Author Archives: vintagereds

March 2021 Guest speaker, Dr Anita Chan

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Dr Anita Chan kindly agreed to speak to us on “Hong Kong’s New Trade Union Movement”. Anita is an active member of the Vintage Reds. She is a labour sociologist and a visiting fellow at the ANU.

photo: Bell School, Australian National University

We include here a summary of Anita’s published article by the same title, as provided by the journal International Union Rights, no.4, vol.27, 2020.

FOCUS | TRADE UNION RIGHTS IN ASIA

Hong Kong’s New Trade Union Movement

For a whole year from mid-2019 to mid-2020, Hong Kong was rocked by mass demonstrations and street violence.

At its height, two million out of Hong Kong’s population of seven million marched in a huge demonstration against a proposed extradition bill. The international press heavily covered the mass protests; but what the press has not covered is the birth of a new trade union movement from within this political and social movement.

The protests, and the new unions, were led by a generation born a few years before and after 1997, the year when China gained sovereignty over Hong Kong, a British colony for 150 years. Hong Kong was to be governed by a constitution known as the Basic Law, which guaranteed that for the next fifty years Hong Kong’s neoliberal capitalist system and civil liberties would not be tampered with by China’s authoritarian regime.

It did not turn out this way. In the past two decades China gradually began to intervene in Hong Kong politically, instigating increasing resistance from the Hong Kong populace in the form of mass rallies. This led to the Umbrella Revolution of 2014 in which the central business district was occupied for months by protestors. When it was suppressed, the protesters left behind a huge banner declaring “We’ll Be Back!”

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February 2021 Guest Speaker, John Merritt

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“A Brief History of Labour History”

John is a retired ANU history department academic whose PhD was a history of the Federated Ironworkers Association. He was a foundation member of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History. He has written on the AWU and on the topic of Strikes; and a more recent work is Losing Ground: Grazing in the Snowy Mountains, 1944-1969.

In the 1950s and 1960s, all Australian universities taught labour history. But by the early 1970s, this was no longer true. Why had it been so popular? Why did it then decline?

A few things should be mentioned about the popularity of labour history in these years.

In 1930 W.K. Hancock wrote a short history of Australia, in which he characterised Labor parties as parties of “initiative”, and conservative parties as parties of “resistance”. In the 1940s and 1950s, Labor was seen to be leading the way into the future.

Secondly, Robin Gollan arrived at the ANU’s Research School of Social Sciences [in 1953], an ex-Communist Party member; and later the author of Radical & Working Class Politics (1960). Lots of students wanted to work with him.

And thirdly, Robert Menzies established Commonwealth Scholarships [in 1951], which enabled a lot of people to go to university who might not have been able to otherwise. For people of working-class background, labour history was partly their own family history.

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November 2020 Guest speaker, Marie Coleman

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Our guest speaker was the excellent Marie Coleman, speaking on the “Gender Lens on the Budget“, an annual review conducted by the National Foundation of Australian Women, of which Marie was a foundation member. Among her long, long list of work done and positions held, Marie was:

… the first woman in Australia to head a statutory authority when she chaired the Whitlam Government’s Social Welfare Commission in 1973.

(text and photo from NFAW website)

The NFAW’s Gender Lens documents pick apart the federal government’s 2020 Budget, revealing how different groups in the community have been affected. Older women, for example:

Overall, …the 2020 Budget is a missed opportunity to improve the lives of older women who face the greatest difficulties: single, older renters totally reliant on JobSeeker or pension payments; those who are homeless; a significant proportion of those on the long waiting list for home care packages; and those locked out of employment.

It is also another missed opportunity to begin resetting policy to disrupt the structural accumulation of poverty across the life course that reaches its peak with disastrous consequences for so many women in later life.

[www.ag.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-03/National-plan-to-respond-to-the-abuse-of-older-australians-elder.pdf]

October 2020 Guest speaker, Bill Bush, Families & Friends for Drug Law Reform

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Families and Friends for Drug law Reform began in March 1995 following the death by overdose of 8 young people in Canberra. Following contact with Michael Moore, then Independent Member of the ACT Legislative Assembly, a meeting was called to include families who had been affected. Forty people attended this first meeting which was the beginning of FFDLR. All in attendance believed that the drug laws were more the problem than the solution and called for change. They wanted laws and policies that caused less harm. They wanted addiction to be treated as a health and social issue not a law enforcement one. They believed that the huge profits made by the illegal trade made drugs more available to their kids.

One of the first successes of this group was influencing the non-attendance of police at overdoses unless violence or death were involved. This meant that friends would not be afraid of police involvement and were more likely to call an ambulance if a friend was in trouble. [from FFDLR website]

Bill has been with this organisation for some time, and spoke on the topic of “Why Drug Law Reform?” He outlined the history of the group and the many campaigns they have undertaken to reform our outdated and ineffective drug laws. He provided much data and information about the history of illicit drug taking, and the impact of newer drugs on the mental health of users. He outlined the programs that have been successfully implemented in more progressive countries – ones that Australia could learn from.

Jane thanked Bill for his presentation and presented him with a VR coffee mug in appreciation.

A postscript: A week after Bill’s talk the FFDLR’s 25th annual remembrance ceremony was held at Weston Park, under the flowering black locust tree which is a symbol of hope.

A second postscript: Two years later in October 2022, it was reported that the ACT government had decriminalised possession of small amounts of commonly used illicit drugs, becoming the first jurisdiction to do so in the country.

September 2020 Guest speaker, Bernard Collaery

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We were happy to welcome Bernard Collaery, who spoke on the moral drift of this government, beginning with the Children Overboard scandal; massive Australian foreign policy blunders in the Pacific; and the government’s extraordinary case against him and Witness K over East Timor.

Bernard’s book, Oil Under Troubled Water: Australia’s Timor Sea Intrigue, was published by Melbourne University Publishing earlier in the year. Here is MUP’s blurb:

Charged, with Witness K, for allegedly breaching the Intelligence Services Act, Bernard Collaery provides the whole sordid backstory to Australian politics’ biggest scandal’.

In May 2018 Bernard Collaery, a former Attorney-General of the Australian Capital Territory and long-term legal counsel to the government of East Timor, was charged by the Australian Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions with conspiracy to breach the Intelligence Services Act 2001. He was forbidden from talking about the charges against him, but under parliamentary privilege independent MP Andrew Wilkie revealed what has since been described as ‘Australian politics’ biggest scandal’.

Five years earlier, after ASIO officers raided Collaery’s home and office, Collaery told journalists that ASIS had been bugging the East Timorese government during negotiations over Timor Sea oil. He was about to represent East Timor; as well as calling the evidence of a former senior ASIS agent known publicly only as Witness K, at The Hague in a case against the Australian government.

Oil Under Troubled Water relates the sordid history of Australian government dealings with Eat Timor, and how the actions of both major political parties have enriched Australia and its corporate allies at the expense of its tiny neighbour and wartime ally, one of the poorest nations in the world.

August 2020 Guest Speakers, Kasey Tomkins and Matthew Harrison

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Kasey Tomkins, UnionsACT campaign manager; and Josh Thornton, AMWU, spoke about the UnionsACT 2020 territory elections campaign. The strategy is to “back candidates who back workers” and the campaign is not party-specific. The candidates are being asked to sign a pledge supporting the unions’ six core values. It is not until the candidates return the pledge that UnionsACT will know which candidates they will be supporting. Election campaigning is restricted, with limited resources and social distancing rules in place, though social media and letterboxing continue.

Matthew Harrison, the new Secretary of UnionsACT, introduced himself to the Vintage Reds and spoke about his settling in time and plans for the future. The Territory elections are his first real project in the new job. The plans for the future include:

- a new injured worker network, including mental health, to cover those who don’t fit the system, and those in smaller unions unable to help.

- a gender violence project, especially welcomed by nurses and hospo workers.

- the young workers’ centre. The “summer patrol” in operation in Canberra has already been renamed the “safety patrol”. Many young workers have been very badly affected by the corona pandemic.

July 2020 Guest Speaker, Rachel Burgess: Young Workers Centre

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Rachel Burgess is the Young Workers Organiser at UnionsACT.

There were plans for a big wage-boost campaign based at the ANU, but of course the corona virus led to the university’s closure. The YWC reached out to JobKeeper activists and they have picked up the “No worker left behind” campaign. Videos were made of difficulties many workers were experiencing.

photo: Vintage Reds sausage sizzle for YWC, 2019

Rachel reported that there are two campaigns running, the first with ACT government involvement, a survey of under-25s, closing on 7 August, with 300 completed so far; and the second, Covid-19 health and safety training. The ACT government agreed to be involved with this campaign but have not moved so far. The AUWU has picked up the slack and will keep campaigning.

Rachel also spoke about the YWC’s Summer Patrol, canvassing hospitality workers etc. This turned out to be an even bigger problem than expected. Reports of employers not contributing to superannuation accounts are numerous; young workers had to approach the tax office for resolution, with the inevitable months of delay. This is wage theft.

The Summer Patrol takes a break in Garema Place (photo, UnionsACT)

Women are particularly taken advantage of; also migrants and international students who are less likely to report this kind of thing because of fears of being deported.

The meeting thanked Rachel for her report and indicated that the VR were appalled by how bad working conditions had become for young workers.

Corona news, March 2020

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Covid-19 has brought a lot of things to a grinding halt. The ACT’s first case was notified on 12 March 2020. Since then choirs, gyms, and Bunnings sausage sizzles, as well as public events (Seniors’ Week; International Workers’ Memorial Day, the School Strike for Climate rally), have been cancelled one by one. Vintage Reds shut down after its February meeting.

On 17 March there were 379 known cases in Australia at 7 a.m.; by 4 p.m., it was up to 413. Australians bought up big on toilet paper and baked beans, while in the US they bought more guns. We were urged to plant vegetables, and we did: broad beans, peas, cabbage.

By mid-March the Corona hot-line was sometimes backed up with a 5-hour wait. A friend said, this is our generation’s chance to step up and be heroic. But it’s her daughter who is heroic, a nurse working in a Melbourne hospital.

By the end of March Qantas and Virgin had closed down all international flights in and out of Australia. Qantas stood down 20,000 workers, without pay. (I had to check: its CEO Alan Joyce was on $459,000 a week.) In Melbourne, Myers department store, which during the 1930s Depression put on more workers and ran a food hall to feed them, had laid off 10,000 people.

Our Covid cases in the ACT were up, 22 of them from the Ruby Princess which had contributed a total of 440, 10% of all Australian cases. We had had a death in the ACT by this stage, and 78 cases. The ACTU calculated that a million people had lost their jobs.

February 2020 Guest Speaker: Jack Waterford

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“Andrew Barr and the developers – Developing away the national capital”

We welcomed Jack, former editor of the Canberra Times.

Jack explained what was happening in Canberra. Everyone over 42 is a whinger longing for a long past golden age. Under 42 people are with-it and vibrant, and they want growth and development.

These younger people are the ones Andrew Barr is in touch with via social media. His communion with these people is so wonderful that he doesn’t even need to consult them. He has a spiritual communion. When whingers moan, he ignores them. He says 1) I have a magic communion with youth and I’m right, and 2) none of you is going to vote Liberal anyway.

photo: Jack clarifies a point

So in the last election, Labor was “smug, arrogant and too comfortable”. A group of ratbags in the old “residents’ rally” could have beaten them.

Some background: Australia has a very very high standard of living, partly because we’re less unequal than some places; we have a good climate; public holidays; high wages; good reservoirs of capital; and good education. We rate ourselves especially highly on well-being.

And if we are doing well at the top, Canberra’s population of 400,000 is 20% higher again. Of course there are areas of disadvantage. But it’s possible that we live in the workers’ paradise. So where is the joy? People are unhappy about what’s going on.

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Letters to the Editor, Canberra Times

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Vintage Reds members are a prolific source of informed comment in the letters pages of our local paper. Here is a selection, carefully gleaned online…

Canberra Times, 18 December 2019: Hemlock anybody?
Those criticising Greta Thunberg should note that Socrates said when the debate is lost slander becomes the tool of the losers.
Fred Pilcher, Kaleen

Canberra Times, 9 December 2019:
Scott Morrison says his just announced public sector changes will improve both services to the public and delivery efficiency. But he didn’t ask the public about what we need or the service about how they can improve delivery.

So who advised him? Was it political staffers, or perhaps business lobbyists? Or did a bunch of politicians just get together and make stuff up?

And would now be a good time to start feeling afraid? Or even very afraid?
Pauline Westwood, Dickson

Canberra Times, 27 November 2019: Why Westpac? Why?
Westpac has been accused of breaking anti-money laundering laws 23 million times and will ostensibly be fined for having done so.

That’s like accusing my lawn mower of cutting my grass too short and fining it some of the petrol in its petrol tank. Westpac is a legal entity composed of nothing but pieces of paper; it has no more capacity to break the law than my lawnmower has the capacity to choose the height of its blades.

While Westpac hasn’t broken any laws per se, the people running it who must take responsibility for what has occurred will walk away with little more than a reduction in their multi-million dollar bonuses.

It’s well past time we abolished the legal nonsense that corporations are “natural persons” which can be held responsible and punished for crimes resulting from the actions of executives and employees. Until the people who are actually responsible are held personally liable nothing will change.
Fred Pilcher, Kaleen

Canberra Times, 27 November 2019: Firefighters on welfare
I wonder how many of our wonderful volunteer firefighters are subjected to the cashless welfare card?
Pauline Westwood, Dickson

Canberra Times, 18 November 2019: Humpty Dumpty moment
This is Frydenberg’s journey “Through the Looking-glass”, where, like Alice’s Humpty Dumpty, words can mean anything, even more so in translation(!) in a subjective legal environment.  Time may subliminally foil “Enforceable conditions” imposed on Bellamy’s sale contract “supporting jobs in Australian” (Takeover deal no real threat, CT, 16 November, p.6).
Albert White, Queanbeyan Continue reading →