Half a million march in Australia

According to the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), over half a million people joined rallies and demonstrations across the country on 15 November against the Howard government's new anti-union legislation. Some impressions:

Brisbane (Melissa White)

Brisbane was tightly controlled by ALP (Australian Labor Party) speakers who all promised to repeal the legislation if they got into power. It was dominated by Beattie (premier of Queensland) and Beazley (federal ALP leader) before the QCU (Queensland Council of Unions) got on the microphone. However, we did have an LHMU (Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union) rank-and-filer give a speech about her industry and the effects of the legislation.

The ACTU broadcast was embarrassing, particularly at the beginning, with national anthems, it's "unAustralian", church leaders etc. Greg Combet (ACTU general secretary) said he was not prepared to pay the individual fines, but he's not even personally subject to fines, so that was some faux defiance coming through.

About 25,000 here, which is a lot for Bris. I don't know whether it's the biggest industrial relations demo in Bris history, but personally in about 14 years of attending demos, I've never seen one this big. I was still disappointed with the turnout, and thought a lot more might come.

The march was rousing, but we only went as far as the National Party HQ and then Bill Ludwig (of the Australian Workers' Union) blabbed on on a microphone for ages and nobody could hear him, so everyone started chatting.

Then the marshals declared it was over, so people drifted into the pubs.

Almost everyone there was in a unionist, despite what the writer says. I did not see the CPSU or MUA at all, but then I was down the front and it was impossible to see what was going on behind along the length of the cultural forecourt. There were a lot of Queensland Rail people - I caught the train in with a QR delegate. It was a long, skinny demo as opposed to a massy one.

Perth (Kat Pinder)

We had a turnout of about 15000. The march was lively and had a good impact, but the live hook up to Melbourne and it didn't work very well. Before that they had the same old union bureaucrat speakers that everyone's heard before, no workers or union activists and all Labor Party members. People looked quite bored and unenthusiastic.

Also, the organisers of these rallies have very exclusive organising committees and so no union members can get involved in the organisation. I think they need an open committee.

Lismore (Boyd Kellner)

The town was consumed by the event. More people were rallying, marching than anything else. Quite impressive for conservative Lismore, particularly during the week. Clearly it has shakened the community,with all sorts of folk attending, demonstrating.

This issue is resonating with country, regional communities where as we know secure employment is difficult to find. This legislation will exacerbate that.

DSP (Democratic Socialist Party, Castroites) were doing the usual war cry. Otherwise a motley crew of unionists were responsible for organising this successful event.

Sydney (Leon Parissi)

The biggest of the Sydney rallies was marked by the spirited, defiant and seemingly class conscious nature of the chants. Often peace rallies have been huge, as they were before the Iraq war, but they can be relatively quiet and lacking a militant edge. This one was different. One of the most popular chants was “the workers united will never be defeated”. Not “the people united…”. The chants were kept up all along the route of the march into the city centre. The Sydney rallies and marches were quite dispersed with two main rallies at the city centre and meetings of 1-3,000 at a number of other Sydney locations. Dozens of regional rallies brought the total numbers in New South Wales up to the 150,000 mark.

At Chifley Square we demonstrated our opposition to the US Boeing company’s refusal to negotiate a collective agreement with a group of civilian workers at a regional RAAF maintenance plant. This rally was dominated by the construction workers union which has a strong militant tradition and now has good cause to put that tradition on display. Under unprecedented new laws these unionists each risked a $22,000 fine just for showing up at the demo without permission from their boss.

Melbourne (Bryan Sketchley)

The Melbourne rally was very large. It was impossible
to get near Fed square to see the screens or hear the speeches. The crowd spilled up Flinders and Swanston street.

A little forethought would have
seen screens and speakers set up on those streets. A sizeable chunk of the rally wouldn't have heard a word spoken, with people drifting off to get a coffee or whatever as a result.

The march headed off at 10am. I was towards the end of the march, and left Fed square an hour and a quarter after the march began.

Union contigents were generally small, I suspect because people couldn't get through crowds to meet up with their unions. CFMEU and other construction unions were present in numbers despite employer threats.

The only speech I heard at the Carlton Gardens was Joan Doyle of the posties. She had nothing to say about the ALP and instead spoke on the need to recruit, organise and struggle. Not a bad speech.

I guess it remains to be seen what will follow, but the CPSU at least the CPSU has indicated there are no further actions planned.