Australian workers rise against Tory

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Australian working class.

But the leaders of the Labour Party, fearful of coming to power on an offensive they might not be able to contain, and the union leaders are struggling to divert the class opposition to Fraser into peaceful demonstrations and protests.

Fraser's government was brought to power after the Governor General exercised the historic right of British imperialism to dispense with bourgeois democracy and ordered Labour PM Whitlam out of office.

Fraser was elected in subsequent elections on the basis of promises that the government would reduce taxation, reduce state intervention and leave the capitalists to attack the working class unhindered.

Savage

The budget they introduced on August 15 is possibly the most vicious attack on the gains of the working class to be introduced in an advanced capitalist country since the war.

Income tax rose by 1.5%, a state levy on petrol brought a price jump of 16 cents per gallon and the state health insurance scheme (introduced by Whitlam) was promised with the axe.

Sharp tax rises were imposed on consumer goods, tobacco, beer, and spirits.

Old age pensions are only to be increased for those who subject themselves to the misery of Ives to the misery of means test.

Unemployment bene* its, 'eviously linked to. inflati on, ill now only rise for those v ith employed dependents.

At the same time the government, which had based itself on unfettered capitalism, introduced drastic trade war measures to protect the home grown capitalists against foreign competition, The response of the working class was immediate. Dock workers in Sidney, Melbourne and Adelaide staged a 24-hour strike against the budget.

Demonstrators mobbed Fraser as he arrived at a Melbourne hotel for a business lunch, and 5,000 workers joined a Labour Party demonstration one week after the budget.

A breakaway section attacked the Sydney exchange.

But the Labour Party and trade union leaders-who could command immediate support for a general strike to bring down the government-have shrunk back, terrified by the response.

Amalgamated Metal Workers and Shipwrights Union bureaucrats have called on the Australian Council of Trade Unions to organise only protest action against the budget.

But telephone and telex workers have already outstripped this timorous response. Members of the Australian Telecommunications Employees Association, facing a massacre of jobs over new technology have banned repair work for the past four weeks.

Power

As other capitalists in other countries, have found to their cost, this crucial sector have the power to threaten industrial There are 12 hour delays on phone calls between towns, phone calls and telex messages out of the country have come to a virtual standstill and business has been seriously disrupted.

Anti-union act

Fraser responded by threatening to de-register the unionunder the Australian equivalent of Heath's Industrial Relations Act, which would lead to a head on confrontation as the government moved in to freeze the assets of the union.

Fraser has also threatened to invoke a special clause against the union which could result in fines or imprisonment against the leadership.

The outright spirit of confrontation in which Fraser has approached the dispute has Malcolm Fraser allowed the union leadership small room for manoeuvre. Fraser has announced his determination to withstand blackmail' whatever the cost.

"If the union's recommerdation is not overthrown the government will use all the resources available to it, and the powers available to the government are indeed considerable"

Fraser is himself facing …a political crisis after the sacking of Reginald Withers (chiefly responsible for getting Fraser elected as head of the Liberal Party) for trying to influence electoral boundaries.

Withers' sacking was followed by that of Robert Dunstan, a Victoria state minister, who rang the Melbourne papers to protest that Fraser was killing the building industry and sacking his most loyal ministers.

"The man has gone mad. What does he want to be--the next Pope?" 35-hour week claim submitted by Ford workers last week indicates both the militancy of shop floor workers on wages and the dangers they face of betrayal at the hands of their leaders.

The claim if conceded would drive a coach and horses through Chancellor Healey's vicious 5% Phase 4 pay limits.

No panic But Healey himself shows no sign of panic. At the weekend he referred sneeringly to last year's sell-out settlement by Ford union leaders, who abandoned a 34% claim to end up with a miserable 12.4%.

And union officials have again linked the Ford claim to the huge profits currently being amassed by this multi-national, rather than to the necessity to defend the living standards of the membership.

This version of the "special case" argument is designed as was last year's claim to ensure that any concessions won by Ford workers are confined to Ford alone and not used as the basis for more general claims throughout the motor industry