Margot Giblin
The front row audience line-up for Labor was Bryan Green, Lisa Singh, Michelle Byrne and Lara Giddings. Standing behind other people’s home-made signs Green sprouted from Touch One — Touch All. Giddings got Work Choices is Slavery, No AWA. Singh did all right with the ever popular Fair Day’s Work — Fair Day’s Pay but Byrne would be advised to look carefully at what she stands behind. Yellow on white is invisible. She, Singh and Giddings, being busy women with other stuff to do, left after the first hour.
Your Rights at Work
Rally 7.45 am
Thursday 30th November
Parliament House Lawns to Hobart City Hall
THE early morning sound of an imam’s call to prayer turned out to be distance and distortion wreaking magic on Casey Donovan rehearsing at the MCG for yesterday’s Rights at Work Rally. 6.55 am, Thursday 30th November, and she was about to drown out Greg Combet being interviewed on Radio National but not before he had urged all who could make it to get there — to any one of 400 venues around the country.
The 7am news, same source, said that here in Tasmania the Department of Education had advised prinicpals’ to look favourably on staff requests for rally time and a spokesperson for Catholic Education said it was fine to be late. Just for today. The federal ALP leadership rattlers, it was also reported, would be keeping it down until after the rally in response to union annoyance with their tendency to distract. Which, given the main message from most speakers, was just as well.
The message was that that the High Court decision has set Work Place Agreements in concrete with Liberal backing. The only way to get rid of them is to get rid of the man himself. Ditch Little Johnnie. Vote Labor. After which, Papa Bear Beazley, beamed in from the MCG, made it clear Labor will tear them up. Every single one.
Tear them up. Shred them. Stuff them.
‘Up John Howard’s arse’, Dave Hughes would later yell from the ridiculously high lighting tower at the MCG. He probably felt safer up there than on the ground. The show he starred in, with its self-fulfilling prophecy of a name, had its finale the night before.
But earlier, much earlier on the lawns at Parliament House in Hobart there were badges, placards, posters, flags, stickers and banners worn, held and waved by an amazing array of people.
Union Marshals, firies in helmets, blokes on bikes, women in suits, students on their way to school, or not, — it was a broad mix. Bright, bright orange was the dominant colour as the crowd moved out. Lots of workers waiting to get into offices looked supportive while a couple of lovers holding up a wall didn’t see a thing. Delivery vans had to wait, as did taxi drivers, for the long line of demonstrators to pass.
Up Murray and into Collins where a freezing breeze convinced those in T-shirts they’d got it wrong. Round the corner, past a lone coffee drinker outside the Budgie Smugglers’ Café and into the City Hall.
It’s a big space to fill — especially with no seating downstairs — but this rally pulled it off.
The Grassroots Union Choir was up front with sing-a-long words on the big screen above them, to warm up the arriving audience. They were great, making people feel as if they wanted to sing – even if they didn’t quite dare.
Green was able to stay much longer
The front row audience line-up for Labor was Bryan Green, Lisa Singh, Michelle Byrne and Lara Giddings. Standing behind other people’s home-made signs Green sprouted from Touch One — Touch All. Giddings got Work Choices is Slavery, No AWA. Singh did all right with the ever popular Fair Day’s Work — Fair Day’s Pay but Byrne would be advised to look carefully at what she stands behind. Yellow on white is invisible. She, Singh and Giddings, being busy women with other stuff to do, left after the first hour.
Green was able to stay much longer.
So they all heard Anne Urquhart tell us where the fire exits and first aid were positioned before moving on to introduce speakers on the much trickier task of how to get out of the fine mess they felt John Howard has got us into.
There was clearly an enormous supply of bad workplace stories to choose from and some were told by the workers themselves, some on their behalf and some by their union reps. One was told by a worker’s mum, Maxine Evans, who hasn’t enjoyed seeing her son fail to reap the benefits of the gains made by unions in the past.
‘Our kids are being done over’, she said, to resounding applause.
Looking at the hundreds of faces in the body of the hall there was, despite their supportive responses to individual speakers, an air of anxiety, of worry. This was no rent a crowd out for a morning’s frivolity – these looked like people seriously concerned about their jobs now and everyone’s jobs in the future.
The duty of present workers to honour past workers efforts and to secure their children’s future was a consistent rally theme. Spotlight, Jet Employment and United Petroleum were cited as failing to protect workers rights.
Simon Cocker, Secretary of Unions Tasmania said that John Howard ‘has given employers the power to mistreat workers. This is state sanctioned violence against working people.’
The speakers were eloquent. The message was clear. The words ‘and voting’ have been added to the new stickers which now read Your Rights At Work — Worth Fighting and Voting For
The finale, from the MCG, was Working Class Man. delivered by Jimmy Barnes. Who else?
The question probably wasn’t even asked, as it will be, as soon as the rally’s coverage is over, about the ALP’s front man.
