be won over to a socialist perspective.

Warwick Dove, another working-class member of the SEP’s National Committee, also fought for a socialist perspective in the 1980s and since, drawing on his experiences in the metal industry. The main lesson he emphasized was that anger and determination are not enough. There was mass opposition to the agreements, but in the absence of political understanding and still dominated by the union bureaucracy, workers were unable to defeat the onslaught.

Workers needed new struggle organizations to coordinate their struggles. But what they needed above all was a socialist and internationalist perspective based on a scientific understanding that workers were in a struggle against capitalism and all the political forces that defended it.

Semainede4jours

Semainede4jours

SEP meeting calls for establishment of rank-and-file workers’ committees to combat CFMEU management

Harry

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SEP meeting calls for establishment of rank-and-file workers’ committees to combat CFMEU management

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