MUA: Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory The following article was published in "The Guardian", newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday, December 16th, 1998. Contact address: 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills. Sydney. 2010 Australia. Fax: (612) 9281 5795. Email: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Webpage: http://www.peg.apc.org/~guardian Subscription rates on request. ****************************** By Sue Knight The defeat of Reith and Howard's attack on the Maritime Union represented a significant victory for Australian workers in the face of reactionary attempts to dismantle working class organisations and to considerably weaken Australian unionism. The working class is currently facing a critical period in which the ideological struggle is of particular importance. A disciplined response has occurred in the major sectors of Australian industry to the provocations and attacks of the reactionaries on trade unions. The tactic of limited engagements of a defensive nature and the concentration of the united forces of the union movement at these points of engagement is the correct tactic for this period. Some are arguing for a generalised offensive calling on the union movement to launch into a series of assaults or are preaching processes which will create disunity within the working class forces. There is no doubt that the period of the accord and the development of social partnership theories had a weakening influence inside working class organisation including the forces of the left. The left forces are still predominantly weak in a numerical and ideological sense and an understanding of this position still has a way to travel. The danger exists of premature attempts to take workers into action without developing the necessary level of unity amongst all working class forces and developing a formidable united front of the left and social-democratic forces within the union movement. Level of unity It was this level of unity, achieved in a perhaps imperfect form, that helped win the Maritime dispute. There is now a push by a number of Trotskyist forces and some militants within the maritime industry to unseat the leadership of that union. This can only play into the hands of the bosses Šand will disunite workers during a time of struggle. Workers are understandably disconcerted by the position that faces them with loss of jobs and some conditions, but it is easier to inflame the situation than to set about developing a proper united response to the bosses. There is a tendency towards the "heroic death syndrome" among some, rather than undertake the serious task of strengthening communist leadership within the union movement and of uniting that leadership with the progressive social-democratic forces within the union movement. Progress made in this direction could be aborted by the destruction of sections of the union movement through defeats brought on by premature actions. The anti-trade union industrial legislation of Federal and some State governments, enterprise bargaining and individual contracts and other attacks by monopoly capitalism will only be defeated by systematic work to develop and defend the ideological position of unity of the working class directed against these attacks. It is not fostered by sectarian attacks on sections of the leadership of the working class. Another attitude being encouraged by the capitalist media and by left sectarian forces (including Trotskyist organisations) is to separate trade union officials from the union membership. It is anti-unionist to play off membership against leadership irrespective of the proven commitment of the leadership. This sort of activity ultimately leads to deunionisation and the overall weakening of working class organisations. The correct activity for communists is to build working class unity. This may require some compromise on our positions from time to time. It is not a method of communist struggle to reject taking the hard decisions that are sometimes needed to take the movement forward. end ============== Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List As vilified, slandered and attacked by One Nation mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
