Canberra Rally for refugees on 20 July

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July 20 – Save The Date,
6 Years on Manus & Nauru, 6 Years too Long!

“July 19, 2019 will mark 6 years since Kevin Rudd took Australia’s refugee policy to a sickening low by announcing that no person arriving by boat to Australia to seek protection would ever be allowed to settle in Australia.” [Refugee Action Committee]

Join thousands around Australia to rally against this continuing horrific injustice.

Saturday, July 20, 1 pm, corner of Northbourne Avenue & London Circuit, Civic.

Refugee rights are Union business.

June 2019 Guest Speaker, Meredith Burgmann

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Jane introduced our speaker, Dr Meredith Burgmann, an academic, unionist and feminist, who spoke about the Springbok rugby tour of Australia in 1971. The talk focused on the tour in the context of sporting boycotts in Australia and globally.

Meredith gave an acknowledgement of country and paid her respects to elders.

We were happy to have in the audience veterans of the anti-apartheid movement as well as other contemporary actions such as the BLF’s Green Bans.

The South African Nationalist party adopted apartheid in its successful election campaign in 1948. Post-war Australia was an extremely conservative place, and the common line was that white South Africans were some kind of necessary bulwark against communism. In those days the Australian parliament didn’t discuss foreign affairs much. Meredith found only Gough Whitlam and Barry Cohen to be exceptions to this rule.

In the union movement, the seamen and waterside workers traditionally had international connections, of course. During this period they boycotted South African ships and refused to load cargos.

The first anti-apartheid group in Australia was the South Africa Defence and Aid Fund, a lawyers’ group (see John Myrtle’s essay at honesthistory.net.au). Students also demonstrated sporadically against South African apartheid. The rise of the New Left and student activism, during the Vietnam war, led to involvement in other issues including apartheid.

Sydney’s Stop the Tours campaign began in 1969: Denis Freney, Meredith, and Peter MacGregor were all involved. Sekai Holland was another member (a Zimbabwean who later returned to Zimbabwe and opposed the Mugabe government). That year the Springbok rugby team toured the UK, which gave Meredith’s group some lead time for a campaign to replicate in Australia the very successful opposition to the tour which anti-apartheid groups in the UK had organised. The longer plan was to have the 1971 South African cricket tour called off (which they achieved). Continue reading →

Union Aid Abroad Apheda Trivia Night

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Two teams of Vintage Reds took part in the Union Aid Abroad Apheda Trivia Night at the Belconnen Labour Club on 12 June.

The event was fiercely competitive (but you can make financial donations to improve your score… ) and unfortunately our brainy table was easily trounced by other brainier tables.

The event raised money for the Karen community. (These are members of a minority group from Myanmar.) We heard from two very good Karen speakers, including one from Harmony Cleaners, a community cooperative business set up as a pilot program with help from United Voice. Many cleaners have experienced exploitation by employers, but Harmony cleaners are paid at the proper rate, work under proper conditions, and set a fine model for any enterprise. An additional bonus is that the company is not-for-profit so invests any extra funds into the Karen community.

Valiant election volunteers

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Vintage Reds worked tirelessly in the electorate of Gilmore, beating the pavements in Tuross, Moruya and Bateman’s Bay to bring the union movement’s concerns to voters in the federal election.

We campaigned on themes of fairness and equality, and opposing casualisation, penalty rate cuts, wage-theft and stagnant wage growth.

“Honk for penalty rates” was a particular favourite with motorists, one of whom (not personally known to us) drove on to a local coffee shop and brought back two coffees for our volunteers!

The election results were a shock; but congratulations to Fiona Phillips, the new ALP member for Gilmore.

May 2019 Speaker, Greg McConville; & Harry Wall

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Jane welcomed Greg McConville from the United Firefighters’ Union (ACT Branch) to the May meeting.

Greg discussed the current dispute between the union and the ACT Labor Government. The issue concerns overtime payments to firefighters who worked consecutive shifts without an 8-hour break in between as required. ACT Fire and Rescue doesn’t have enough firefighters to fill a safe roster. They need more to cover those who are injured, sick, on leave, or in training.

The UFU is also proposing an updated skills training regime, better and earlier health interventions (globally, only firefighters have won pre-emptive rights in workers’ compensation: any ACT firefighter who is diagnosed with cancer is presumed to have got it through their work); as well as a number of other extra items in the enterprise agreement – many of which would save money, such as lowering workers comp premiums.

Firefighters in the ACT were offered a 10% pay rise, but rejected it, believing that the money should be invested instead in community safety.

Earlier Jane welcomed Harry Wall to the meeting, for an overview of the election result and the Vintage Reds’ volunteer effort in Gilmore. Harry is the ACTU manager of the Change the Rules campaign in Gilmore. He thanked the VRs for their work in the electorate.

The ACTU concentrated on ten seats, but only Gilmore was won, by the ALP. Its candidate, Fiona Phillips, had been door-knocking and working across the electorate for four years. The ALP primary vote dropped there by under 2%; the Mundine (Liberal) primary vote held in some areas such as Berry, but the conservative vote was split by the independent candidate, Grant Schultz, and the Nationals. Harry had looked at the numbers in individual booths across Gilmore and reckons that the Vintage Reds’ work contributed to the win.

April 2019 Guest Speaker, Frances Crimmins

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Our April speaker was Frances Crimmins, CEO of YWCA in Canberra, on “The role of social support“.

Frances is the former Chair of the ACT Ministerial Advisory Committee for Women, and former Board Director of No Sweat Fashion. In 2015, she received an Edna Ryan Award for advancing the status of women in the ACT. She also attended the Commission for the Status of Women in New York in 2017 and 2018.

Frances paid her respects to aboriginal elders and acknowledged that the land we met on always had been, and always would be, aboriginal land, having never been surrendered.

Her talk was on advocacy and how the Y tries to fill service gaps in the community. Last year they launched “advocacy priorities”. Their “Leading the change” campaign has four aims: gender responsive government; equality in the workplace; a life free from violence; and housing security. This year is the 70th anniversity of the YWCA. Their vision: “Girls and women thriving”.

The YWCA feels that the ACT should lead the way nationally in the well-being of women. The ACT’s Office for Women was originally part of Rosemary Follett’s office but now sits in the Community Services Directorate. It is underfunded, and there needs to be a women’s statement reinstated in the ACT budget.

Frances described the structural inequality that leads to older women’s over-representation in homelessness. This has been coming for years. The YWCA now works in housing as a “registered community housing provider”.

Shortly after her presentation to our meeting, Frances wrote a piece on this topic which is available online:

…For YWCA Canberra, addressing older women’s homelessness & housing crisis has been a longstanding policy priority. As a registered community housing provider, YWCA Canberra has been providing affordable housing & supportive tenancy services for women & families in Canberra for 60 years. And we are evolving our services to better meet the needs of this growing cohort. 

Rentwell is the first charitable property management service in the ACT to provide affordable rental accommodation to Canberrans on low incomes.  As a philanthropic model, Rentwell also provides those who own investment properties the opportunity to change someone’s life in a tangible way.  …

Frances Crimmins [photo credit: www.rentwell.com.au]

Sally McManus joins Vintage Reds in Gilmore

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Election day saw Sally McManus, secretary of the ACTU, in the electorate of Gilmore, providing her with a chance to have her photo taken with the Vintage Reds and south coast activist friends.

Quite a lot of our members put long hours in, hoping for a result against the government in the election. We failed; but not in Gilmore.

March 2019 Guest Speaker, Harry Wall

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Jane welcomed Harry Wall to the meeting.

Harry outlined the work of the Change the Rules Campaign and the imperative to vote the Coalition Government out of office in the upcoming Federal elections.

The Gilmore electorate is the focus of the efforts of VR members. This electorate is quite elongated, running from Kiama to Tuross Heads. Overall, the campaign goes back to 2007 when the ALP failed to follow up on the unions’ “Your rights at work” campaign.

The campaign aims to change public opinion on penalty rates; stress job security and the impact of the next generation of workers not being able to retire; and ensure that the campaign will not stop on election day.

The campaign is focusing its efforts in a handful of marginal seats. In New South Wales, these are Gilmore, Robertson and Flynn.

Continue reading →

Students’ Climate Strike in Canberra

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Students wagged school and gathered in Garema Place on Friday 15 March 2019 as part of the Global Climate Strike. They called for 100% renewable energy by 2030.

“We’ll stop acting like adults if you stop acting like children!” they said. Organisers estimated that 3500 people attended the rally, including 2000 school students. Some parents and grandparents, including a sprinkling of Vintage Reds, also came and were vastly impressed by the students’ organisation and mature activism.

UnionsACT secretary, Alex White, says: “Unions in Canberra support the student climate strike and congratulate them for taking action to send the message that climate change is the greatest threat to future generations. Tackling climate change & ensuring a Just Transition* is core union business. There are no jobs on a dead planet.”

* The ALP will establish a Just Transition Authority if elected, to develop regional transition plans & oversee redundancy schemes. Unions, industry & local communities will have direct input.

February 2019 Guest Speaker, Ben Hillman

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We welcomed Ben Hillman for a talk on “The Trouble in China’s West”

Ben works at the Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU, on institutional change. He specialises in Chinese and ethnic policies, China’s efforts to build a national identity out of empire, and how to integrate ethnic communities.

There have been reports in the press on the response by the Chinese Communist Party to Muslims, especially the largest group in China, the Uighurs in Xinjiang, in the country’s north-west. Reports have focused on efforts to forcibly assimilate Uighurs by coercive mechanisms such as internment in camps which hold upwards of a million Uighurs. The government has used the term “re-education” and “vocational training”, to legitimize the camps.

This belongs in the wider historical context of Xi Jinping’s “China Dream” project of 2012. There are two concrete targets for this “great rejuvenation”. One is to become a modern and wealthy society by 2021, the hundredth anniversary of the formation of the CCP. The second is to become a “developed” nation by 2049. Thus, the vision is of a country “restored” to an international status which it lost as a result of Western imperialism. Continue reading →