This article was a Spirit of Eureka leaflet handed out at the Stop the War on Workers June 20th rallies in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney.
KNOW THE FACTS ON THE NEW BUILDING CODE
Under the Code, construction workers say they fear:
*Union Clothing, Stickers, Posters, and Flags [BANNED!]
*Walking Shop Stewards and Delegates Rights [BANNED!]
*Limits on Number of Casuals [BANNED!]
*Contractor Wages Clauses [BANNED!]
*Inclement Weather Clauses [THREATENED!]
*Christmas and Easter Shutdowns [THREATENED!]
*RDO Calendar [THREATENED!]
*36 Hour Week, and more!! [THREATENED!]
The government’s new Building Code will come into full effect on September 1st 2017. After September 1st, any company that intends to work on a new federally funded project must have, and enforce, an EBA that is Code compliant.
Code compliance will mean gutting many of the clauses from current EBAs.
Once a company becomes Code compliant, all of its new jobs must also be Code compliant whether it is federally or privately funded.
Construction workers tell Spirit of Eureka that the Code will be like a cancer that will slowly spread, destroying rights to organise and fight, and wiping out hard won wages and conditions.
It is the single biggest attack on construction workers and our unions in decades!
ACTU secretary Sally McManus said unjust laws need to be defied; does this unjust Code fit the bill?
Construction Workers say:
“We must not comply!”
Raise the Southern Cross as our flag in the war on workers!
Attacks on Australian working people are driven by big business – not the ideas of Malcolm Turnbull
Turnbull’s a puppet, and multinational corporations pull his strings. It’s a war on workers, nationwide! And the Business Council of Australia, the BCA, and its giant corporate members, lead the charge.
Chevron, Rio Tinto, ExxonMobil, and Glencore push down mining and resource sector wages (while paying bugger all in tax) while BCA building developers Lendlease, CIMIC/CPB/Leighton, Fletcher Building, and Mirvac are behind the new Building Code attacks.
Even slashing penalty rates for the lowest paid workers is driven by the big businesses of the BCA. Their strategy? “Today the weakest, tomorrow the rest.”
Eureka flag – the symbol of Australia’s working peoples’ struggles and defiance
For more than 160 years, the Eureka flag has flown over the struggles, strikes, pickets, marches and rallies of working people across Australia. It has been raised wherever working people fight for decent working conditions, wages, the right to organise, and for an independent and just Australia.
Our earliest unions looked to Eureka and its Southern Cross flag for inspiration, courage and unity in the face of the attacks of bosses and the government–a tradition carried on today, none more so than by construction unions.
Construction unions and their members stand out for their fighting history in the face of corporate and government threats of jail and fines. Many other unions and workers look to building workers to lead in the struggle for better wages and working conditions. That’s why construction unions are targeted now.
For decades, the Eureka flag flew high above building sites, even after the ABCC banned it in 2007.
Once again, construction workers and their unions, and all the working people of Australia, are raising the Southern Cross in defiance of the attacks against them, and remember the principles of the famous Eureka Rebels’ Oath sworn 163 years ago.
An independent working class agenda is needed to push back the attacks
Multinational corporations and the BCA always demand the implementation of their pro-business and anti-worker agenda, attacking the rights of working Australians regardless of whether the Liberals or the ALP are in government.
Is it really any wonder why people are becoming more and more disillusioned with parliamentary politics?
Workers’ and unions’ real strength does not lie in parliament, but is in their potential to stop society in its tracks when they come together and stand united for their own interests. Every condition workers enjoy has been won through struggle in the workplace and the streets, not through lobbying parliament and the ALP.
Unions and workers cannot allow themselves to be fooled into being used in election campaigns with promises of change, only to be left with nothing once the election is over. Instead, the working class must fight for the interests of all working people, independent of the parliamentary parties, and mobilise the widest possible sections of the Australian people in support of those interests.
Only such a peoples’ movement with an independent working class agenda can push back the attacks, and eventually wrest Australia from the control of its big business masters.
“We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other and fight to defend our rights and liberties.”
– Eureka Rebel’s Oath, 1854
