From Vietnam war to Gaza genocide. Where have all the unions gone?

Six decades after the Vietnam War marches, Australian union bosses are mostly MIA when it comes to protesting Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Andrew Gardiner reports.

The genocide in Gaza and the moves to prevent it from being talked about in universities and schools caused rank-and-file unionists to arm themselves. But union officials did not raise a finger on the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza or the plans to prevent us from talking about it. Instead, we see a timid and cold reaction from union bosses.

Israel supporters led by Jillian Segal David GonskiThe moves of the Anti-Semitism Education Working Group threaten to “chill” Middle East discussions in our education centers and elsewhere. To the dismay of rank-and-file members, many union leaders appear uncertain.

Union bosses appear to be aligned with the Albanian Labor Government, which announced last Thursday that the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) will have new powers to force harmony on a subject wide strip From what our Prime Minister calls “the evil scourge of anti-Semitism.”

Antisemitism education. Labor’s march towards authoritarianism

Commitment to this new regime will be measured by measures such as university “report card” The system introduced by Segal himself and a new one in NSW code of Conduct for school staff. But what appeared to be an attack on our educational independence by a pair of high flyers closely linked to groups linked not to Australia but to Israel resulted in no meaningful resistance from either the vice-chancellors or the union heavyweights.

Antisemitism Task Force

The coercive power of Segal and Gonski’s new taskforce, with Canberra’s full support, is so high that journalist and activist Meg Bourne predicts “entire staffrooms will self-censor to prevent reprisals”. But union officials representing independent school teachers in NSW and Canberra said “all schools hate speech”.

Critics of education union bosses’ often muted response to Segal-Gonski’s moves say they are “inconsequential” and that “changes to the law need to be recognised”, abandoning their duty to protect academic freedom and – in at least one case – gaslighting rank-and-file members.

Secondary education union leaders were particularly subject to criticism. NSW Teachers Federation The NSW/ACT branch of the Independent Education Union (IEU), which represents private and religious school teachers, has been accused of sending Member Alerts downplaying the significance of changes to the code of conduct. I openly support new rules of conduct.

Meanwhile, officials at the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) and the Australian Education Union (Vic.) appear uncertain amid slow-moving moves – endorsed by rank-and-file members – to divest their members’ superannuation funds directly from companies that aided the Gaza genocide.

Where are the unions?

The largely muted, movement-wide response to the genocide in Gaza raises many questions: “Where are the unions?“? Their peak body, the ACTU, appears to have fallen into disarray since secretary Sally McManus joined president Michele O’Neil in May last year. condemn Starvation tactics in Gaza. McManus was seen at a protest against Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s visit earlier this month, but has otherwise remained publicly silent on Israel and Gaza for the past nine months.

Some unions have bucked this trend; The most important of these were the Australian Services Union (ASU), which managed to withdraw pension funds from companies supporting the Israeli war machine, and the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA), which made its voice heard at the rallies. “(Israel) is an oppressive regime responsible for genocide The forced displacement of millions of Palestinians,” MUA’s Dave Ball told anti-Herzog protesters in Melbourne.

These honorable exceptions aside, the inaction of union officials stands in stark contrast to the 1970s, when unions halted uranium mining and exports and ‘Green Bans preserved parks, historic buildings and low-income housing. While the Transport Workers Union rejected this chance, “do sinatraRegarding Herzog’s refusal to fuel his flight home, perhaps the most effective option remaining for the unions is the aforementioned liquidation.

Union super funds are quiet

Australian Super, whose board includes the ACTU’s O’Neil and the AWU’s Paul Farrow, is heavily invested in at least six such companies: Elbit Systems (drones), ICL Group (white phosphorus), Caterpillar (destruction of homes and public facilities in Gaza), Palantir (artificial intelligence/software for weapons systems) and Lockheed Martin (air strikes in Gaza). A successful liquidation decision would theoretically hit Israel where it would hit.

But when the rubber meets the road, that option often begs the question. Despite ASU’s success with Vision Super and the member-driven partial liquidation of HESTA, union officials have ignored, slow-walked, or acted directly.

He thwarted Israeli efforts to stop funding war machine suppliers.

Farrow may be on the Australian Super Board, but so is her union. least inclined Aiding the Palestinian cause, such as the Store Distributor and Allied Employees Association (SDA), which has an assistant secretary on Rest Super’s board of directors.

“We’ve seen rank-and-file members the most willing to take action (on the withdrawal). Union leaders say they’re keen to do the right thing, but we’ll have to wait and see,” said Molly Coburn, campaign leader for the Australian Palestine Advocacy Network. MWM.

The biggest liquidation debacle belongs to NTEU, where the National Member Council adopted the “Boycott, Liquidation and Sanctions” resolution in order to meet with union executives in 2024. not a judge The funds demanded action from UniSuper. The gap between rank-and-file members and headquarters is beginning to look like a chasm – in deed, if not in word.

Has social change been handed over to the ALP?

Why are today’s unions so timid compared to their 1970s ancestors? Part of this is their common dependence on the ALP, where union bosses (not ordinary members) can target pre-selection for Parliament and various other privileges in exchange for “throwing money”.and the members in question) to ensure Labor is elected”.

“Union bureaucrats have placed more emphasis than ever on getting Labor elected rather than mobilizing workers’ power,” explained activist Ian Rintoul. In other words,

Union leaders handed over social change tasks to the ALP,

A party of neoliberal acolytes whose commitment to the people of Gaza amounts to little more than “whispering, muttering” clichés and banality”.

It gets worse. I’m not content with throwing lavish banquets politicians and reporters, the Tel Aviv lobby is offering the same and more to union officials through the Australia-Israel Labor Dialogue, a group focused on stopping, you get, divestitures.

After one such feast as a young activist, former ACTU president and Prime Minister Bob Hawke fell so in love with Israel that he was praised We define the country as “a working class building its own nation through its own physical and intellectual labor.”

These trips and other events “have one purpose, which is to see that whatever Israel does, it will never be criticized by Canberra,” former Foreign Minister Bob Carr said. in question.

However, perhaps the biggest reason lies in the different priorities of rank-and-file members and union managers. Not only do the latter appear indifferent to causes such as Gaza, but in some cases they also work against independent rank-and-file groups that are the heart of activism, such as the Unionists for Palestine (U4P).

U4P had a successful 1000-person performance over four consecutive days in early 2024.community strikeMembers of Israeli-owned ZIM Ganj, which activists suspect is a conduit for arms shipments to Israel, claim that within weeks of the Port Melbourne strike, efforts began to undermine and split the group by infiltrating meetings and using a variety of nefarious tactics.

Health Services Union president Gerard Hayes was clearly unimpressed by all this grassroots activism, saying, “Are there Unions for Sudan (or) Unions for Afghanistan? My understanding is that 750,000 people were killed in Sudan.”

“U4P came under attack from ALP-affiliated union members and officials, including the Victorian Trades Hall, because we were seen as a threat to the union structures and the ALP,” said the group’s Monica Campo. MWM. Some of these officials “power for its own sake” is causing a growing number of ordinary activists to wonder if there is a better way.

Albo bows to media, takes action on Israeli oppression, antisemitism and freedom of expression