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-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted
from the Sept. 19, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
Australia's five-month-old Conservative government has launched a wholesale attack on the working class and indigenous people, unprecedented in scale and ferocity in modern Australian history.
This attack has two aspects. The "Workplace Relations Act" is an attempt to dismantle labor law. This is paired with a budget that cuts $8 billion from social programs over the next two years. (All figures are in Australian dollars.)
The previous Labor Party government had also attacked the workers and oppressed, but on a smaller scale. Evidently the bourgeoisie lost confidence in Labor's ability to mount a wholesale offensive.
So the Conservatives were brought in to carry through the assault.
Passage of the proposed legislation bills would lead to a massive transfer of wealth from workers to bosses. The bourgeoisie has greeted the announced attacks with euphoria. Stock and bond prices are near record heights.
The workers and oppressed, however, have greeted the attacks with outrage. And they are fighting back.
On Aug. 19, police provocations during a mass rally in the capital city of Canberra led to unionists and Aboriginal groups violently seizing the parliament building. The worker-Aboriginal rally where the clash occurred was the biggest ever in the capital.
The next day police attacked Aboriginal groups trying to occupy the old parliament building a short distance away.
According to Australian Bureau of Statistics figures, the first three months of the new government saw 320,000 working days lost to strikes. That's four times more than in the prior three months and almost double the number for the same period last year.
The unions' campaign has tempered the ruling-class euphoria. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry expressed concern about Australia's trading reputation and jobs growth.
The labor-union system in Australia is centered on the Industrial Relations Commission. The IRC codifies the existing balance of power between workers and bosses through a complex series of "Awards." These awards set wages and working conditions for the workers.
Although the bosses already hold the balance of power, they apparently think the time is ripe to shift the balance even further in their favor. Under the Conservatives' bill, the current award system would be superseded by "Australian Workplace Agreements."
What would the "agreements" consist of? Secret individual contracts between each worker and his/her boss.
Such a system is meant to break down the working class's unity and solidarity. At present, about 45 percent of Australian workers are in unions.
The bill would also ban closed shops and workers' right to select the organizations to represent them. It would restrict union official's right to enter work places. And it would impose drastic new penalties on workers for some strikes.
On top of this, the proposed budget cuts target the indigenous population and the most oppressed sectors of the working class.
Social programs for Aboriginal people face cuts of $400 million over the next four years. Officials with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission recently warned that the cuts would cause the unemployment rate among Aboriginal people to rise from 38 percent to more than 42 percent by 1999.
ATSIC board members said they would be forced to slash $39.5 million from economic programs, $69.6 million from social and cultural programs, and $14.5 million off administrative costs because of the budget cuts.
The budget would cut $1.5 billion a year from unemployment benefits. It would also make deep cuts in funding for health care, education, child care, housing and public broadcasting.
The budget also includes a scheme to subsidize bosses to employ younger workers, which would lead to a youth wage of less than two dollars an hour, according to spokespeople for the federal Opposition Labor Party.
While the bourgeois class is counting on these attacks passing through parliament, the bosses can't be certain they will prevail. The workers and oppressed may yet ratchet up the struggle to turn back the assault.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@wwpublish.com. For subscription info send message to: ww-info@wwpublish.com. Web: http://www.workers.org)