Home > Australia : thousands flock to May Day rallies
Un/Employment Demos-Actions Governments Australia
Thousands of workers flocked to May Day rallies across Australia on Sunday to protest against the Howard government’s planned industrial relations reforms.
The demonstrations marked International Workers Day and followed in the tradition of the first May Day rally in London in 1890.
ACTU president Sharan Burrow warned Australians that many of their basic workplace rights would be threatened if the federal government went ahead with its plan for reform.
The federal government intends to use the Senate majority it will gain in July to set up a single national industrial relations system which will override state systems.
The plan is opposed by state and territory governments, the federal opposition and unions, who claim it will leave workers worse off.
"May Day is a time to reflect on the great achievements and contribution that working people have made to our nation," Ms Burrow said on Sunday, ahead of Queensland’s celebrations planned for Monday.
"But this year May Day is also a time for Australia to reflect on what we have to lose if the Howard government goes ahead with its plans to Australian workers of many of their basic rights."
In Victoria, about 3,000 people walked from Trades Hall in the Melbourne suburb of Carlton to Treasury Gardens to mark the day.
Incoming Victorian Trades Hall Council secretary Brian Boyd said May Day marches across Australia were on Sunday focused on the looming fight with the federal government.
Several thousand unionists massed at Hyde Park in Sydney for a march through the city’s central business district.
Sydney May Day Committee secretary Warren Smith said the rally of about 5,000 people sent a clear message to Prime Minister John Howard that working people would not accept his reforms.
"There is no doubt that working people are faced with the greatest assault on their lives, on their families, on their wages and on their conditions in the 150 years that the trade union movement has existed in this county," Mr Smith told the rally.
"And today with the massive turnout we’ve had here we’re sending a message to John Howard that we’re not going to cop it, we’re going to fight."
West Australian workers, students and community groups used the annual May Day march through Fremantle to call for the protection of workers’ rights from the "arrogance and hubris" of Mr Howard.
The day was also a chance to celebrate working conditions and remember the workers who helped establish the eight-hour working day more than 100 years ago, Unions WA secretary Dave Robinson said.
Thousands of Queensland unionists are expected to rally around similar themes on Monday during Labour Day, with marches through Brisbane and regional centres planned.
Federal opposition industrial relations spokesman Stephen Smith used May Day to call on the government to reveal the exact nature of their proposed changes.
"Whatever detail emerges, Australian employees can be reliably assured that it will be unfair." (AAP)
Forum posts
3 May 2005, 04:03
John Howard wants Australia to be able to compete with third world and developing countries. He is selling Australia out to the highest bidder and of course that means multinational corporations who invest in our country want low paid competitive workers.
Why would he care about the living standards of the average australian, who at present, is so deeply in debt, that the lower wages will put the icing on the cake for the banks and lending companies, who are no doubt backed up by foreign investors. Which means of course that eventually Australia will not be owned by australians.
We will just be the workers who are beholden to our employers on below poverty wages. But it will keep the weak and greedy politicians (who are in the pockets of multinational corporations and their increasingly obscene profits) in power and very happy
3 May 2005, 04:40
Well welcome to the company store...
3 May 2005, 04:46
Just tell me who voted for the current Australian government? Are they all sheeps? I know they have a few down under.
3 May 2005, 10:28
The only sheep are the ones that voted the Liberals and Nationals in.
4 May 2005, 03:05
We’re all in the same boat here in America, in Britain and you Aussies, too! Down with Howard the Coward, Blair the Unfair, and Bush the Tush!
9 May 2005, 04:00
Check out the erosion of workers rights and condition in New Zealand if you want to see where its heading, 40+hours per week, no penalty rates, individual contracts for wages and conditions between employer and employee, no week-end rates, no shift allowance for afternoon and night shift, ……………………the aim is not to lift the under-payed of the third world to a "living wage" but to force down the wages and condition in the developed world to that of third world countries.
MMIIXX
5 July 2005, 01:49
howard is a war criminal