Australia, Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group: Strike at Woolworths' liquor warehouse by ablokeimet

(en) Australia, Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group: Strike
at Woolworths' liquor warehouse by ablokeimet

The following article was first published on Anarchist Affinity's blog: 
http://www.anarchistaffinity.org/2015/08/report-strike-at-woolworths-liquor-warehouse/ 
---- Much thanks to them for permission to repost. ---- A moment on the picket line, 
workers from another NUW organised warehouse come down to show support. ---- Report from 
Anarchist Affinity members who were supporting the MLDC (Melbourne Liquor Distribution 
Centre) strike last week. ---- Workers at Woolworths MLDC launched unprotected (unlawful) 
strike action in the early hours of Monday morning last week. Workers were responding to 
broken promises by management; Woolworths management had announced the week before that 
all new hires at the Laverton site would be through a labour-hire agency despite promises 
to the contrary made in EBA negotiations less than a year earlier.

The MLDC strike was called for, planned and hastily executed by rank and file union 
militants at MLDC. The decision to strike occurred to the genuine surprise of NUW union 
organisers and officials (the NUW is the workers' union), and this decision was taken by a 
workforce who had never previously been on strike together.

The MLDC sits at a critical juncture in Woolworths' supply chain. The strike shut-down 
liquor and cigarette supplies to Woolworths, BWS and Dan Murphy's stores across Victoria.

On day four of the strike, industrial action occurred at two other Woolworths' 
distribution centres in Hume and Barnawatha. The Hume DC afternoon shift joined the strike 
and the Barnawatha DC imposed an overtime ban whilst planning to join the strike.

This strike action continued despite the threat of fines and dismissal. It continued in 
defiance of an order by the Fair Work Commission on Tuesday. When ordered back to work, 
strikers at MLDC burnt copies of the FWC order and announced they would not return to work 
until Woolworths agreed "no labour hire and no repercussions [for striking]".

The power that these workers held in their hands was palpable.

A number of us in Anarchist Affinity are NUW members and delegates (in the market research 
industry); we headed down to MLDC and joined the picket as part of a larger community 
support contingent. It was with disgust that from here we watched NUW hierarchy sell the 
workers at MLDC short.

Why NUW leadership acted in this manner is a matter for debate, it could simply have been 
timidity in the face of potential fines, or perhaps a fear of an industrial situation 
escalating outside their control. What is clear is that by late Wednesday NUW leadership 
had decided to intervene and end the MLDC strike.

The process of undermining the strike began with a mass meeting on Thursday morning. NUW 
officials advised workers that a federal court injunction was coming that could not be 
defied. Workers were told that this injunction would result in fines of up to $10,000 and 
potentially jail time for the strikers. Union leaders claimed only way out was to 
authorise the leadership to negotiate a deal.

Over the course of Thursday the strike was demobilised on the outside as officials cut a 
deal with the company inside.

At the final mass meeting held at the picket on Thursday evening, union leadership 
presented the deal they had cut. They argued there was no alternative and called for 
workers to endorse it. The militants who had called the strike fought for a continuation, 
but ultimately lost in a vote split roughly 70-30.

The compromise that was accepted will (in broad terms) see labour-hire on the site during 
'peak periods', subject to certain restrictions. The most important restriction is that 
labour-hire workers will be paid site rates and covered by the site EBA.

More concerningly, the union leadership agreed to a deal in which workers will face 
retribution for striking. All of the strikers will be subjected to 'counselling' and a six 
month written warning for unprotected action.

The union and the company also intend to appoint an 'independent investigator' to 'make 
recommendations' about three particular workers for unspecified actions during the strike. 
The names of these three workers have not been disclosed, but it seems likely that strike 
organisers will face further retribution.

The MLDC strike was nonetheless amazing. Workers without significant support from their 
union took militant industrial action for four days, defying one of Australia's largest 
retailers and the misnamed Fair Work Commission. For a brief moment they held the 
profitability of one of Australia's largest corporations to ransom.

The MLDC strike may have accepted a compromise that in the end conceded labour-hire and 
disciplinary action for striking workers, but it also showed what is possible. The strike 
was one small but potent demonstration of the power that still exists on a picket line, 
and what even a small group of militants can achieve when they organise.

Our solidarity, support and love go out to everyone we met on the picketlines at MLDC.

https://melbacg.wordpress.com/2015/08/17/strike-at-woolworths-liquor-warehouse/

Australia, Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group - END ANZAC DAY by ablokeimet

(en) Australia, Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group - END
ANZAC DAY by ablokeimet

This leaflet was originally published and distributed on Anzac Day (25 April) 2015. ---- 
One hundred years ago today, Australian soldiers landed on the shores of Gallipoli, a 
Turkish peninsula not far from Istanbul. They were part of an invasion force comprising 
British, New Zealand and other allied troops, in a plan to knock the Ottoman Empire out of 
World War I and deprive Germany of an ally. The episode was a fiasco from day one and 
ended when the last of the invaders left with their tails between their legs in January 
1916. In the interim, over 100,000 died. ---- WWI was no accident. Although triggered by 
the assassination of an Austrian Archduke by Gavrilo Princip in 1914, it was a conflict 
waiting to happen. The Balkan War of 1912 had nearly ignited war between the Central 
Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire) and the Triple Entente (Britain, 
France and Russia), but diplomacy narrowly kept the lid on things. The fact that the 
respective belligerents hadn't quite finished preparing their forces probably had 
something to do with averting the war, too. And if diplomacy had worked in 1914, something 
else would have sparked it the next year or the one after. This was a showdown which would 
not be long delayed.

Australian troops were fighting in no noble cause. The Gallipoli campaign was a side-show 
in WWI, which was a crime against humanity. It was a clash between two rival imperialist 
alliances, a squalid contest over resources, markets and territory in which 15 to 18 
million soldiers and civilians were killed to advance the power and profit of their 
rulers. The Australian troops fought not for "freedom and democracy", but for "God, King 
and Empire". The empire in question was British and there was precious little freedom and 
democracy in British India, in Britain's African colonies or even in Ireland. The empire 
on which the sun never set was also one on which the blood never dried.

The other belligerents in WWI brush up no better. France had snapped up a huge colonial 
empire in Africa. Germany, a late-comer to the colonial game, wanted a bigger share of 
peoples to dominate. Austria-Hungary was a feudal relic, full of mutually hostile 
nationalisms. The Ottoman Empire was worse, a decomposing wreck kept backward for 
centuries by its Sultans. Russia was notorious for the autocracy and oppressiveness of the 
Czars. Italy conducted an auction, finally siding with the Entente after being promised a 
slice of Austria. And Belgium, poor little Belgium, over which the British Government 
cried crocodile tears, maintained a particularly gruesome empire in the Congo. We could go 
on - about Serbia, Bulgaria, the United States, Japan and so on, but the picture wouldn't 
change.

There was resistance to the war, though you'd never guess it from the memorials across 
Australia, or from the militarist propaganda disguised as histories of Australian troops' 
actions at Gallipoli, on the Western Front or in Palestine. Not everyone was prepared to 
follow Andrew Fisher, the Prime Minister of the day, who promised to fight "to the last 
man and the last shilling". At the very start, the Industrial Workers of the World, a 
revolutionary syndicalist (i.e. revolutionary unionist) organisation, denounced the war in 
the strongest terms. Defying massive pressure from the Government and all official 
institutions, they described it as a war for profits and called for those who owned the 
country to do the fighting for it, as the workers had no stake either way.

After the debacle at Gallipoli, Australian troops were sent to the Western Front. Trench 
warfare had reduced the situation to a stalemate, where generals regularly wasted tens of 
thousands of lives in futile offensives trying to break through the other side's lines. 
Sandbags, barbed wire and machine guns, however, gave entrenched defenders an overwhelming 
advantage, so when officers ordered their troops over the top, most were mown down.

The rapidly rising death toll depleted the armies of all belligerents. In Australia, Billy 
Hughes, Labor Prime Minister in 1916, decided conscription was necessary. To get around 
mounting opposition in the Labor Party, he sent the issue to a referendum. The IWW's 
anti-war work had born fruit, however, and the referendum was narrowly defeated.

Hughes wasn't one to take "No" for an answer. He ratted on the ALP, took 24 accomplices 
with him and kept the post of Prime Minister as leader of the new Nationalist Party. He 
tried another conscription referendum in 1917 and lost it by a bigger margin than the 
first time. The anti-conscription forces were also more radical the second time around, 
with outright criticisms of the entire war being more prominent.

Hughes, though, had his revenge. In 1917 he banned the IWW and began a wave of persecution 
that crushed the organisation. The Sydney 12 were framed for arson and received long 
sentences. A major defence campaign eventually succeeded in freeing them, but the IWW 
never fully recovered and the Government had established a precedent for union-busting in 
the name of national security.


Back in Europe, the strains of war brought many of the belligerents undone. Russia erupted 
in revolution in 1917 as the Czar's autocracy was compounded by military and economic 
incompetence. At the same time, the French army was convulsed by mutinies - and the German 
generals, not wanting their troops to get the same idea, threw their armies against 
British sectors of the front.

In 1918, however, the entry of the United States to the war and the deployment of new 
technology like tanks helped to break the stalemate. Germany's increasing military 
setbacks provoked desperate measures by the High Command. The fleet was ordered to launch 
a suicidal attack on Britain's Royal Navy. The sailors responded with mutiny and, within 
days, Germany was afire with revolution. The Kaiser abdicated and the new government 
agreed to an armistice. In the aftermath, the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires also 
collapsed.

Anzac Day is built on a lie. World War I was ended by workers' revolution, not by the 
heroism of Australian or any other military forces. Anti-war movements broke the 
governments of Russia and then Germany and threatened to sweep away several more. And it 
is workers' revolution which can sweep away the governments of all imperialist powers, 
including Australia, which wage war on oppressed countries today.

Today's capitalist politicians use the blood of the Anzacs to create backing for current 
and future wars. This is especially the case with Tony Abbott, the current Prime Minister, 
who shamelessly boosts militarism in order to convince people in Australia that they need 
to support the imperialist war being waged in West Asia at the moment. Instead of 
glorifying the military prowess of the Anzacs, we should be building the working class 
movement which can sweep away all capitalist States. We need a revolution that will 
establish libertarian communism, a world of liberty, equality and solidarity, where war 
and militarism exist no more, except as exhibits in museums and lessons from history.

END AUSTRALIAN IMPERIALISM


https://melbacg.wordpress.com/

Australia, Anarchist Affinity - The Platform #3 - The Politics of War Graves by Kieran

"Sacrified to the fallacy that war can end war", one family's protest at the theft of 
their son, both in life and in death. ---- The way in which the dead are remembered is a 
political act - the commemoration of war is never neutral. Australia has commenced an orgy 
of official remembrance; the ANZAC commemoration industry is expected to consume the 
larger part of a billion dollars of public and private money over the next two years (1). 
The reformist left is already bemoaning the crass commercialism of it all, and the more 
critical amongst them point out that ANZAC and Gallipoli were mere side shows to the 
"countless white crosses" that in "mute witness stand" in the muddy fields of Belgium and 
France (2). ---- But there is no such thing as an apolitical commemoration. The endless 
white crosses served their imperial masters in the aftermath of four years of slaughter, 
just as the ANZAC industry serves the Australian state today.

Mass slaughter shakes a society to its core. This can (and should) undermine the 
legitimacy and control of the ruling class that unleashes it. In May 1917 the British 
government established the Imperial War Graves Commission. This was a response to the 
unprecedented scale of slaughter, a slaughter wrought across the British working class; 
and across the colonies and dominions of the British Empire. 1917 had already seen 
revolution in Russia and mutiny in France (3); it was clear to the British ruling class 
that slaughter could shake the legitimacy of the class at home the image of unassailable 
power that the Empire depended on abroad. In wars past, a powerful leader or heroic figure 
might be remembered with an official statue, patriotic poem or day of mourning. But the 
scale of death in the First World War required a more comprehensive response, steps had to 
be taken to control and subvert the process of mourning that might all fall too easily 
morph into recrimination against and indictment of the rulers who had caused it. The 
Imperial War Graves commission responded to this situation by conscripting the dead. (4)

In wars past the arrangements made for human remains were adhoc. Many might be buried on 
the site of battles, but families with the means and inclination would often recover the 
bodies of loved ones to be reinterred "at home". The bodies of the wealthy and powerful 
were routinely repatriated. The arrangements made reflected inequalities of wealth and 
power, but the key point is that previously the state never claimed to own the bodies of 
its dead soldiers. Whether they could access them or not, in principle the body of a dead 
soldier belonged to the family.

The War Graves Commission had other ideas. It became British government policy that bodies 
were not to be repatriated. Even after the war ended, families were to be prevented from 
recovering the remains of their loved ones. The British state still had use for them. 
After November 1918, across battlefields like those of Ieper (Ypres), the Imperial War 
Graves Commission exhumed tens of thousands of adhoc graves and cemeteries. Grand 
monuments to sacrifice were planned, to be consecrated with the human remains of the 
working class of the British Empire.

Winston Churchill famously sought to dedicate the entire town of Ieper in Belgium to the 
British Empire. Entirely destroyed by the war, its ruins were to stand as an eternal 
monument to British sacrifice, even if the Belgians had to be prevented from ever 
returning to their homes. Ieper was eventually rebuilt, but not without significant 
concession. Monumental graveyards litter its landscape. The Menin gate stands over the 
entrance to the town, the worlds "PRO PATRIA" and "PRO REGE" stare down from above, whilst 
its walls record the names of fifty thousand soldiers of empire "to whom the fortunes of 
war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death"(5).

At a place called Tyne Cot, eleven thousand nine hundred and fifty four marble headstones 
stand in careful rows. As you enter, the cemetery rises in front of you on a gentle slope. 
The horizon is capped with a neoclassical monument in marble. The cemetery centres on a 
"cross of sacrifice", mounted on marble stairs and bearing an iron sword.

These cemeteries were designed for a purpose and to convey a message. That purpose is 
stark and apparent when you contrast the glorious dead of Tyne Cot with those entombed at 
the nearby German cemetery at Langemark. At the centre of the cemetery at Langemark is a 
small garden, perhaps ten metres by ten metres. It marks the spot where the exhumed 
remains of twenty four thousand German soldiers were dumped.

Unadorned, the piles of the dead are an indictment. You cannot look upon the mass grave at 
Langemark and not despise those responsible for the commission of so monstrous a crime. 
The famous British war graves of Menin Gate and Tyne Cot are no mere memorials; they serve 
a clear and reactionary political purpose in the context of the immediate post-war period. 
These monuments serve to recast the nature of the crime they record. On the walls of the 
Menin Gate, the dead are not working class conscripts, callously butchered in the name of 
a lie. Instead they have become heroic figures, united under the cross of sacrifice, who 
nobly struggled for the cause. The dead are sanctified in the name of king and country, 
the class butchery is obscured under a false equality, and the crime of militarism is 
rescued for future use by the ruling class and the state. The remains of twenty four 
thousand German soldiers can be dumped in a pit and forgotten, but to this day the British 
and Australian ruling classes still need the remains and memories of those butchered in 
the monumental lie that was the First World War.

It is now one hundred years since tens of thousands of Australians died for the British 
Empire in Europe and the Middle East. Those people died and killed countless others 
because the Australian ruling class had a vital interest in the maintenance of the British 
Empire, that empire allowed the Australian ruling class to project power and obtain 
resources in this region well beyond its own means. (6)

One hundred years later the Australian ruling class eagerly supports and encourages the 
military adventures of the United States, the threat of US protection facilitates the 
Australian ruling class's disproportionate power in relation to its immediate neighbours, 
and the Australian state is spending more than anyone else on "commemorating" a minor 
battle of the First World War.

References:

(1). See James Brown in The Monthly, February 2014. Tens of millions of dollars are 
planned for new museums, centres and exhibits; $10 million of federal money is being spent 
on a single day's commemoration in Turkey; $125,000 has been assigned to each federal 
electorate for "community activities" focused on the war; an events company in Melbourne 
has pocketed $27 million to coordinate events "on the day" in 2015; and private tour 
operators are offering everything from re-enactments of landings in small boats to a jet 
ski race through the Dardanelle straits.

(2). Plagiarising Eric Bogle, No Man's Land, 1976

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1VD84SLW8I

(3). More than anything else, revolution in Russia and then Germany was ultimately 
responsible for ending the war.

(4) For a longer discussion of just how outrageous the Imperial War Graves of the First 
World War are and the traumatic impact this had on the families of the dead, see "Were 
many people upset when they announced they weren't bringing back the bodies England's war 
dead back at the end of WW1?"

(5) Of this disgusting (and much revered) monument, the First World War veteran and poet 
Siegfried Sassoons wrote "Well might the Dead who struggled in the slime, Rise and deride 
this sepulchre of crime".

And because a grave a site of dense richness, oh does modern war bugger grieving patterns. 
Those Great War cemeteries with their ranks of war dead interred near or in the 
battlefield where they died? Profoundly unnatural. All politics. The bodies were co-opted 
in death as they had been conscripted in life. Stolen for their "charge" and richness of 
meaning. I use the word 'stolen' in a very real sense, because in the normal course of 
death, bodies are returned to their families.

(6). It is no coincidence that Australia's first act in the First World War was the 
seizure of the militarily insignificant German colony in New Guinea.

An earlier version of this article was published at Kieran's Review.

by Kieran.

http://www.anarchistaffinity.org/2014/11/the-politics-of-war-graves/

Australia, Anarchist Affinity - The Platform #3 - Dave Kerin on Workers' Cooperatives and the Climate Emergency by Guest Author

Dave Kerin is a co-founder of the Earthworker Cooperative in Morwell, Victoria, which is 
building a network of democratically owned and managed cooperatives throughout Australia 
to manufacture clean energy technology. Sam spoke with him at Trades Hall. ---- What is 
the Earthworker Cooperative? ---- The Earthworker Cooperative facilitates and enables the 
establishment of other workers' cooperatives in Australian, with a focus on manufacturing 
new green technologies for supply locally. Eureka's Future is one of the enterprises 
within that, manufacturing solar products. It started with manufacturing the BOLT-ON solar 
heat pump, which renters can bolt-on and bolt-off when they leave. It used to be made in 
China but we won the rights to make it here, along with stainless steel tanks, which are 
entirely made here by us. There are other products, an evacuator tube solar system, solar 
ventilators and so on, which we also won the rights to make here.

The point of Eureka's Future is to control the spaces where we work and where we live. All 
workers make decisions democratically and own the enterprise collectively. The Australian 
service sector is now eighty percent of the economy. In Greece it was at sixty percent 
before its collapse. We've allowed capitalism to build our lives on exploitation and on 
sand. It will wash away at the first sign of real crisis. We have to put those jobs back 
in place. Capitalism is saying we can't do it, the state is not going to do it, so that 
leaves us with one class: that's us, the working class. Earthworker is one aspect of that. 
Regardless of a person's worldview, how they define themselves, they can join Earthworker 
if they support the outcomes we're trying to achieve.

How do the workers who are involved react to being in control of their workplace and 
democratically managing their own work?

Well, at Eureka's Future we're just getting started, so it's a scary time. 
October-November is when we mutualise Everlast, which was the private company. And the 
workforce are only just coming over to the cooperative structure. At this point, we begin 
a process of them not only becoming worker-owners, but also a process of education, that 
Borderlands Cooperative is assisting us with. Where we as a group of workers learn what it 
is to run our workplace. We learn about group dynamics and group decision-making, conflict 
resolution at work, how do we deal with power. Other things: how do we deal with hazards, 
toxicity, and so on. The Earthworker Cooperative has been a success, but also a lot of 
hard work.

What have been the major challenges in building the cooperative and what challenges might 
new worker cooperatives face more generally?

I guess the biggest challenge has been the cultural shift in the organised labour movement 
and the green movement over the past two decades. Workers are encouraged to be 
individualised, to reject trade unions and anything to do with cooperation. Meanwhile, due 
to a variety of factors, the labour movement has been separated from the environmental 
movement. We're trying to reverse that shift by talking about jobs and the environment, 
not jobs versus the environment. The latter strategy has been tried and it failed 
miserably. Not only workers, but it has failed the planet. So we're taking a class 
approach to the climate.

We emphasise that capitalism is causing the climate emergency. To march in the streets 
asking capitalism to get a heart transplant and get out of the Big Four -- fossil fuel, 
petrochemical, plastics and the military -- is impossible, when capitalism is totally and 
utterly dependent on those industries. I mean, the military is the largest industry in the 
world, by half, and the largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions. Capitalism is bound 
to it.

If you look at the Middle East, it is about controlling oil and resources as they decline, 
but it's also about directly serving the military-industrial complex. That's how much of a 
systemic crisis we're facing. So unless we want to get good at yoga and learn how to bend 
over and kiss our asses goodbye, we'd better get these cooperatives and other forms that 
allow workers to make decisions in place, to meet our needs together.

How then do worker cooperatives differ from capitalist enterprise in their relationship to 
the environment?

Well, the first and obvious difference is worker ownership. No one paints the house they 
rent, you've got to own it, then you might protect it from the weather. Same with the 
economy. We're allowing all manner of awful things to happen to the planet within our 
economies because we don't own them. The second difference is popular control. We can't 
deal with climate unless we have engaged communities, and that can't just be in an 
abstract political sense, it has to be in an economic sense. Power is in the economy. If 
we don't control the places where we work and where we live, we don't control anything. 
Marching and demonstrating against war and climate change aren't forms of control.

It can't just be about ownership. I mean, we as working people now provide the capital 
base for private investment via our superannuation. Seventy-five percent of capital 
investment in Australia is our own superannuation. If you own seventy-five percent of your 
house, you own it already! So in many ways we've passed capitalism. Since the Second World 
War it has devolved into this monster. I mean the military, a giant monolith of 
destruction, is the largest industry now. Constant production, constant profit, and all it 
takes is a few dead bodies.

Workers' cooperatives demonstrate the power of positive example. They show that workers 
can run industry, they can make decisions about the economy, and that that's a good thing. 
If you have a strong social sector in the economy, people will participate regardless of 
how they vote, their religious background or anything else. It's about us as a class 
democratically controlling where we live and where we work.

During the 2001 economic crisis in Argentina and in other examples workers have taken over 
formerly capitalist enterprises as a means of economic recovery and transformation. Do you 
see that as a possibility in Australia?

I think it has to be a possibility. As I say, capitalism is in systemic crisis. The 
climate is acting as a new imperative. The climate emergency is unfolding at a rate that 
even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is unable to fully comprehend, as they 
say. The effect is going to be enormous. So more and more we are going to be thrown back 
onto our own resources. The choice is to evolve or devolve. There might always be a 
private sector, fine, but we need a strong, democratic social sector, because without 
popular engagement we're not going to deal with all the minutiae and complexities of 
building a new and sustainable economics.

People ask why the Big Four banks can't simply shift their investments over into 
renewables. They can't! Why would they shift out of industries so enormously profitable 
into industries that are not? That's capitalism. A dollar is only useful to a capitalist. 
Even under government-ownership things were different. When the coal was publicly owned by 
the Electricity Commission, they already had solar power on the grid, because under state 
ownership renewables and fossil fuels did not compete, they were just different ways of 
producing power. But the minute you introduce private ownership then anything outside that 
modality is a competitor, so you kill it. We don't have time anymore to work within 
ownership models that are outdated, and I think in future there will be more immediate and 
spontaneous responses from workers.

Eureka's Future is aiming to secure markets for solar technology by having trade unions 
include them in their collective agreements. You are also a former member of the Builders' 
Laborers Federation, which actively intervened in environmental issues through its famous 
Green Bans campaigns. What role do you see for trade unions in their relationship to 
cooperatives?

I think it is about developing a new economic space, where groups of people determine what 
their needs are and organise to meet those needs. At the heart of it is democratic 
ownership. Trade unions are a form of workers' power that exists currently, and they will 
be important to growing the power of people and workers in the future.

Our experience is that the vast majority of people want to see changes in this direction, 
but we can't satisfy our needs through individuals going to a shop and individually 
purchasing something, so trade unions offer a collective basis for that to happen.

Trade unions have enormous potential. That's why the Fraser Government criminalised 
secondary boycotts (black bans) in 1977, to stop unions striking in solidarity with each 
other. And why they introduced casualisation, which came in under Labor in the 1980s I 
might add. Federal and state politicians promised trade unions that it would only be used 
for relief staff in the public sector. Now we have 44 percent of young people on casual 
contracts. Jobs with no rights, and union density at an all-time low. And look at the 
world! Capitalism has a more unequal concentration of wealth than you had under feudalism. 
Eight thousand individuals own around ninety percent of the world's wealth. That's a 
greater intensity than under the kings, queens and aristocrats of feudal Europe. And 
what's more, combine that with the military-industrial complex and you have the basis for 
the growth of a real fascism. If we want to get out of this mess, we've got to start 
relying on each other, trusting each other, and putting the forms in place that allow us 
to do that economically, and trade unions are important to that.

There is a tendency on the far left to view cooperatives as a limited strategy in that 
they are forced to operate within capitalism, they are subject to market forces and so on. 
One example is the Mondragon cooperative, which grew to multi-national proportions and 
employs wage labour. Is there any merit to those criticisms?

Sure. There's truth in that critique. Look at the impact of the Global Financial Crisis. 
Mondragon was hit really hard and pretty much went under. But look at what happened: 
workers continued to be paid at the same rate for two years. They were retrained. And yes, 
one result is that large numbers of people are now employed by Mondragon, not as 
worker-owners. Cooperatives exist now in so many forms, and not all of them offer 
prospects for the future. Here in Australia you have large agribusiness cooperatives where 
workers are not allowed to be members. That's just calling something a cooperative when it 
is behaving like a corporation

But sure, the critiques are real. The point is this: no one is saying that the development 
of workers' cooperatives will eradicate the problems that exist under capitalism. It is 
simply saying that we will finally own those problems, and therefore be able to do 
something about them. The growth of workers' cooperatives is a process, not a final act. 
But the real work starts with the cooperative

Everyone agrees we need to change the world, whether you vote Tory or Liberal or you don't 
vote, whatever. Are politicians capable of making these changes? No, look at the world! 
Look how far they've got us. The world does not revolve around parliaments, it revolves 
around economies, how we meet our needs. We need to get in there.

The Earthworker Cooperative requires skills and support. To become involved, visit 
earthworkercooperative.com.au for more information.


http://www.anarchistaffinity.org/2014/11/dave-kerin-on-workers-cooperatives-and-the-climate-emergency/

Australia, Anarchist Affinity - The Platform #3 - Dave Kerin on Workers' Cooperatives and the Climate Emergency by Guest Author

Dave Kerin is a co-founder of the Earthworker Cooperative in Morwell, Victoria, which is 
building a network of democratically owned and managed cooperatives throughout Australia 
to manufacture clean energy technology. Sam spoke with him at Trades Hall. ---- What is 
the Earthworker Cooperative? ---- The Earthworker Cooperative facilitates and enables the 
establishment of other workers' cooperatives in Australian, with a focus on manufacturing 
new green technologies for supply locally. Eureka's Future is one of the enterprises 
within that, manufacturing solar products. It started with manufacturing the BOLT-ON solar 
heat pump, which renters can bolt-on and bolt-off when they leave. It used to be made in 
China but we won the rights to make it here, along with stainless steel tanks, which are 
entirely made here by us. There are other products, an evacuator tube solar system, solar 
ventilators and so on, which we also won the rights to make here.

The point of Eureka's Future is to control the spaces where we work and where we live. All 
workers make decisions democratically and own the enterprise collectively. The Australian 
service sector is now eighty percent of the economy. In Greece it was at sixty percent 
before its collapse. We've allowed capitalism to build our lives on exploitation and on 
sand. It will wash away at the first sign of real crisis. We have to put those jobs back 
in place. Capitalism is saying we can't do it, the state is not going to do it, so that 
leaves us with one class: that's us, the working class. Earthworker is one aspect of that. 
Regardless of a person's worldview, how they define themselves, they can join Earthworker 
if they support the outcomes we're trying to achieve.

How do the workers who are involved react to being in control of their workplace and 
democratically managing their own work?

Well, at Eureka's Future we're just getting started, so it's a scary time. 
October-November is when we mutualise Everlast, which was the private company. And the 
workforce are only just coming over to the cooperative structure. At this point, we begin 
a process of them not only becoming worker-owners, but also a process of education, that 
Borderlands Cooperative is assisting us with. Where we as a group of workers learn what it 
is to run our workplace. We learn about group dynamics and group decision-making, conflict 
resolution at work, how do we deal with power. Other things: how do we deal with hazards, 
toxicity, and so on. The Earthworker Cooperative has been a success, but also a lot of 
hard work.

What have been the major challenges in building the cooperative and what challenges might 
new worker cooperatives face more generally?

I guess the biggest challenge has been the cultural shift in the organised labour movement 
and the green movement over the past two decades. Workers are encouraged to be 
individualised, to reject trade unions and anything to do with cooperation. Meanwhile, due 
to a variety of factors, the labour movement has been separated from the environmental 
movement. We're trying to reverse that shift by talking about jobs and the environment, 
not jobs versus the environment. The latter strategy has been tried and it failed 
miserably. Not only workers, but it has failed the planet. So we're taking a class 
approach to the climate.

We emphasise that capitalism is causing the climate emergency. To march in the streets 
asking capitalism to get a heart transplant and get out of the Big Four -- fossil fuel, 
petrochemical, plastics and the military -- is impossible, when capitalism is totally and 
utterly dependent on those industries. I mean, the military is the largest industry in the 
world, by half, and the largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions. Capitalism is bound 
to it.

If you look at the Middle East, it is about controlling oil and resources as they decline, 
but it's also about directly serving the military-industrial complex. That's how much of a 
systemic crisis we're facing. So unless we want to get good at yoga and learn how to bend 
over and kiss our asses goodbye, we'd better get these cooperatives and other forms that 
allow workers to make decisions in place, to meet our needs together.

How then do worker cooperatives differ from capitalist enterprise in their relationship to 
the environment?

Well, the first and obvious difference is worker ownership. No one paints the house they 
rent, you've got to own it, then you might protect it from the weather. Same with the 
economy. We're allowing all manner of awful things to happen to the planet within our 
economies because we don't own them. The second difference is popular control. We can't 
deal with climate unless we have engaged communities, and that can't just be in an 
abstract political sense, it has to be in an economic sense. Power is in the economy. If 
we don't control the places where we work and where we live, we don't control anything. 
Marching and demonstrating against war and climate change aren't forms of control.

It can't just be about ownership. I mean, we as working people now provide the capital 
base for private investment via our superannuation. Seventy-five percent of capital 
investment in Australia is our own superannuation. If you own seventy-five percent of your 
house, you own it already! So in many ways we've passed capitalism. Since the Second World 
War it has devolved into this monster. I mean the military, a giant monolith of 
destruction, is the largest industry now. Constant production, constant profit, and all it 
takes is a few dead bodies.

Workers' cooperatives demonstrate the power of positive example. They show that workers 
can run industry, they can make decisions about the economy, and that that's a good thing. 
If you have a strong social sector in the economy, people will participate regardless of 
how they vote, their religious background or anything else. It's about us as a class 
democratically controlling where we live and where we work.

During the 2001 economic crisis in Argentina and in other examples workers have taken over 
formerly capitalist enterprises as a means of economic recovery and transformation. Do you 
see that as a possibility in Australia?

I think it has to be a possibility. As I say, capitalism is in systemic crisis. The 
climate is acting as a new imperative. The climate emergency is unfolding at a rate that 
even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is unable to fully comprehend, as they 
say. The effect is going to be enormous. So more and more we are going to be thrown back 
onto our own resources. The choice is to evolve or devolve. There might always be a 
private sector, fine, but we need a strong, democratic social sector, because without 
popular engagement we're not going to deal with all the minutiae and complexities of 
building a new and sustainable economics.

People ask why the Big Four banks can't simply shift their investments over into 
renewables. They can't! Why would they shift out of industries so enormously profitable 
into industries that are not? That's capitalism. A dollar is only useful to a capitalist. 
Even under government-ownership things were different. When the coal was publicly owned by 
the Electricity Commission, they already had solar power on the grid, because under state 
ownership renewables and fossil fuels did not compete, they were just different ways of 
producing power. But the minute you introduce private ownership then anything outside that 
modality is a competitor, so you kill it. We don't have time anymore to work within 
ownership models that are outdated, and I think in future there will be more immediate and 
spontaneous responses from workers.

Eureka's Future is aiming to secure markets for solar technology by having trade unions 
include them in their collective agreements. You are also a former member of the Builders' 
Laborers Federation, which actively intervened in environmental issues through its famous 
Green Bans campaigns. What role do you see for trade unions in their relationship to 
cooperatives?

I think it is about developing a new economic space, where groups of people determine what 
their needs are and organise to meet those needs. At the heart of it is democratic 
ownership. Trade unions are a form of workers' power that exists currently, and they will 
be important to growing the power of people and workers in the future.

Our experience is that the vast majority of people want to see changes in this direction, 
but we can't satisfy our needs through individuals going to a shop and individually 
purchasing something, so trade unions offer a collective basis for that to happen.

Trade unions have enormous potential. That's why the Fraser Government criminalised 
secondary boycotts (black bans) in 1977, to stop unions striking in solidarity with each 
other. And why they introduced casualisation, which came in under Labor in the 1980s I 
might add. Federal and state politicians promised trade unions that it would only be used 
for relief staff in the public sector. Now we have 44 percent of young people on casual 
contracts. Jobs with no rights, and union density at an all-time low. And look at the 
world! Capitalism has a more unequal concentration of wealth than you had under feudalism. 
Eight thousand individuals own around ninety percent of the world's wealth. That's a 
greater intensity than under the kings, queens and aristocrats of feudal Europe. And 
what's more, combine that with the military-industrial complex and you have the basis for 
the growth of a real fascism. If we want to get out of this mess, we've got to start 
relying on each other, trusting each other, and putting the forms in place that allow us 
to do that economically, and trade unions are important to that.

There is a tendency on the far left to view cooperatives as a limited strategy in that 
they are forced to operate within capitalism, they are subject to market forces and so on. 
One example is the Mondragon cooperative, which grew to multi-national proportions and 
employs wage labour. Is there any merit to those criticisms?

Sure. There's truth in that critique. Look at the impact of the Global Financial Crisis. 
Mondragon was hit really hard and pretty much went under. But look at what happened: 
workers continued to be paid at the same rate for two years. They were retrained. And yes, 
one result is that large numbers of people are now employed by Mondragon, not as 
worker-owners. Cooperatives exist now in so many forms, and not all of them offer 
prospects for the future. Here in Australia you have large agribusiness cooperatives where 
workers are not allowed to be members. That's just calling something a cooperative when it 
is behaving like a corporation

But sure, the critiques are real. The point is this: no one is saying that the development 
of workers' cooperatives will eradicate the problems that exist under capitalism. It is 
simply saying that we will finally own those problems, and therefore be able to do 
something about them. The growth of workers' cooperatives is a process, not a final act. 
But the real work starts with the cooperative

Everyone agrees we need to change the world, whether you vote Tory or Liberal or you don't 
vote, whatever. Are politicians capable of making these changes? No, look at the world! 
Look how far they've got us. The world does not revolve around parliaments, it revolves 
around economies, how we meet our needs. We need to get in there.

The Earthworker Cooperative requires skills and support. To become involved, visit 
earthworkercooperative.com.au for more information.


http://www.anarchistaffinity.org/2014/11/dave-kerin-on-workers-cooperatives-and-the-climate-emergency/

Australia, Anarchist Affinity - The Platform #3 - Slaving in the kitchens: hospitality in Australia by Tom

"When one comes to think of it, it is strange that thousands of people in a great modem 
city should spend their waking hours swabbing dishes in hot dens underground" - George 
Orwell, Down and Out In Paris and London. ---- The cook is one of the oldest professions. 
The process of collecting, preparing, cooking and finally sharing food is inherent to the 
human condition. It is a ritual of union, based on a need, made into a defining 
pleasantry. But under capitalism this social relationship, like any other, is commodified 
and turned into something almost unrecognisable. The process of bringing satisfaction and 
joy to the diner involves sucking the joy out of the score of people involved in bringing 
food to their plate. In modern capitalism the kitchen and 'front of house' are highly 
exploited and put under a system of intense pressure requiring production to happen faster 
and faster. In an industry where it's commonly said '50% of businesses fail' those who own 
these failing (and succeeding) businesses try to pass the losses on to those of us who work.

Hospitality as a working career tends to mean one of two things to modern Australians, 
either it's what we really want to do, or something we get stuck doing while trying to 
move on to other industries. As such, the industry is full of transient workers: people 
studying, travelling, or just filling in time while looking for more meaningful work. This 
is often quoted as an argument against attempts to organise workers in hospitality. 
However, for another good portion of us, this is our career, and for many a chef, it's a 
passion too. We have the lowest award rate for a trade qualification, and the industry is 
rife with people who are paid under the award rate, in exploitative conditions. It's not 
uncommon for workers to do 16+ hour days, sometimes without breaks, or hours per week well 
in excess of double the normal working week. Conditions that make for potential rebellion 
and an opening awaiting organisation.

In my experience of hospitality work, workers 'resistance' to this extremely exploitative 
and intense situation is based on informal methods of direct action. The industry has no 
culture of unionism, and often relies on people in difficult circumstances who may have 
little experience in traversing the difficulties of legal avenues and negotiated 
bargaining to achieve better conditions.

So, for example, in one café a worker was electrically shocked, and when we informed the 
boss he said that she should keep working. We closed the kitchen, threw out the faulty 
equipment and collectively told the boss we wouldn't work that section until the problem 
was fixed. In another example, a waitress who had to work long hours for little pay, 
servicing a large dining room night in night out, developed the idea that she could 'book' 
in huge tables for the night's service, bookings that didn't actually exist. The table 
would sit empty and we could all work an easier night because of it.

The industry also has a romanticisation of hard work which is difficult to overcome. When 
people complain about the long hours, working all weekend, no breaks, hot and dangerous 
conditions, or a lack of appropriate equipment, it often gets written off with a 'harden 
up' attitude. Everyone knows deep down that it's an impossible situation, but people find 
it hard to admit it to one another. If we all admitted how horrible the industry is, we'd 
probably have a breakdown. Though that often happens. I've seen four head chefs and two 
floor managers have break downs through the 6-7 kitchens I've worked in. From locking 
themselves in the coolroom to literally collapsing and vomiting blood from over-work, 
stress, and the mandatory drug habits that come with achieving impossible levels of output.

The bourgeois press often decries workers in hospitality struggling for better conditions 
and pay. Cries of 'you it will bankrupt us' abound. If a business cannot even afford to 
pay a living wage, it should not exist. It is not socially useful. It is not even 
worthwhile in the capitalist-liberal sense. But this is the logic of capitalism.

Melbourne being the 'food capital of Australia,' we are particularly attuned to the 
fancies of the market and trends amongst foodies around the world. A current headline is 
the excitement over Heston Blumenthals 'Fat Duck' moving to Melbourne. And do you know why 
he chose Melbourne over, say, New York?

"We wanted to open there. I've got some good chef mates in the business in New York and 
they all said the same thing: 'If you can't be union-free, don't touch it'"- Heston Blumenthal

That is, in Australia you have a thriving market, and low labour conditions. Even worse 
than New York apparently, though America has a world reputation for horrible hospitality 
conditions.

But things can change. A number of years ago a small group of activists attempted to 
import the concepts behind the New Zealand "UNITE" union to Australia, with some small 
successes. While being nominally a 'fast food and services' union, they organised a 
variety of hospitality workplaces. From Bakers Delight to the Carlton Club, 7-11's and a 
succesful campaign organising Brunswick Street. The responses from workers shows that 
potential for organisation exists. UNITE was extremely small, and not well financed. It 
relied heavily on the activity of a few core activists. As such I would say UNITE's 
weaknesses are obvious. United Voice (formerly the LHMU) is technically the union for 
hospitality workers. The LHMU had two 'sections'; the 'Miscellanious' (Cleaners, Security 
Guards, Ambos etc) and the 'Pissos' (basically restaurant/cafe workers.) The Misco section 
is well organised, and runs consistent campaigns involving workplaces all over Australia. 
As for the 'Pissos', besides the Casino, I do not know of any workplaces in hospitality 
they have organised. However, I think this is because of material conditions. Few workers 
I've ever met in hospitality were ideologically left or unionists. It makes for a hard 
starting ground in Australia's union/political structure for a union to simply walk in and 
start organising workers. UV's lobbying actions to 'defend our penalty rates' etc will go 
nowhere without on the ground organisation and direct action.

United Voice, like most of the union movement is fighting back against the Abbott 
government's workplace relations laws. Specifically in regard to hospitality, this means 
an attack on weekend rates. If one reads the bosses 'Restaurants and Catering' reports, 
every year they recommend a slashing of weekend rates, penalties and awards:

"The system further disadvantages the services sector (and in particular restaurant and 
catering businesses) by enshrining penalty rates based on industry-wide traditions. 
Penalties for working on Saturday and Sunday (and after 7pm) when restaurants and catering 
businesses do most of their trade makes no sense. Employees want to work these hours and 
businesses need to have them work, yet the business in penalised."

Removing penalty rates would put incredible stress on suffering workers should it succeed. 
Many people around Australia rely on those 'weekend rates' to help them get by. They 
sacrifice parts of their weekend for an elevated rate on sunday. Often these Sunday shifts 
mean the difference between paying rent or not, especially for those who work part-time 
and have other commitments etc. Think of single mothers and the under-employed, etc. 
Should the Liberals succeed in slashing penalties, a lot of us will be fucked. And we will 
be giving up a part of our life (weekends and nights), missing out on important social 
life, for no reward. These attacks are coupled with an increased tendency towards 
casualisation and part-time work. Couched in terms of 'flexibility', much like other 
industries, hospitality thrives on discplining the working class and giving them few rights.

We know that methods of organising exist, and opportunities will present themselves. As 
for what action we should undertake, that is to be debated. I think it's possible to begin 
to build unions amongst hospitality workers, however transient or resistant they may be, 
and use the resources available through United Voice to assist self-activity and negotiate 
better contracts to back up the sporadic direct actions that break out. I believe workers 
- not in the 'glamourous' restaurants, but rather your day-to-day cafes, pubs, bars and 
restaurants frequented by the working class - are where the beginnings of self-activity 
will occur. Workers here have less of the 'I will make it as a celebrity/top chef' 
attitude. They are disgruntled line cooks, wait staff, dishwashers and baristas who've 
been trapped by the lack of opportunities in neoliberal Australia.

Further Reading: Revolting Kitchens - The Red Chef's perspective on the food industry

Tom is a hospitality worker and member of Anarchist Affinity. First published in the 
Spring 2014 edition of The Platform.

by Tom

http://www.anarchistaffinity.org/2014/11/slaving-in-the-kitchens-hospitality-in-australia/

Australia, Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group: anvil-v4-no-2 - The struggle for the environment

Through libertarian communism we can reach a point of balance between the capacities to 
produce, the needs of populations, and the limits of the biosphere. We cannot build our 
future in opposition to the rest of life. The ideology of domination must be broken 
everywhere, so that humanity can find a safe future on its planet. ---- We anarchist 
communists know that capitalism is a socio-economic system over-producing products for a 
wealthy minority. Capitalism breeds destructive competition between private owners of 
production. An exploited workforce makes goods for private companies which are sold in 
pursuit of profit and perpetual growth. ---- The driving force of capitalism is profit. 
Companies produce goods to make profit, not to meet the needs of people. Under capitalism, 
profit comes before efficiency and sustainability. The State and government, on behalf of 
capitalists, is also responsible for today’s extensive environmental destruction. 
Governments do not protect the environment if doing so will reduce company profits.

Various environmental movements, groups and coalitions are making important contributions 
to awareness about environmental issues. However, their initiatives often fail to involve 
the working class movement and its allies. They do not question the State, government or 
companies that exploit social inequality in the pursuit of profit and wreak ecological 
devastation without fear of consequences.

Anarchist communists link their struggles for the environment to the working class 
movement and the fight for social, political and economic freedom. Ecological destruction 
injures us all, especially the working poor. Only the working class can lead a revolution 
against social and economic domination and build a sustainable world. Anarchist communists 
envisage workers’ revolutions in trade, in consumption, and in production.

1. A revolution in trade

Global warming is caused by human activities that emit greenhouse gases. The 
transportation sector is one of the largest sources of emissions. Today, the 
de-localisation of production means that manufacture and distribution require travel of 
tens of thousands of kilometres for each product and its components. Transportation plays 
a key part in capitalist globalisation, and the class struggles going on in this sector 
are very important. There will be no massive reduction of greenhouse gases until the wage 
differentials that force different parts of the production chain into different countries 
are abolished, the international division of labour is greatly reduced, production is 
largely relocalised, and the various regions of the world have economic independence.

2. A revolution in consumption

Capitalism has an inherent death-logic. The concept of degrowth, advanced by some radical 
environmentalists, cannot work without a break from capitalism. Healing the ecology of the 
earth requires a revolution in patterns of consumption so that:
• Production is organised to satisfy need
• Transportation (public transport, road, rail, air) is clean and efficient; and
• Packaging is minimised and advertising abolished.
We need to reconsider what is necessary and what is superfluous in the economic system. 
There must be a drastic reduction in the consumption of material resources and an 
enrichment of social and cultural life covering social relations, culture, art, and science.

3. A revolution in production

Anarchist communists demand economic development that takes both sustainability and human 
needs into account. The problem we face is not “excessive consumption”, since most people, 
especially the popular classes in developing countries, are short of housing, decent 
health, jobs, transport, education, and more. Wasteful production by and for the world’s 
ruling minority is what endangers us all. Capitalists, corporations and the State 
systematically under-invest in useful, necessary and ecologically sustainable technology 
in favour of “high pollution-high profit” technology, weapons of war and the machinery of 
social coercion.

The need both to reduce resource use and increase production to eliminate poverty can be 
satisfied in a libertarian communist society. Goods will be high quality and durable, not 
shoddy and breaking down quickly; manufacturing will use closed loop processes, with 100% 
recycling and zero waste; and modern technology (e.g. 3D printers) will be used for 
efficient short run production of many goods, eliminating long distance transport in the 
process.

Conclusion

The so-called “population crisis” is an illusion caused by the inefficient, unjust and 
unsustainable practices of capitalism. While there is a natural limit to the carrying 
capacity of the planet, this limit is impossible to determine until after capitalism has 
been abolished and its destructive practices eliminated. If population reduction is called 
for after the planet's carrying capacity is established, it can be achieved gradually 
through social consensus.

Through libertarian communism we can reach a point of balance between the capacities to 
produce, the needs of populations, and the limits of the biosphere. We cannot build our 
future in opposition to the rest of life. The ideology of domination must be broken 
everywhere, so that humanity can find a safe future on its planet.

*Article from “The Anvil” – Newsletter of the Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group Vol4, No 
2, March-April 2015.

**If you want to downlod the current issue go to 
http://melbacg.wordpress.com/2013/03/anvil-v4-no-2.pdf
Related Link: http://melbacg.wordpress.com

(en) Australia,United Anarchist Federation Victoria: Why We Must Unite

A leadership is questioned, a party shaken, but the system remains the same. ---- What 
must we do to wake people up? How many political cycles must we endure before we finally 
take action? For many of us we?ve been fighting this fight all our lives. For just as many 
we are only just entering the fray. The one common experience that we all share are those 
moments, usually alone, sometimes in the back of a police cruiser, when we question our 
ability to accomplish change. What can one individual do against the might of the state? 
What can five? What can ten? Can one hundred even make a difference? I know that feeling 
too well, and I have spent too many hours dwelling on it. The answers to these questions 
aren?t pretty, which is probably why they aren?t acknowledged. One person can?t make a 
difference. Neither can ten, or for that matter even one hundred. These are the answers we 
never want to hear, but here they are. But I say this: to me they offer hope. To me they 
have shone a light on a path that for so long we ignored. It is time we came together, as 
anarchists and as human beings. There is no other way to overcome the obstacles we face. 
We?ve worked in smaller groups for decades, we know our systems work. This is the next 
stage of our journey. WE MUST COME TOGETHER. It is a hard thing to say, and I know that I 
will be criticized for saying it, but unless we come together now, with unstoppable 
climate change and peak oil looming ahead of us, we will never get another chance.

So here is my proposal:

On behalf of the AFN I would like to extend the invitation of collaboration, solidarity 
and unity. In this we do not mean the usual ?solidarity? cliche as so many of us Western 
anarchists like to cling to (don?t take this the wrong way, it is an extremely positive 
ideal, the term is just overused), we mean complete and total solidarity. We mean that at 
every demonstration, every picket, every sit in and every street battle we are one, 
brothers and sisters. We mean support for each other no matter what. Saying that, any 
group that wishes to be a part of such a federation would ABSOLUTELY, UNQUESTIONABLY 
maintain it?s autonomy and individuality. We do not AT ALL want to give the impression 
that we want to be at the head of such a federation (there would be none), as that would 
be completely counter to everything we stand for as anarchists. In such a federation every 
person would be unquestionably and undeniably equal with every other person within the 
federation.

The AFN is only small, with an even smaller amount of active ?identifying? members, but if 
you want us with you we will be with you no matter what. But we expect the same in return.

Our goal is to establish a United Anarchist Federation. We will be sending this invitation 
of solidarity to every group we know of and can find prior to the anti-Reclaim Australia 
rally in the hopes of establishing a strong and united front against the fascist pigs that 
seek to subjugate those most vulnerable in the community. We hope to be able to extend 
such a relationship and eventually begin working towards our collective goal:

FREEDOM.

If you are reading this, please consider this offer fully.

Thankyou

J (on behalf of the AFN)

(en) Australia, Melbourne, The Anvil #4/1 - THE NEED FOR A RANK AND FILE MOVEMENT*

The Campaign for a General Strike to Stop Tony Abbott 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 
crimes, 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 neo-liberal 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' newsletter of Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group (MACG), issue 4/1, 
Feb. 2015.

*You can download the current and back issues of The Anvil here 
http://melbacg.wordpress.com/the-anvil

Related Link: http://melbacg.wordpress.com


* From 'The Anvil' newsletter of Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group (MACG), issue 4/1, 
Feb. 2015.

http://www.anarkismo.net/article/27850

(en) Australia, Melbourne, The Anvil #4/1 - Strike to stop aboriginal deaths in custody*

The movement against Aboriginal deaths in custody is growing. It is growing because the 
deaths just keep happening, and that?s criminal. We're not just talking about deaths from 
natural causes. Many of these deaths are far from natural. ---- Racism, Impunity and 
Genocide ---- We're talking about: ---- (a) Eddie Murray. The coppers said he ?committed 
suicide? in 1981 by hanging himself ? when he was so drunk he couldn't even stand 
properly. ---- (b) T.J. Hickey. In 2004, he was on his push-bike and chased by a cop car 
when he impaled himself on a fence. The coppers turned away a police rescue van. TJ died 
in hospital that night. ---- (c) Mulrunji Doomadgee. Also in 2004, Mulrinji was killed by 
a copper who ?accidentally? fell on him in a Palm Island watch house and cleaved his liver 
in two. ---- (d) Mr Ward. He was cooked alive in the back of a prison van in 2008, while 
being transported across the West Australian desert in a heat wave.

(e) Ms Dhu. She died in police custody last year, with serious and unexplained injuries 
after twice being denied admission to hospital.

And these cases are only the tip of the iceberg. There's pattern here and the pattern is 
racism, the pattern is police impunity and the pattern is genocide. No copper and no 
police officer in Australia has ever been convicted for causing the death of an indigenous 
person in custody. The 1987-91 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody 
investigated 99 deaths and concluded that not one was due to police violence.

How Can Deaths in Custody End?

The movement against deaths in custody is growing, but so far it is nowhere near strong 
enough. Australia's original sin, the Aboriginal Genocide and the theft of Aboriginal 
land, means that anti-Aboriginal racism is an integral part of the Australian State. Even 
if an enlightened reforming government were elected, Aboriginal people would still be 
arrested in numbers vastly disproportional to the non-Aboriginal population and Aborigines 
would still die unnatural deaths in custody. The problem is too deep-rooted for mere 
parliamentary change to be effective.

Aboriginal deaths in custody will only stop when the capitalist class as a whole, 
regardless of the governing party, becomes serious about stopping them. And that will only 
happen if the working class as a whole mobilises to demand that the deaths cease. The 
clearest and most emphatic way for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal workers to mobilise 
is through strike action.

A 24-hour protest strike on the day of the funeral (or other appropriate date) by all 
workers in that State, or possibly across Australia, called with the agreement of the 
victim's family, would speak to the bosses in the only language they understand. If we cut 
off the flow of profits whenever an Aboriginal person died an unnatural death in custody, 
the capitalists would soon get the message and find some way to pull their thugs into 
line. They'd be falling over themselves to implement the recommendations of the Royal 
Commission. Those recommendations were part of a deal which denied justice for past 
deaths, in return for hope that future ones might be avoided.

Why Would Workers Strike for Aboriginal Rights?

An injury to one is an injury to all. It might not be easy to get workers in Australia to 
strike against deaths in custody, but it would be in their interests. The working class 
can only defend itself by defending the interests of each and every worker. Any oppression 
hurts the working class by sowing divisions which bind some part of the working class to 
their exploiters through illusions or reactionary ideology. Divisions hurt workers' 
ability to fight back as a united force.

By campaigning throughout the working class, we can raise awareness of Aboriginal deaths 
in custody and show why workers must stop them. And when we campaign for workers to answer 
each unnatural death in custody with a protest strike, workers will find one more reason 
to re-build our unions and seize control from the Laborite officials. Our unions would 
become more effective weapons in the class struggle.

* From 'The Anvil' newsletter of Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group (MACG), issue 4/1, 
Feb. 2015.

http://www.anarkismo.net/article/27850

(en) Australia, Melbourne, Anarchist Affinity shared their event on Thursday 22nd

Our next event is on this coming Thursday! ---- "Australia has a long history of 
colonialism, racism, and genocide. It's a history that is whitewashed and denied in favour 
of the narrative we're presented with each year on 'Australia Day', or what should be more 
accurately titled Invasion Day. ---- Join Anarchist Affinity on Thursday 22nd at the 
Victorian Trades Hall (Meeting Room 1) to hear from three speakers on the real history 
behind Invasion Day and what it means today. ---- Speakers: ---- Vivian Malo - Vivian Malo 
is a Gooniyandi woman and co-founder of First Nations Liberation, a resistance movement 
and Black Power revival. ---- Meriki Onus - Activist member of WAR (Warriors of the 
Aboriginal Resistance) ---- Tony Birch - Indigenous academic, novelist and historian" ---- 
https://www.facebook.com/events/360791167426967/?fref=ts

Join

Invasion Day: Australia's Colonial Past and Present 
https://www.facebook.com/events/360791167426967/?ref=3&ref_newsfeed_story_type=regular
Thursday, January 22 at 6:30pm in UTC+11
Trades Hall in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

(en) Australia, Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group The Anvil Vol 3 #1 - Defeat the Liberlas with a General Strike

The Liberal Government brought down a budget in May that outraged workers across 
Australia. It is a massive attack on the working class across the board, with cuts to 
pensions, Medicare, higher education, State funding for health and education, unemployment 
benefits and much more. There is hardly a sector of the working class that won?t be 
dramatically affected. ---- The Liberal Government brought down a budget in May that 
outraged workers across Australia. It is a massive attack on the working class across the 
board, with cuts to pensions, Medicare, higher education, State funding for health and 
education, unemployment benefits and much more. There is hardly a sector of the working 
class that won?t be dramatically affected.

Touch One, Touch All

We can?t base our strategy on negotiations in the Senate. That would leave us at the mercy 
of capitalist politicians. Anybody who thinks we can rely on the Palmer United Party, the 
Motoring Enthusiasts Party, the Liberal Democratic Party, Family First and co needs their 
head read. These people, where they?re not loose cannons, are hardened reactionaries.

Leaving the Budget to negotiations in the Senate also breaks the Budget up into single 
issues that may be wangled through piecemeal with dirty deals. We might be divided on this 
cut or that, on the basis of ?Thank goodness it?s not touching me?. We must oppose the 
Budget root and branch, because an injury to one is an injury to all. Anyway, much of the 
Budget (like the cutting of funding to the States) doesn?t need a specific Act of 
Parliament, having been included in a supply bill which has already passed. To win, we 
must defeat the Liberals.

A General Strike

The Liberals have nailed their colours to the mast and their credibility would be 
destroyed by backing down, so only the strongest possible working class mobilisation could 
defeat them ? and a general strike is the strongest mobilisation we can perform. Three 
other considerations show that a general strike the best strategy. Thirty years ago, a 
single militant union could go out on its own and win disputes, but at the moment nobody 
wants to stick their head up. It is necessary to go all out at once to avoid martyring a 
single militant union. Secondly, a general strike would bust the anti-union laws up for 
good. They can?t prosecute millions of workers, so they?ll be forced to let us go. And 
thirdly, a general strike would give millions of currently non-organised workers a strong 
reason to join their union.

Rank & File Movement

Many might ask, ?If a general strike is such a great idea, then, why aren?t the ACTU 
organising one?? We all know the answer to that ? the ACTU Executive is so committed to 
the ALP that it couldn?t possibly initiate action that would go against the ALP 
leadership?s wishes. The official representatives of 1.7 million workers are reduced to 
begging for crumbs.

What is required is a rank and file movement in the unions that can take them back from 
the craven collaborators who dominate them. We need to re-build the rank and file networks 
that were mostly wound up in the 1980s as the so-called ?Communist? Party of Australia 
surrendered to neo-liberalism and became key supporters of the Accord between the ACTU and 
the Labor Government. The rank and file movement would operate on the basis first 
enunciated by the Clyde Workers Committee in 1915. Its motto would be ?We will support the 
officials just so long as they rightly represent the workers, but we will act 
independently immediately they misrepresent them?. In this movement, all political 
currents within the working class would advance their views and have them judged on their 
merits in the course of open debate and the benefit of experience.

Campaign for a General Strike to Stop Tony Abbott

In order to create this rank and file movement, the Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group 
has taken the initiative to start up the Campaign for a General Strike to Stop Tony 
Abbott. Because only the ACTU can call a general strike at the moment (if anyone else did, 
the strike wouldn?t happen), it takes the form of a petition to the ACTU Executive. In the 
course of building support for the petition, a rank and file movement will come into 
existence and it is that movement which can compel the ACTU to organise the strike ? or 
can organise the strike itself if the ACTU refuses. And the rank and file movement will 
itself change the politics of the unions by challenging the union bureaucracy, who are 
wedded to capitalism, Parliament and neo-liberalism. The MACG would argue for the 
perspective of taking the unions out from under the officials and restructuring them along 
libertarian lines, with federal structures and autonomy for local initiative.

The Campaign is structured as a united front, where all currents within the working class 
can speak freely, advancing their views and having them tested on their merits. In 
addition, the demands have deliberately been couched in relatively vague terms, describing 
what we are against, because positive objectives and essential questions like the length 
of the strike will have to be determined in the course of the campaign. To set them out in 
advance would be either to limit the appeal of the campaign, to foreclose radical 
opportunities, or both.

The Campaign for a General Strike to Stop Tony Abbott meets fortnightly in Melbourne and 
can be contacted by E-mail at generalstriketostopabbott [at] gmail.com or via Facebook: 
Campaign for a General Strike to Stop Tony Abbott.

You don?t have to be an Anarchist to join. In fact, the campaign wouldn?t work if it was 
restricted to Anarchists. All you need is to agree that Tony Abbott needs to be stopped 
and we should have a general strike to stop him. So let?s get cracking.

*This article was published in The Anvil Vol 3 No 1: http://melbacg.wordpress.com/the-anvil/

Related Link: http://melbacg.wordpress.com

Copied from: http://www.anarkismo.net/article/27692

(en) Australia, MACG - No to Golden Dawn in Australia !

During the last 3 years in Greece, savage austerity imposed by the Troika (International 
Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and European Commission) has crippled the country?s 
economy. The austerity has led to a depression that is as bad, if not worse, as the Great 
Depression was in the United States. Enjoying the atmosphere of anguish and despair 
associated with economic depression, Golden Dawn has flourished, espousing an ideology of 
hate. It is in effect a Fascist party that promotes anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant and 
misogynist chauvinism and has grown to become the third most popular political party in 
the country. ---- It is this threat which led the Greek government to arrest the party?s 
leadership and dozens of its followers after a Golden Dawn member fatally stabbed 
anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas in September last year.

Some Golden Dawn members (including senior leaders) have also been charged by police with 
bashing defenceless individuals, whom Golden Dawn deemed to be enemies, for causing 
explosions and for blackmail. A police investigation that has been launched into the 
party, but has failed to produce clear results. Beyond their racist, bigoted ideology, 
Golden Dawn draws inspiration from the violent methods of the Nazi German regime of the 
last century. Its members and supporters routinely whip themselves into a frenzy of hate 
with torchlight rallies, demagogic rhetoric and stiff arm salutes.

Golden Dawn is promoting division between ethnic and religious communities in Greece. It 
also promotes hateful attitudes towards women and espouses the marginalisation and 
suppression of people who it deems to have an ?unnatural? sexuality. Tellingly, it denies 
the Jewish Holocaust during World War II.

It is no accident that Golden Dawn has arisen in Greece at the present time. Fascism is 
capitalism?s last line of defence, the refuge it seeks when all else fails and it needs to 
crush the working class. As workers in Greece mobilised against the Troika?s brutal 
austerity assault and the political establishment imploded, sections of Greek capitalists 
turned to Fascism in order to protect their wealth and privilege. If capitalist democracy 
cannot save Greek capitalism, Golden Dawn is in the background to impose capitalist 
dictatorship.

Golden Dawn was planning a visit to Australia in late November by Eleftherios Synadinos 
and Georgios Epitideios. They are former army generals and are Members of the European 
Parliament (MEPs) representing Golden Dawn.

This planned visit was cancelled after organising against it started to get up a head of 
steam and the Fascist MEPs? visas were delayed. An antifascist group in Melbourne, centred 
on workers of Greek background, reached out to unions and to community groups and received 
a significant response.

In May this year, black-shirted Golden Dawn followers in Australia tried to hold a rally 
outside the Greek Club in Brisbane, supported by Fascists of the Australia First Party. 
They were successfully confronted by members of the Greek community, unionists and other 
antifascist protesters. They have also twice held similar rallies outside of the Greek 
Consulate General in Sydney. In Melbourne they have not organised similar rallies but they 
have been active through a front charity called ?Voithame Tin Ellada? (?We Help Greece?).

The cancellation of the Golden Dawn visit is a victory, but we must not be complacent. In 
the event of Golden Dawn making another attempt to visit Australia, community groups, Left 
organisations and, most especially, the unions, must take the initiative to act in a 
united front against the Fascist scum. They must be stopped in their tracks by a massive 
mobilisation of the working class.

FASCISM ? NO PASARAN!

This article was published in The Anvil Vol 3 No 1: http://melbacg.wordpress.com/the-anvil/
Related Link: http://melbacg.wordpress.com/the-anvil

http://www.anarkismo.net/article/27686

(en) Australia, Media, Brisbane G20 security in full swing

Queensland Police Commissioner Ian Stewart has told that police are aware of a number of 
anarchist organisations active on social media. ---- The head of the International 
Monetary Fund will lead the stream of world leaders arriving in Brisbane on Thursday for 
the G20 summit. ---- The IMF's managing director Christine Lagarde is due to arrive on 
Thursday morning, with leaders and delegations from Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Brazil and 
2015 G20 host Turkey to follow. ---- And the security operation aimed at keeping world 
leaders safe is in full swing. ---- Barricades have been erected at city hotels where the 
leaders will be staying, some roads have been closed, and there's a ring of security 
around the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre where the summit is being staged. 
---- Three US presidential helicopters have been spotted flying over the city, in 
preparations for the arrival of US President Barack Obama, expected early on Saturday.

He's expected to make his way to the University of Queensland's St Lucia campus, where a 
special security zone will be in force for his speech to students there later that day.

Meanwhile, police have said they are not aware of a group of activists on social media 
calling on lone wolves to infiltrate G20 protest groups to 'fight and destroy governments'.

Queensland Police Commissioner Ian Stewart has told The Courier-Mail that police are aware 
of a number of anarchist organisations active on social media.

Police have previously warned there's a real risk of 'violent and destructive elements' 
trying to infiltrate the many peaceful protests planned on the sidelines of the G20.

Most protest activity is expected on Saturday, when the summit officially starts.

But before then, union and corporate bosses are meeting at the Labour 20 and Business 20 
partner summits.

The L20 and B20 have both welcomed the objective of the G20 under Australia's presidency 
to boost global growth by two per cent by 2018.

But they also say this collective growth target needs to be 'strong, sustainable and 
inclusive'.

More than 6000 police and 900 soldiers have been deployed around Brisbane before the 
summit, which is costing $500 million to host.

(en) Australia, Media, Flood of left-wing anarchist street posters make waves in Sydney?s inner city

Have these posters gone too far? ---- A war of words is being played out on inner west 
walls as tensions between far left and far right activists heat up. ---- A flood of 
posters preaching anti-fascist and anarchist messages have been plastered around 
Marrickville, Enmore and Newtown, including provocative ones urging readers to kill 
capitalists and fascists. ---- BOOKSTORE TARGETED IN RACIST ATTACK ---- Only a few months 
ago racist posters, authored by The Australia First Party, were stuck on the front of a 
left-wing bookshop in Ultimo demanding overseas students go home. Anti-foreign student 
literature was also distributed to households in Newtown and Erskineville. ---- Tensions 
further increased after The Australia First Party?s Jim Saleam threw his hat into the 
Marrickville Council by-election being held on November 15.

Police responded to racist posters left on the Resistance Bookshop in Ultimo.
A local resident, who asked to remain anonymous, has taken offense to the latest round of 
posters calling on readers to ?kill capitalists? with images of guillotines and a man in a 
suit with a rifle target on his head.

He said the posters discredited the left wing by giving them the image of a ?terrorist? 
organisation and there should be equality when it comes to voicing political opinions.

?Inciting violence against anyone in Australia is a crime,? the local resident said.

?I would have similar reservations about similar messages posted by right wing/nationalist 
activist,? he said.

UTS expert James Goodman says the posters act as counter-balance to a rise in extremist 
right-wing organisations and public fear.

A poster referring to Greek anti-fascist rapper was murdered in 2013 by a member of 
neo-nazi group Golden Dawn in Athens in 2013.

He posted photos of the posters on Reddit asking for an end to the aggressive slogans.

Reddit users have responded to his post with some agreeing with him and others not seeing 
the harm in the posters. ?Violence isn?t always physical, what?s wrong with wanting to 
fight back?? one users wrote.

Marrickville Council said legally it was not possible to stop people distributing 
offensive material and cited the Ban the Burqa mural that went up in Newtown in 2010.

The ?Say no to Burqas? mural had to be protected by security guards overnight. Picture: 
Bill Hearne
?If they were judged to be ?offensive?, then council?s graffiti crew would be instructed 
to remove them,? a council spokeswoman said.

She also said the council had not received any complaints regarding the posters and as to 
whether they are offensive ? I think that?s a matter of personal opinion?.

University of Technology?s Associate Professor James Goodman, who conducts research into 
social change and global politics, said the latest string of posters were acting as a 
counter-balance to a rise in extremist right-wing organisations and public fear.

Not everything is about capitalists though, with this poster among the fray.
These include the Australian Defence League, a far-right wing group waging a vicious 
anti-Muslim campaign on social media, and has been accused of harassing Islamic women in 
public.

?It seems there is a push from the Australia Defence League to capitalise on current fears 
about Islamic State being voiced by western governments... Anti-fascist groups have sought 
to counter this, not surprisingly? Mr Goodman said.


One of the posters in the inner west.

Dr Jim Saleam of the Australia First Party.
Mr Goodman said the left-leaning activist groups have had a good response, ?as most people 
understand the difference between Islam and authoritarianism, and can see how the 
government is exploiting the situation to serve their own agenda?.

He added that the war of words on inner city streets wasn?t new.

?Although I dont really recall governments characterising an insurgency as a ?death cult?, 
something that doesn't shed any light on what is actually going on ie in Iraq/Syria.?

Pics: 
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/inner-west/flood-of-leftwing-anarchist-street-posters-make-waves-in-sydneys-inner-city/story-fngr8h4f-1227115687576?nk=67c5583e3d7e90fef9c4c6df10beb354