Bust the union busters!

The Labor government’s state takeover of the CFMEU, with the support of their ACTU cronies, is one of the biggest attacks against the working class in generations and a craven expression of the ALP/ACTU tops openly batting for the bosses. Many workers have rightly reacted in outrage at this massive betrayal by a so-called “Labor” government, the latest in a string of attacks against the oppressed under Albanese, from backing the genocide in Palestine to turning the screws on the working class at home. With Albanese’s hold on power already tenuous, and substantial sections of the workers movement looking to “bury Labor,” the ALP/ACTU leadership is in the weakest position it has been for decades. For those looking for recourse we say: Bust the union busters! Fight to oust Albanese, Sellout Sally & co. from the ALP/ACTU!

While the Labor tops engage in tough talk and faux nonchalance from the halls of power, there has been deep reverberations within the unions and the Labor Party itself over the attack on the CFMEU. Workers must take advantage of this and hound these open lackeys for the bosses out of the labour movement. The fact is, you cannot defend the CFMEU, let alone the working class as a whole, if you are in league with those who are meting out the bosses’ measures. Chucking Albo & co out is an elementary step forwards in the struggle not just to defeat the administrator but to launch a broader working-class fightback against eroding living conditions.

Instead, the “left” union leaders have been doing anything but. CFMEU national secretary Zach Smith is a prime example. In the lead-up to administration, instead of mobilising the union he led, Smith attempted to play footsy with the very forces in Labor and “Fair Work” pushing through the takeover, while imposing his own takeover of the Victorian branch. After his schemes fell through he was rewarded for his efforts of conciliation, kept on as chief water boy for the new commandant Mark Irving KC and remaining a member of the ALP national executive. Today he continues his attempts to keep a foot in both camps, in his words to “get us out of administration as quickly as possible” not through a class-struggle fight but with due compliance. His left Laborite mates (from the CFMEU “leadership-in-exile” to the union tops of the ETU, MUA, et al.) rather than dismissing Smith as the administrator’s stooge that he is, champion him as one of the leaders of the “resistance” to administration.

In fact, they all share the very same program and strategy: to not confront the ALP/ACTU union-busting swine head-on but to convince them to change tack. Take for instance the Line in the Sand campaign, which promises not to defeat the administration but to “support the CFMEU” during it, trying to “lock in” union EBAs and keep delegates from being sacked. But waging the class-struggle fight necessary for this requires breaking the binds that tie the unions they lead to Albanese, the bosses he bats for and their administration. Instead of breaking from this unity, the campaign has sought to avoid the Labor government’s ire, resorting to a couple of one-day demos with grand declarations to “bury Labor” by “punishing them” through the ballot box. The fact that their “line in the sand” has been continually crossed, with union reps dumped and CFMEU EBAs withering on the vine, has provoked nothing further from these union “leaders.” Purged CFMEU Queensland Secretary Ravbar’s “Your Union Your Choice” mirrors this ducking and weaving, preaching reliance on prolonged legal battles in the bosses’ courts. The chances of any success in the High Court is close to none, with Victorian ETU leader Troy Gray admitting that the case is unlikely to get a full hearing for months by which time Dutton may well be at the helm.

The much touted Trade Unions for Democracy summit is cut from the same cloth, with the added threat of splitting the ACTU. With their working-class base keen to fight the union busters leading the ALP/ACTU, “left” union leaders were pressured into talk of a potential “blue-collar union federation.” But such a move sidesteps the one thing that is required—a confrontation with the ALP/ACTU tops and their rotten government. Even if realised the unions would still be tethered to the Labor tops, either organisationally or through the allegiance and program of their leaders. Key union leaders of this would-be federation, such as water boy Smith and MUA head Paddy Crumlin would remain as central cogs of the ALP machine. The other tops differ only by degree of separation, clinging on to their bureaucrat mates who in turn cling on to Albanese. Even worse is that unions with some of the most advanced workers would be divorced from the broader organised working class—leaving most unionists in the grip of their ACTU-aligned misleaders while weakening the ability of the workers movement to launch a class-wide struggle against the common enemy in Albanese. It is no surprise that with this paltry strategy the Canberra summit in December ended up a nothing burger, dangling promises of more the next time round.

The fortunes of the “lucky country” are more and more dim. With the world order that once promised it stability crumbling beneath its feet, the ruling class is increasingly forced to drive down working-class conditions and living standards just to maintain its deteriorating position. In this context, Albo’s attack on the CFMEU was a necessary move to prevent the working class from fighting to advance its conditions. This attack sent a clear message that there is no middle ground for any sort of balancing act between the interests of bosses and workers. Any union that steps out of line will be targeted for repression and union busting. For the working class to defend itself and fight back, what is required is for it to emerge as an independent political force capable of struggling in its own interests against the Labor government. But that entails the workers movement breaking the chains that shackle it to the union tops’ Labor patrons and putting itself up against the core interests of the ruling class. Such a course demands a program that can take on the bosses’ rule and property, a program willing to fight for power.

For the left Laborite union leadership, that would entail a break with the very program that they have been raised on. Committed to an illusory cross-class “national interest,” their strategy has always come down to trying to elect a Labor government and pressure the ALP tops (and the bosses they serve) to hear them out. When faced with Albanese’s union busting these bureaucrats could do little more than bleat about “procedural fairness” and how “un-Australian” the attack was. For all the hot air, instead of a real fight to bury Labor, left Laborite “action” has amounted to hearkening back to bygone days when Labor’s administering for the ruling class didn’t demand such openly anti-worker measures. The result is the “left” union leaders trying to squirm and wriggle out of the bosses’ crosshairs (lest their union be given the CFMEU treatment) while placating their working-class base who have been looking for a fight. Left Laborism is not just insufficient, but a roadblock to advancing the workers movement.

As for the many workers angry at these union-busting moves, it is a natural first impulse to try to “reject” the ALP and the ACTU. But it is simply material reality that these forces command the allegiance of the entire union leadership, left and right. There is no going around this misleadership, it is not something that can simply be “rejected” like one can reject a cigarette. Building a party that can actually bury Labor, a revolutionary party, requires driving a wedge between the working-class base and the current-day ALP and union tops. It requires not ignoring but exposing, confronting and removing these obstacles to advancing the workers movement.

A rank-and-file revolt in the unions and the ALP to purge these union busters from our ranks would be key to advancing this goal. While such a split would not be our split, and a “cleaned-up” ALP would not be our party, it would be a good thing if the workers movement ridded itself of these rightist elements. Such a fight would separate the wheat from the chaff, those who actually want to bury Labor from those who are all talk. And if these left Laborites were put in charge of the ALP and ACTU it would make it all the easier to put their program to the test and expose them as the central roadblock to the working class fighting the administration and more.

This task is not only possible, but has clear precedent in the history of the Australian labour movement. During WW1 when the rat Billy Hughes and other ALP tops championed conscription on behalf of the bosses, they were driven out! Albanese has made it clear that he believes anyone not completely kowtowing to the bosses has no place in the workers movement. It is only fair to return the favour and give him and his ilk the same treatment. Chuck the bosses’ lackeys out of the ALP/ACTU!