We have just received and are publishing on our site, this leaflet distributed to the Sydney postal workers strike by a group of Sydney Left Communists.
Despite endless talk by politicians, economists and the media about the ‘end of the recession', workers around Australia and the world are feeling otherwise. Faced with declining profits and savage competition over markets, the bosses have one answer: make the working class pay through job-cuts, wage freezes, ‘modernisation' of working conditions (i.e. getting us to work harder for less) and massive cuts to the public services. All the ruling class politicos, both Labour and Liberal, agree on the need for these attacks, as such neither offers us any choice.
For us there can also only be one answer: resist the attacks on our living and working conditions and fight for their improvement. Around the world workers are struggling, from Egypt to Bangladesh and Britain to Greece. In Australia too: Council workers in Geelong; Smelter workers in SA; High school, TAFE Teachers and University Lectures across NSW, Queensland and Tasmania; Seafarers and Wharfies in WA; Airline engineers and baggage handlers in Sydney; Egg-grading workers at Dora Creek and most recently of all, Bus Drivers across NSW are all engaged in the same struggle.
The posties have taken the correct, albeit difficult choice to take on Australia Post and reject its pitiful offer. Thus, the most pressing current issue isn't whether or not to fight, but how to fight. Faced with a united attack by the bosses including the howling condemnation and bashing by the capitalist media machine, what is vitally necessary now is maximum unity. United we stand, divided we fall. As such all postal workers must stand together and join in united strike action: old and young, foreign and Australian-born, full-time and casual. However, it is not enough for Australia Post workers alone to stand together. To ensure victory it is necessary that we spring the trap of isolation. Most immediately this means spreading the struggle, not only uniting all postal workers but also the other sectors of the working class currently engaged in struggle around the country. When the working class stand as one and fight, the bosses will be forced to back down. This is not just some utopian fantasy, this is a concrete and immediate possibility.
In addition to this, it is also necessary that workers directly control of their own struggle. The recent strike by posties working for Royal Mail in Britain which ended earlier this month holds a vital lesson for their class brothers and
sisters in Australia. Here it was not the bosses or the scabs which ultimately defeated the strike, but the posties' union itself, the CWU, which sabotaged the struggle and sold the workers down the creek. This was the same outcome as the strikes by British posties in 2007. This defeat holds vital lessons for posties in Australia, lessons which must be learnt if we want to avoid the same terrible outcome.
Workers must be vigilant of the machinations of the CEPU and not allow it to co-opt or derail the struggle as the unions have done time and time again. Mass meetings of workers need to be the centres of debate, discussion and decision making for the struggle. Only here can workers can express themselves collectively in contrast to the undemocratic and unaccountable decision making by the union bureaucracy or secret balloting from home through workers are left isolated and atomised. Mass meetings and picket lines must also be open to all workers, including the unemployed and those from other sectors who come to show their solidarity and discuss how the struggle can be extended.
Only by drawing together as many workers as possible, from different sectors, into a common struggle, and by maintaining direct control over the struggle, against being co-opted and derailed by the union bureaucracy, can workers assure victory! The future lies in our hands!
- Left Communists of Sydney 21/12/09
Please write to us at: [email protected] [1]
We greatly appreciate comments and feedback and will quickly respond to any questions or criticisms.
Our section in France received this statement from the anarcho-syndicalist CNT-AIT in Toulouse. We entirely agree with these comrades that this is an attempt by the state to intimidate militants and the working class in general. The contrast between the severity of the punishment called for and the complicit silence over war criminals like Karadic and Maladic ever since the war in ex-Yugoslavia in the 1990s and the state's accusations of ‘terrorism' are completely hypocritical. We want to convey our full solidarity to the imprisoned militants and their families, and we encourage our readers to distribute the CNT-AIT's declaration as widely as possible.
ICC 27/10/2009
You will certainly be aware that Serbian anarcho-syndicalist militants, including the current secretary of the AIT (International Workers Association), are being held in prison in Belgrade. The charge against them is ‘terrorism'. At the moment we do not know how far they will take this. The accusation is based on allegations about very minor material damage carried out by an anarchist group against the Greek embassy in Belgrade in solidarity with a Greek comrade who is still in prison. The accused deny these facts but are facing 3 to 15 years in prison. This disproportion between the alleged facts and the potential sentence makes us think that the Serbian power wants to muzzle our comrades whose militant activity visibly embarrasses them.
We ask you to distribute as widely as possible the communiqué by the ASI (the Anarcho-Syndicalist Initiative in Serbia).
On September, 4th 2009 District Court in Belgrade decided that arrested members of ASI will be held for thirty days in detention. Our comrades are accused of an act of international terrorism.
Union Confederation "Anarcho-syndicalist Initiative" found out about the attack on Greek embassy, and of the organisation that took the responsibility for this act, through media.
We use this opportunity to remind the public once again that these methods of individual political struggle are not methods of anarcho-syndicalism, quite the contrary - we proclaim our political positions publicly and through our work we seek to bring masses to the syndicalist movement and all the libertarian and progressive organisations.
Wanting to brutally suppress its fierce critics the state, through its mechanism of repression, acts with banal logic and maps as suspects those who explicitly stated their libertarian beliefs, and by their imprisonment ends the case and gives a false picture of its efficiency to the public.
Unscrupulous actions of regime's organs can be observed from the first moments of arrest, unlawful searches of their apartments, intimidations of their families to extreme charges of international terrorism.
Given the fact that we do not support the acts of now famous anarchist group "Crni Ilija" (Black Iliya) we still cannot characterise what happened as "international terrorism", because terrorism, by definition, entails threats to the lives of civilians, whereas in this case no one was even hurt and only symbolic material damage was done.
It is clear that this state produced farce is just one way of intimidating anyone who decides to point out the injustice and hopelessness of contemporary society.
In times of general social numbness individuals reach for the most unbelievable, sometimes even self-destructive, actions in order to break through the media blockade and to put their case in the centre of attention - let us remember the workers who cut off and eat their own fingers, or, for example, the unlucky, distressed man who threatened to activate a hand grenade in the building of the Presidency of Serbia - that is, trying to shed some light on their problems in a broader social space.
Lets not allow them to persuade us that one symbolic act of solidarity, even if expressed in a certainly ill manner, together with any other act of rebellion of those who are left with no rights should be treated as an antisocial act and an act of terrorism.
We express solidarity with the arrested comrades and their families and demand the truth about this case!
FREEDOM FOR ANARCHO-SYNDICALISTS!
ANARCHO-SYNDICALIST INITIATIVE
Sept. 5, 2009