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  Issue No 80 Official Organ of LaborNet 01 December 2000  

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The Soapbox

Seattle, One Year On


The CFMEU's Phil Davey looks at the lessons for the labour movement from Seattle and S11.

 
 

Davey Devours the Enermy

Seattle is slowly becoming seen around the world as a significant new chapter in the class struggle that has been raging since time began. There were some significant "firsts" at Seattle which I maintain the multinationals have cottoned on to even as the more myopic within the labour movement prefer not to see significance.

Steelworkers uniting with greenies, student rads with Christians-a violent crackdown from the powers that be, the trade talks that were being protested collapsing in disarray and "globalisation" becoming a part of the language for the first time.

All of this was pretty new stuff.

Multinationals understand the significance even if we don't. Seattle accelerated trends that began some years ago. Anyone who suffers through advertising on commercial television can't help but notice the phenomenon of "Green washing" (filthy polluting companies like Shell marketing themselves as eco-aware) becoming more pronounced.

I believe this is just one of the lessons the corporations took from Seattle.

Multinationals got the message loud and clear- if you want to keep making your mega-profits you have to arc up your propaganda radically coz people just don't believe the hype any more.

So why aren't we learning from Seattle? When Australia hosted a similar event -the World Economic Forum in Melbourne in September (the protest against which was known as "S11") - progressive forces in this country were divided. Significant sectors of the labour movement refused to organise around it and some amongst us actually ran interference.

And make no mistake -that cause was just. A meeting of the top 1000 multinationals on the planet in our own backyard. The unelected pig bosses who run our world, ruin working communities, defile the environment -meeting appropriately in that symbol of greed and ruined lives Crown Casino-and meeting to plan greater profits at our expense.

A pretty legitimate target for working people in Australia and their organisations I would have thought.

The media of course didn't help. The lies about overseas bomb makers jetting in, the very thorough vilification of the protestors, the hysteria around violence...some of those articles from before S11 are a real laugh to read back over now. Piers Ackerman predicably was the most over the top. "Terrorist organisations like Hezbollah, the IRA and S11" was how he started one of his memorable articles from around that time.

But surely the organised left can recognise a media con job when they see one? Couldn't people see that what the media was doing to S11 protestors was no different to co-ordinated, systematic vilification campaigns conducted against our own organisations (Teachers Federation, MUA) in the very recent past? That many amongst us believed the hype and still run around parroting "S11 they were all ferals or middle class uni students" is pretty indolent.

For the record the people who were down at Melbourne for S11 defied such easy categorisation. There were 20,000 people protesting in Melbourne, easily more Christians than trots/anarchists, easily more workers than uni students. In fact they were precisely the people we need to bring with us if we are actually going to win and reorient the world away from corporate rule and towards our values of community and collectivism.

Those 20,000 at S11 saw through the media hype and recognised that the true enemy of humanity was meeting at Crown and had to be stopped. That these people chose to do this using classic labour movement tactics of a blockade/picket is one of the many little ironies of S11.

Everyone who went to Melbourne saw the bestial reality of the state lining up with the corporations lining up with the media...it was unambiguous and tremendously radicalising. The other great message for everyone who went is that the unity of those who share our belief system - broadly defined - is absolutely crucial if we are going to stop the growth of corporate power.

The CFMEU learned this lesson before my time, with Rio Tinto. It doesn't matter how disciplined your members are (and few Unions have such impressive discipline as the miners), taking on the world's biggest mining company is going to end in defeat unless you go global with your strategies and bring communities with you.

No one is strong enough to stop the multinationals by themselves any more. We have to bring the churches with us, the greenies, yes even the trots.

We also must not allow the anti globalisation movement to be painted as luddites. Protestors in Seattle and Melbourne were not anti-trade or anti-technology, but were able to be painted as such. We should perhaps start describing ourselves as anti corporate globalisation or as pro-community or pro global justice.

It's only a broad coalition that can stop multinationals. The Americans got that right at Seattle. In spite of the success of S11 we largely failed to achieve that in September in Melbourne.

At the moment I would have to say the multinationals have learned the lessons of Seattle better than we have.


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*   View entire issue - print all of the articles!

*   Issue 80 contents

In this issue
Features
*  Interview: Chewing the Fat with Della
In a rare extended interview, NSW 's new industrial relations minister State John Della Bosca outlines his vision for the new workplace.
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*  Unions: Organising - There Is No Choice
LHMU national secretary Jeff Lawrence responds to Brisbane Institutue director Peter Botsman's attack on organising.
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*  Corporate: The Riddles of Democracy at Telstra
Shareholder activist Stephen Mayne explains how the big guys ran roughshod when he and trade union activists attempted to stand for the Telstra board.
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*  Education: Training for Change
Labor Council's Michael Gadiel outlines a traiing agenda for the 21st century.
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*  History: A Stack of Hypocrits
Ballot rigging, sanctioned by the courts, sponsored by the government were a Liberal Party and Bob Menzies speciality - and they introduced legislation to legalise it.
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*  International: African Unions Go To War Against AIDS
The war on AIDS is now the number one priority of the ICFTU's African Regional Organization (AFRO), which has launched an ambitious five-year action plan in nine of the most severely afflicted African nations.
*
*  Satire: Teenage Hackers Behind Shock Cabinet Reshuffle
Seasoned front-benchers and political greenhorns alike were joined in stunned surprise today, as a sudden Cabinet reshuffle radically altered the shape of the Federal Government.
*
*  Review: Manufacturing Dissent
A new production explores Australian's approach to refugees and their experiences coming to a strange land.
*

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»  International Union Aid Jobs on Offer
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Columns
»  The Soapbox
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»  Sport
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»  Trades Hall
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»  Tool Shed
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Letters to the editor
»  Botsman Off Beam
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»  Botsman Off Beam II
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»  Fatherly Advice
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»  Concerns on Fundraiser
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»  Let's Be Frank about Frank!
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