by Davey Heller 1st December 2024

Unionists for Palestine Vic was part of the eruption of organising in Australia in response to the horror of Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza & Australian government complicity. Due to the complete failure of the union bureaucracies to act, Unionists for Palestine, a rank and file network, emerged. Rank and file groups developed amongst teachers, academics, public servants, healthcare workers and others which continue to be very active. However the cross union space which initially was very active in organising demonstrations has effectively split and declined. This split occurred under class pressure exerted from the ALP aligned union bureaucracies. It is important to reflect on how this occurred if we are to rebuild a cross union rank and file network to fight the ongoing Zionist crimes.

In politics, whilst organisational structures and subjective factors like personalities matter, ultimately it is class pressures that are most decisive in propelling or destroying struggles. Class pressures exerted by Labor aligned union bureaucracies were the most damaging factor in the cross union space of Unionists for Palestine Vic (U4P Vic). The three major internal conflicts that occurred this year revolved around relations with the union bureaucracy and their political masters in the ALP. No other issue or campaign in U4P Vic has generated any significant controversy.

These conflicts played out in both the monthly mass meetings and in the Coordinating Committee which was made up of representatives from the rank and file union groups affiliated with U4P Vic.

The Webb Dock Picket and the MUA
The first conflict blew up during the  picket at Webb Dock in January to disrupt the Israeli owned Zim’s shipping. For four days the picket disrupted all work at Webb Dock, which is a huge transport node at Melbourne / Naarm’s docks. The picket was called by U4P Vic and was supported by a wide range of Palestinian solidarity groups and activists.

MUA officials were initially supportive of the community picket but made it clear they would not publicly associate themselves out of fear of being prosecuted under Australia’s harsh anti-secondary boycott and political strike laws. The unionised dock workforce refused to cross the community picket officially citing health and safety concerns, although in reality this was a way to show solidarity without breaking the law. Pressure however grew on the MUA officials from the bosses and the ALP State government  to try and get the workers to cross the picketline under police escort.

By the third day of the picket debate, word came through via back channels that the MUA officials wanted the picket wound up. This was debated amongst the U4P Coordinating Committee but no consensus could be reached. One side argued that it was essentially scabbing to continue a picket against the wishes of the union officials responsible for the worksite whilst the other side argued that it was up the picket to democratically decide when to wind up and that the picket did not have any communication directly from the rank and file dock workers who were still refusing to cross the line.

The debate however soon became moot when the Victorian police moved in to brutally smash the community picket on the fourth day. Recriminations continued however within U4P Vic. At the following mass meeting a motion was moved which criticized the continuation of the picket in defiance of the MUA officials. After a bitter debate the motion was lost.

The ALP State Conference Protest
The second major blow up occurred after the U4P Vic protest at the ALP State Conference in May. At the protest attendees of the conference were heckled by pro-Palestine protestors and one Labor MP security guard pushed over and seriously injured a protester. A section of the crowd briefly occupied the conference foyer. At the  following mass meeting a motion sought to condemn the protest for alienating rank and file members of the ALP and union delegates at the Conference. Those who defended the protest argued that it was a legitimate protest against the party of government complicit in the genocide. The motion condemning the protest was defeated.

“Cops out Trades Hall” sparks the split
The third confrontation came to a head over June and July. After police had escalated violence at Sunday rallies and community pickets the Coordinating Committee discussed proposing to the next mass meeting the demand “Cops out of Trades Hall as the Police Association is affiliated to the Victorian Trades Hall Council (VTHC). After the minutes of the Coordinating Meeting were put on the Unionists for Palestine Vic Whats App chat they were leaked directly to the office of Luke Hilikari, the Secretary of Trades Hall. Trades Hall retaliated by cancelling a planned Unionists for Palestine room booking in their building to deprive U4P Vic of an organising space.

This sparked off a flurry of factional activity within the union rank and file groups and several rank and file groups endorsed a motion calling for the Coordinating Committee to be disbanded.

By the time of the July meetings two general factions had arisen around the political question of how to relate to the union bureaucracy and both sought to maximise their votes at the meeting (or stack if you prefer) leading it to be the largest mass meeting for the year with over 300 people in attendance online and in person.

Those arguing for the disbanding of the Coordinating Committee stated explicitly it had become too antagonistic to the Union bureaucracies and rank and file ALP members. This antagonism was harming the ability to build rank and file networks within the unions which required some cooperation with officials. They contrasted themselves as patient unionists to the adventurist “activists”.

The second camp believed that whilst open confrontation with the union bureaucracy was a necessary part of the struggle to build a rank and file network that would have the political independence necessary to fight not just the bureaucracy but ultimately the ALP itself.

After a bitter debate, the motion to disband the Coordinating Committee was narrowly defeated and another was passed to launch a campaign against police repression of the Palestine movement. 

However it proved to be a pyrrhic victory as soon after the union rank and file groups which had supported the disbanding of the Coordinating Committee either officially or unofficially left Unionists for Palestine. This included very active groups like ANMFVic4Palestine, CPSU4Palestine and Teachers and School Staff for Palestine Vic. The Coordinating Committee also saw its membership drastically shrink and mass mass meetings that have followed have all been much smaller than earlier in the year.

Luke Hilikari and Trades Hall – stooges of the ALP
The role of Victorian Trades Hall Council (VTHC) who are run by forces completely intertwined with and subordinated to the ALP has been particularly pernicious in fueling the split in U4P Vic. People who worked for Trades Hall attended mass meetings and were on the Coordinating Committee. This is how they were able to intervene so quickly when there was even a whiff of discussion over the politically sensitive issue of the cop association being part of the affiliated workers movement. Their cancellation of the room booking for U4P in June was a calculated move to stir up tensions within the network and it was highly successful. Since June Trades Hall has not responded to several emails from the Coordinating Committee requesting room bookings and seeking to open up political discussions.

Luke Hilikari and the VHTC tolerated a rank and file network initially however Luke has not spoken at a Sunday rally since before the confrontation at the docks in January. This demonstrates that as soon as the network appeared to be “out of control” of the union bureaucracies it came to be seen as a threat.

It is also revealing that Trades Hall was moved to act against U4P over the issue of the cops being in Trades Hall. This year we have seen some of the worst police violence in the state’s history enacted on Palestine solidarity protest, particularly at the Disrupt Land Forces protest in September and Trades Hall has not issued a word of dissent.

Socialist Alternative versus Solidarity
The dispute within U4P Vic throughout the year was also shaped heavily by a factional dispute between Solidarity and Socialist Alternative who were the two largest socialist groups to participate. Both of these groups rose out of a split from the Trotskyist International Socialists Organisation in the 1990’s. Despite the ideological similarities between the groups they were consistently on opposing sides of the internal U4P Vic debate. Solidarity supported strongly the motions to critisize the picket action, the ALP protest and to wind up the Coordinating Committee. Socialist Alternative argued the opposite for each of the three motions. I think this reflects two things. Firstly, Solidarity are very invested in the perspective that it is possible to “create a crisis in the ALP” by trying to split off the rank and file base from the parliamentary wing. They repeatedly cited the experience of such a split during the Vietnam War to support this. Socialist Alternative in contrast have set up their own electoral outfit in the form of the Victorian Socialists so don’t place the same importance on the ALP internal politics and instead aim to break workers electorally from the ALP. I think the second factor is that it is a tradition of the Trotksyist movement for groups that have split to be the most bitter enemies as they desperately seek to prove they were right!

This factional split for many in U4P who are not used to seeing closely aligned leftist groups tear shreds of each other was quite alienating. It also allowed the substantial issue at hand, how should we relate to the union bureaucracy be obscured to some degree in all the fire and smoke of this party dispute.

I think it is worth noting that despite the difference between these two parties’ stances, neither Solidarity or Socialist Alternative were prepared to openly tackle Trades Hall. Neither party wished to publicize Trades Hall vindictive cancelling of U4P’s use of their facilities and neither party pushed to continue the demand to kick the cops out of Trades Hall which in my opinion is an elementary class struggle principle – cops are not workers. Additionally both of these parties have drifted away from the cross union space organisationally. The Coordinating Committee now has little involvement from either party when they collectively dominated that space earlier in the year.

Correction: After publishing the article it was pointed out that some of the members of the Coordinating Committee that I thought were Socialist Alternative members were in fact members of Victorian Socialists (VS). VS is a party that was co-founded by Socialist Alternative in 2018 and Socialist Alternative are still the dominant faction. However not all members of VS are members of Socialist Alternative.

Cops are not workers
The capitalist ruling class did not just exert pressure on U4P via its stooges at Trades Hall but also through police violence. It was not just the fraught relationship with the MUA that made continuing U4P led community pickets at the docks difficult, it was sheer police brutality. The level of force used by the riot police included using all the “non-lethal” weapons the state ALP has armed these thugs with. Unless U4P could remain united and work towards getting much larger numbers at the docks, the community picket strategy was always going to struggle to continue. Brave smaller groups of autonomous activists have developed some daring strategies to continue these protests such as using barricades and strategically timed withdrawals but these tactics would not likely have been widely adapted in a rank and file unionist network.

What kind of rank and file movement do we need to build to Free Palestine
U4P Vic was a united front that brought together reformist forces from within unions and the ALP, socialist and anarchist groups with differing perspectives and individual left wing rank and file union activists. It was initially a very vibrant cross union space in its first six months and appeared to be a new left formation of the kind that could potentially challenge the union bureaucrats and the ALP in a way the Melbourne left has perhaps not done in decades. For anyone familiar with the working in the Australian left, the impact that the ALP and their stooges have had in this space over the last 12 months will not be a surprise. Just like the Democrats in the US, the ALP are the “graveyard of social movements”. What is needed to really build a cross union rank and file network for Palestine is building this understanding.

 No matter how many well meaning rank and file members of the ALP may be in this network, it does not change this harsh reality. The presence of ALP members in a network cannot be allowed to serve as a protective political layer around the genocidal tools of big business that constitute the ALP in this country at a state and federal level. This also means we need to place this understanding foremost in our minds when dealing with the union bureaucracies who are completely enmeshed with the ALP party machine. How far have any of the union bureaucracies really shifted in the last twelve months on Palestine. In some of the unions where rank and file groups have been strongest such as in the ASU and NTEU some progress has been made but overall whilst solidarity for Palestine may be given lip service it has not translated into either any criticism of the ALP government or any real attempt to mobilise their members.

I am not arguing that if a different line had been taken within U4P Vic in the last 12 months this situation would have substationally changed. The class forces we are up against within the union movement are formidable and our numbers are small and concentrated in a small number of predominately white collar unions. Changing them will take in likelihood many years of patiently building independent rank and file formations within the union movement. This is why I understand and sympathise with the comrades who have chosen over the last twelve months to put all of their energy into building the rank and file groups rather than focus on the cross union space.

The reality is it may not be possible to turn around the dynamic in the cross union space of U4P Vic in 2025. All we can do is find the maximum areas of common ground in the cross union space to campaign together on and continue to grow our rank and file groups to build power within our unions. Hopefully some people who moved away from the space in 2024 may come back or new unionists can be recruited. The kind of anti-imperialist formation independent of all factions of the ruling class that is ultimately necessary may not yet be possible given the limitations of working in such a broad united front. However in politics whilst you have to build from where you at you also have to know what you are aiming at and learn from experience. I think we can see clearly that this year the union bureaucracies and the ALP were successfully able to contain the U4P Vic. Lets hope for the sake of the working class and for Palestine that their grip on the necks of our movement will be weakened in the year ahead! 

Only one solution! Revolution! Free Palestine!

Get involved in U4P and your union rank and file group. Find the Unionists for Palestine Group directory here.  If there isnt an active one yet – then start one! Unionists for Palestine Group Directory