Misplaced Sympathies: Anti-Lockdown Protests Undermine Social Solidarity

Lisbeth Latham

As more Australians enter lockdown in response to the spread of COVID-19 there has been an associated rise in protests against lockdowns and other public health measures designed to curb the spread of the virus. These protests are not a new phenomenon but have been occurring since the beginning of the pandemic. Although initially condemned, in Australia at least, there are now attempts to paint these protests in a sympathetic light or even as somehow progressive. According to these commentators, the protests, although misguided, are really a response to the state’s failure to deliver sufficient support to working people. Yet while financial hardship may be a motivating factor for some participants, remedying financial stress is by no means the objective of these rallies. Instead, the protests rely heavily on militant individualism and opposition to state limitations on behavior which are justified by appealing to a range of interlocking conspiracies that question the reality of the pandemic and the motivations for the various state responses to it.

In most countries, the early protests against lockdown and other public health measures aimed at limiting the spread of COVID. This was particularly aimed at the compulsory wearing of masks and the limiting of movement. The right-wing character was made clear not just by the groups pushing heavily within this framework - such as in the US militias, and other far-right currents such as the Proud Boys, and various Christian patriot groups, but the language that was used to justify and legitimise refusal to comply. These were heavily drawn from highly individualistic, right-wing libertarian sources, such as sovereign citizenship etc. which apart from denying the right of states to govern rely heavily on completely nonsensical quotes of non-existent legal arguments regarding the Magna Carta and other historical and totally irrelevant documents. These mobilisations were often also pushed by sections of capital who did not want to forfeit their right to make a profit at the cost of saving lives.

One of the numerous anti-lockdown advertisements published by Clive Palmer in major Australian newspapers.

In July of this year, the protests in Australia were bigger than earlier protests. This has lead to some on the left searching for a basis for this growth, the answer that a number have come to the conclusion that the driver is the shift in the level of financial support provided by the government to workers in lockdown and as such the protests are really, to paraphrase Marx, the sigh of the oppressed. While there is some appeal in being able to explain the growth in the protests as simply the growth in anger at financial difficulties brought on by the pandemic, you do need to be able to establish more than a correlation to demonstrate causation particularly if we are not descending into vulgar forms of materialism and accelerationism. However, the advocates for a position that this is a prime driver provide limited if any evidence. Tom Tanuki, in an article in the Independent Australian, whilst acknowledging that it is:

“a ’big tent’ conspiracist movement that houses discordant ideas and sometimes leaderless factions. It’s given direction by a ruling caste of portrait-video-filming figureheads who often scrap with each other for viral supremacy. The attention-seekers among them get a sugar rush of shares, the grifters get lots of money and the political careerists try to craft a future voting bloc.”

Despite this Tanuki plays down the significance of this reality and instead posits the movement, at least in Sydney, as “left” based on the participation of the working-class and sections of the Lebanese community from Sydney’s South West - however, no evidence is provided to support any of these claims. Christopher Knaus and Michael McGowan writing in the Guardian outline the global far-right network that has been seeking to build the anti-lockdown movement globally and notes that at least some of the organisers in Australia are embedded in these global far-right networks. However, Knaus and McGowan also cite Josh Roose, a senior research fellow specialising in extremism at Deakin University, as suggesting:

“While there were elements of far-right rhetoric among the protestors, what they actually shared was a level of marginalisation and distrust in authority.
“There are some similarities and commonalities to the far right in terms of content but these protests are not driven by the far-right per se,
“What immediately distinguishes these sorts of protest groups from the far right is that they’re highly multicultural and they’re made up not just of angry men at a patriot rally but also women.
“In both Melbourne and Sydney the people and areas being represented are the areas that have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic. There’s also issues here with the cultures and communities often have a deep-seated distrust of government, often for good reason.”

Again no evidence is provided to support either the observation or the conclusion. The idea that the presence of workers, people of colour, or women, may not fit with some people’s stereotypes of the far-right, but all of these identities are heterogeneous and historically they have all been sources of recruitment, particularly amongst more marginalised sections of communities, for the far-right even if our image of the far-right are young white men.

In questioning this argument I am not saying that financial hardship is not a factor. There would undoubtedly be people at the protest who have suffered financially - moreover, there are many people experiencing severe financial hardship due to the inadequacy of state and Commonwealth financial support. For some, this experience may have been a driver for their participation. Whether it is a driver of mobilisations, we should be raising demands not only to increase the level of financial support to workers, the self-employed, those reliant on welfare payments, and small business. Such financial support policies need to be consistent and locked in to provide greater certainty for people in the coming months. Our demands need to go beyond simply demanding the reinstating JobKeeper, and the COVID support supplement, but addressing the significant flaws in JobKeeper, many of which were entirely by the design of the Morrison government and for the COVID support supplement to be incorporated into all government pensions.

In saying this, I am also saying those advocating that financial hardship as the primary driver, or even a significant driver, need evidence that is the case. For me, a key basis for judging motivations of mobilisations are the public justifications for the mobilisations and the demands raised spontaneously within the participants. On this, the evidence does not suggest that seeking to address financial hardship is a key driver. It does not feature highly in the calls to action or with the homemade signs. Instead, we see calls for “freedom” and around the need for an end to lockdowns and other social distancing mechanisms, such as masks, and rejections of vaccines - which are core issues of this movement since its initial development.

Also, the growth and development of the movement internationally while not uniform, suggests it is growing irrespective of the financial and social distancing regulations which are actually in place in any given city or country. So rallies have occurred in cities without lockdown or provisions such as compulsory masking in place, although in these cities the protests tend to be smaller - which you would expect as the perceived threat is not present.

This does beg the question as to why there has been a growth in the anti-lockdown movement? Well, I don’t think it is for a singular reason. One factor is that there has been significant disinformation spread regarding both the virus and the various mitigation measures, including masks and vaccines. This is highlighted by the recent seven-day suspension of Sky News Australia from YouTube over the spreading of Covid misinformation. As the distress of lockdown and other limits on movement have built, it is understandable that some people who are experiencing extreme emotional distress would find the idea that that distress is both unnecessary but also can be ended simply by ending lockdowns. This is particularly the case in a country such as Australia where the health impact of COVID has been more limited - it is easier to imagine proceeding as normal without the fear that infections could explode to the levels experienced in other countries. This is contributed to discussions in both mainstream media and on social which talks about the Australian experience without contextualising it in the global context: at the same time the discussion also tends to discuss the Australian governmental response as far more repressive and restrictive than other states - this is particularly notable in discussions of Australia’s border policy as being unique in closing and limiting travel in and out of the country - which a review of sites such as the International Air Transport Association’s COVID-19 Travel Regulations Map - it is clear that Australia is not alone in having travel restrictions in place, nor does it currently have the harshest restrictions internationally.

Even in countries where infections and deaths have been much higher, most of the experience has been isolated to sections of the community particularly health care workers, and those who have experienced close family and friends become extremely sick and die. This is reflected in experiences in a number of countries of hospitals being targeted by anti-lockdown/COVID sceptical individuals as being part of a big lie to justify incursions on civil liberties.

The problem with identifying the drivers of protests is that they are not singular. However, it is clear that the process of the pandemic and associated public health measures have been extremely distressing for the vast majority of society. This is not a real shock, particularly when we consider the lack of certainty faced by many individuals, will they have work, will they be able to go see friends, will they be able to see family or travel. Uncertainty is highly stressful. It makes us feel anxious and that we have no power, or ability to control our own lives. It should be no surprise that psychological distress would help to create a fertile medium for conspiracy theories and anti-science denial to grow and take root. These ideas provide certainty, against a reality of a virus that might kill you and your loved ones - a counter reality where there is no virus and the restrictions are simply part of a conspiracy by the powerful to control us, can be appealing on many levels. That detachment from reality would not necessarily be a problem if it weren’t for the reality that rejecting the public measures increases the risk of exposure of everyone to a highly infectious virus that not only kills but causes long-term health problems in many of those who catch it.

These dynamics can only get worse as the emotional wear of the pandemic builds.

So what is the answer? While we must always come from a position of empathy, and understand that many participants in the protests are coming in situations of significant and understandable distress - I don’t think that empathy should let us fall into a position of accepting their arguments and motivations as being legitimate. These actions are aimed at undermining measures that protect public health - whilst people should not be treated with excessive or unreasonable force - the protests do need to be limited and prevented as they are aimed at disrupting the limits on social distancing needed to suppress the virus and save the lives and health of the broader community. Our efforts to maintain support for public health measures need to be premised on social solidarity and the idea that through some individual pain it is possible to reduce the severity of the impact on any individual - which means that the pain does need to be shared across the community - the idea of locking down working-class communities and communities of colour in order to enable rich suburbs to go on as if nothing is happening is unconscionable and reasonably erodes the idea that we are trying to protect everyone.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This article is posted under copyleft, verbatim copying and distribution of the entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved. If you reprint this article please email me at revitalisinglabour@gmail.com to let me know.

Read more...

Did the Accord Cause Australian Neoliberalism?

Bob Hawke and Paul Keating key architects of Australian Neoliberalism

Lisbeth Latham

Reading the publications of the Australian far-left has seen a sharp rise in the discussion of the Prices and Wages Accord and attempts to relate that experience to the contemporary Australian union movement’s attempts to respond to the double crisis of the COVID pandemic and the associated financial crisis[1]. While there is much to be criticised in the Accord experience - these left critiques tend to see the Accord as a singular process, rather than the complex dynamic interaction with the unfolding not only of the Accord itself but the broader dynamics of Australian political and economic life in the period of the 1980s and 1990s. Many of these left critiques oversimplify and overplay the level of the intentionality of the leaderships of the labour movement in the implementation of the Accord and posit it as the key mechanism by which neoliberalism was established within Australian society. In this article, I aim to outline: 

• the circumstances that the labour movement found itself in that lead to the Accord project; 
• the changing character of the Accord over the period of its implementation; 
• the internal processes of control and discipline within the labour movement to enable the Accord to be implemented and maintained and the impact of these on democracy within the labour movement; 
• the impact of the Accord on working people; and 
• the impact of the Accord experience on the capacity of the Union movement to organise and respond to attacks from the state and capital.

Inflation and unemployment crisis
In the early 1980s the Australian economy, like other advanced capitalist economies, entered into recession. The Fraser government responded to the recession by seeking to impose wage restraint by using the centralised wage-fixing system to cut real wages. In 1981, in response, unions, most notably the Amalgamated Metal Workers and Shipwrights Union (AMWSU)[2], launched a campaign to achieve a 35-hour week with no loss in pay - in order to maintain workers’ buying power and to create jobs by reducing working hours. This campaign was partially successful, the AMWSU, operating outside the arbitration system, won a pay rise of $20 per week and a reduction in the working week to 38-hours per week in 1981, with a further pay rise to be paid in the second increase of $14 in 1982, based on projected inflation for the next six months. These gains were based on a basis of the union agreeing to no further claims for twelve months[3].

In the wake of this victory, the crisis in the Australian economy deepened as the global economic crisis intensified driving down demand for consumer and capital goods. This downturn had already begun to be felt in Australia before the wage campaign, but the AMWSU had been protected from it initially due to residual demand for skilled workers.

In response to the crisis, manufacturing employers started to rapidly shed jobs, and about 90,000 workers were sacked. In the face of this assault, the AMWSU’s leaders abided by the “no-strike” agreements and did not take industrial action to try to protect jobs. At some shops, workers tried to secure jobs by agreeing to reduce their hours to a four-day week at four days’ wages[4].

This experience is now raised by the right as demonstrating the inevitable consequence of workers achieving wage rises [5]. Whilst, that conclusion is deeply wrong, and a fundamental misreading of the situation, this experience gave greater weight to the position adopted by the ALP in 1979 supporting the creation of an agreement with the union movement aimed at maintaining living standards that avoid either a wage breakout or hyperinflation[6]. The impetus for this position within the ALP had come from the period of hyperinflation during the Whitlam government (1972-1975). This was particularly the case within the AMWSU and other unions where members of the Communist Party of Australia were part of the leadership[7].

Stated objectives of the Accord
The initial objective of the Accord was to reduce unemployment and to hold inflation in check. This would be achieved by limiting inflation by restraining wages, while at the same time improving the standard of living of working people by boosting the “social wage” via expansion of government spending particularly around healthcare (Medicare), increased family payments and childcare. A major flaw of the Accord process was that whilst the system had mechanisms that effectively restrained wages, via a centralised wage-fixing system, there were no such restraints on capital regarding the setting of prices, leaving the system open to companies covering any rise in their costs via increasing prices, or just deciding to do so to boost profits. This limitation meant that understandably groups of workers, if not whole unions, were motivated to break out of the Accord in order to defend wages[8]

Control and discipline
The process of entering the Accord sparked immediate resistance within the labour movement. Most notably this was reflected in individual far-left individuals and organisations opposing the proposal. The Socialist Party of Australia (SPA)[9], which had a number of members who were elected officials in unions, most notably the Building Workers Industrial Union{10], Waterside Workers Federation, Seamen’s Union, and the Firemen and Deckhands' Union of New South Wales[11], publicly opposed the Accord and sought to direct their members who were union officials to oppose the Accord. These members revolted against the direction, arguing that it represented an attack on union democracy, splitting away to form the Association of Communist Unity (while some officials were expelled by the SPA for their refusal to follow party discipline, others simply resigned)12. While there are a range of reasons for this refusal to abide by party discipline, one factor was undoubtedly the reliance of these officials to their collaboration and alliances with officials from the CPA and the Labor left who supported the Accord. Brown has argued that these internal processes of control and discipline impacted on individual officials who had second thoughts regarding the Accord who could expect to be disendorsed and excluded from internal tickets if they did not tow the pro-Accord line[13].

Efforts to tie the movement to the Accord only intensified as the process continued. The Accord was posed as a necessary protection against the threat to the movement by the “new right” - in the form of the members of the Institute of Public Affairs and the HR Nicholls Society. This meant that those unions which sought to break from the Accord, were not just seen as revolting from the Accord, but risking the protection that the Accord was seen as offering the movement. So those unions that did revolt, such as the Confectionary workers[14], Builders Labourers Federation[15], and the Airline Pilots, not only faced aggressive and hostile employers, which included deregistration processes, strike-breaking, and the initiation of civil damages suits, but also were isolated, vilified, and raided by their “comrades” in rest of the union movement, including the Hawke Labour Government. Most notable was the deregistration of the BLF in the ACT, in NSW, and in Victoria[16].

How the Accord changed over the course of the process 

As much as it is tempting to discuss the Accord as a singular process, it changed considerably over the course of the 13 years it was in effect - with eight different Accords negotiated (although Accord Mark VIII was never actually implemented)[17]. Whilst the early Accords had wage-fixing aimed at addressing specific macroeconomic issues, such as inflation and unemployment, Accord Mark III, in 1987, introduced the concept of two-tier wage rises - with all workers automatically receiving the first tier of wage increases, and the second tier only being received subject to improvements in structural efficiency[18]. This shift both resulted in extremely uneven timing of when the second wage-rise was received, it marked a significant shift in the conceptualisation of the basis on which wage increases would occur, that they should be tied to demonstrated productivity increases beginning a process of Award restructuring.

As the Accord proceeded, a major justification for the need to maintain the Accord process, was to both hold off the introduction of enterprise bargaining (which was seen as a project of the new right) and to maintain the ALP government to prevent anti-union attacks that had been implemented by conservative governments globally – Peetz as argued that one of the major achievements of the Accord was precisely this delay. However, with the introduction of the Accord Mark VII in 1991, enterprise bargaining, that is negotiations on a company by company basis, rather than industry-wide arbitration and conciliation, was introduced[19]. While bargaining had always occurred within the Australian Industrial Relations system this process had always had a complex and integral relationship with the centralised systems around the Award System. The 1991 process, enshrined in the Industrial Relations Act, began to unravel this relationship. A process which has been deepened with the 1996 Workplace Relations Act, 2005 WorkChoices Act, and the 2008 Fair Work Act. Historically improvements achieved by militant unions in their better organised and more industrially strategic “hot shops”, most notably the AMWU, at the enterprise level could be leveraged and incorporated into the Awards via the state and federal industrial commissions. Enterprise bargaining began a process of severing this connection - which meant that militant unions and their members could only bargain for themselves in their local workplaces (albeit they have attempted to work around this via pattern bargaining which is now legally banned), rather than their actions to improve conditions serving as pacesetters for the conditions of all workers reinforcing individualism and breaking social solidarity between workers, which is such a central drive of the neoliberal project[20]. This process led to a tiering of working conditions based on the extent to which workers had access to enterprise bargaining, with those works reliant on the awards not only falling substantially behind on wages but in their broader working conditions through a combination of the successive award stripping by the Howard government and the achievements by workers and their unions within the EA system in adding and improving conditions.

Peetz has argued that the Accord process provided important protections to Australian unions in delaying conservative governments and their full-frontal assault on unions in Australia similar to what occurred in New Zealand as a consequence of the Bolger government’s attacks[21]. It is also arguable that the Accord process rather than protecting unions instead left them more vulnerable to the attacks when they came[22]. Whilst comparisons can be made to New Zealand and the devastation wreaked on the labour movement. A counter comparison can be made to the experience of the French labour movement which via ongoing resistance, including splits within the labour movement over responding to attacks by employers and governments[23]. This response meant that while the French movement, like the working class globally over the past forty years, suffered defeats in the wake of government attacks it was able to limit these defeats. In raising the example of France it is not to say that that course was necessarily open to the Australian movement, or would have been easy to pursue if it was but to make it clear that there are and were always multiple responses to challenges confronting movements, and that accepting one as the only alternative path to disaster can unnecessarily close off other alternative paths which may pose the possibility of a more positive outcome.

Over the course of the Accord, it delivered less and less on its promised objectives. Whilst there was an expansion in the social wage, real wages declined[24]. This decline was not simply problematic due to the stress it put on households but because real wages only failed to decline further as a consequence of increased productivity, i.e. as a consequence of work intensification and the reduction in broader working conditions - which were at the core of Accord Mark III and all subsequent Accords. This normalisation of wage rises to increases to productivity rather than maintaining and improving living standards is now embedded in what is left of Australia’s wage-fixing system under the Fair Work Act[25].

These shifts have resulted in a sharp and ongoing shift in the wages share of GDP, which has helped to drive up company profits. While this shift began under the Accord, it is important to recognise that this shift has occurred across advanced capitalist countries as corporations have sought to overcome declining growth and maximise their share of income[26].

Whilst the adoption of the Accord was contested within the labour movement, and as outlined above it was not a singular experience, its character changed over time. Contrary to some claims within the left, the early phase of the Accord, whilst deeply corporatist, was not neoliberal, in particular, the expansion of the social wage was not a neoliberal project, objectives which could be seen as neoliberal objectives came later in the life of the Accord[27]. Indeed, whilst the solution via collaboration was a break with the historic approaches of many of the communist lead unions, it was not a sharp break from that of many unions, particularly those associated with the right-wing of the ALP and formations to its right, such as the Democratic Labour Party[28]. These more conservative unions had long relied on “friendly” relationships with employers and the state in order to hold their own in demarcation disputes and contests with left unions. Indeed, Peetz argues that it was the ending of these relationships which were the driver of the decline in union membership and power rather than the Accord. Unlike the claims of some on the left, such collaboration is not inherently neoliberal, if anything the experience of neoliberalism globally has been an intensification of hostilities by capital against organised labour. The primary driver of the neoliberal transformation of Australian society was the Hawke and Keating Labor governments[29]. The initial incorporation of neoliberal aspects into the Accord was justified as a necessary defensive response rather than the direct intention of those who proposed and advocated the Accord and its maintenance. While this argument may have been cynical on the part of some of its advocates, it also reflects the extent to which direct advocacy of neoliberalism would have been resisted, even if the movement, like the rest of society, having absorbed neoliberal ideas as a consequence of the hegemonic position neoliberalism[30]. 

<

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Footnotes
1  Glanz, D. 2020 ‘Morrison’s ‘Accord 2.0’ talks are a trap for the unions’, Solidarity, [online document] accessed 23 May 2021. https://www.solidarity.net.au/unions/morrisons-accord-2-0-talks-are-a-trap-for-the-unions/.
    O’Shea, L. 2020 ‘Beware union leaders bearing deals’, Red Flag, [online document] accessed 23 May 2021. https://redflag.org.au/node/7224.
    Boyle, P. 2020 ‘Reject the Coalition’s Accord-style JobMaker’, Green Left Weekly, [online document] accessed 23 May 2021. https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/reject-coalitions-accord-style-jobmaker.
    Knobloch, B (18 October 2020) ‘How Australia’s Labor Movement Helped Build Neoliberalism’, Jacobin, [online document] accessed 23 May 2021. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/10/australia-labor-party-neoliberalism-accord. 
2  Now the Metals Division of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union 

    Smith, B. A. 2001a ‘Amalgamated Metal Workers & Shipwrights Union (1976 - 1983)’, Australian Trade Union Archives, [online document] accessed 16 May 2021. https://www.atua.org.au/biogs/ALE0053b.htm.
3  Latham, C. ‘Wage rises don't mean job losses’, Green Left Weekly, [online document] accessed 23 May 2021. https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/wage-rises-dont-mean-job-losses.
    Wright, C. F. 2014 ‘The Prices and Incomes Accord: Its significance, impact and legacy’, Journal of Industrial Relations, 56(2):264-272. 2014
4  Wright ibid. 
    Latham ibid.
5  Hewett, J. 2009 ‘Lost lessons of the 100,000 'dead men'’, news.com.au, [online document] accessed 23 May 2021. https://www.news.com.au/news/lost-lessons-of-the-100000-dead-men/news-story/81ef1b0ee808c0db147562597741559b?sv=927bc14851e593f17f7ed5b4ea4305c9.
6  Latham op cit.
7  Strauss, J. 2013 ‘Opposition to the Accord as a social contract’, Labour History, 105:47-62.
8  Wright op cit.
    Stilwell, F. 1991 ‘Wages policy and the Accord’, Journal of Australian Political Economy, 28:27-53.
9  Now the Communist Party of Australia, but distinct from the original CPA which was founded in 1920 and dissolved in 1991
10 Now a major component of the Construction and General Division of the Construction, Forestry, Mining, Maritime, and Energy Union (CFMMEU). 

     Smith, B. A. 2001b ‘Building Workers Industrial Union of Australia (ii) (1962 - 1991)’, Australian Trade Union Archives, [online document] accessed 16 May 2021. https://www.atua.org.au/biogs/ALE0316b.htm.
   Holland, P. and Jerrard, M. 2018 ‘Unions have a history of merging – that’s why the new ‘super union’ makes sense’, The Conversation, [online document] accessed 4 June 2021. https://theconversation.com/unions-have-a-history-of-merging-thats-why-the-new-super-union-makes-sense-93077.
11 These unions amalgamated to form the Maritime Union of Australia and are now the Maritime Division of the CFMMEU. 

     Smith, B. A. 2001c ‘Maritime Union of Australia (1993 - )’, Australian Trade Union Archives, [online document] accessed 16 May 2021. https://www.atua.org.au/biogs/ALE0595b.htm.
     Holland and Jerrard ibid.
12 Bentley, S. 2003 ‘The origins and politics of MUSAA’, Green Left Weekly, [online document] accessed 29 May 2021. https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/origins-and-politics-musaa.
     Strauss op cit.
13 Brown, T. 2004 ‘Silencing dissent to win consent: National training reform in the Accord years’, Labour & Industry, 15(1):33-51.
14 Now part of the Food and Confectionary Division of the AMWU. 

     Smith, B. A. 2001d ) ‘Confectionery Workers Union of Australia (1986 - 1992)’, Australian Trade Union Archives, [online document] accessed 16 May 2021. https://www.atua.org.au/biogs/ALE0379b.htm.
15 Now part of the Construction and General Division of the CFMMEU. 

     Smith, B. A. 2001e ‘Australian Building Construction Employees Builders Labourers Federation (ii) (1976 - 1986)’, Australian Trade Union Archives, [online document] accessed 16 May 2021. https://www.atua.org.au/biogs/ALE0134b.htm;

     Holland and Jerrard op cit.
16 Strauss op cit.
17 Stilwell op cit
     Wright op cit.
     Strauss op cit.
18 Stilwell op cit.
19 Peetz, D. 1998 Unions in a contrary world: The future of the Australian trade union movement, Cambridge University Press: Melbourne.
20 Buchanan, J. Oliver, D. and Briggs C. 2014 ‘Solidarity reconstructed: The impact of the Accord on relations within the Australian union movement’, Journal of Industrial Relations, 56(2):288–307.
21 Peetz op cit.
22 Ewer, P, Hampson, I, Lloyd, C, Rainford, J, Rix, S and Smith, M (1991) Politics and the Accord, Pluto Press: Leichhardt.
23 In 1988, the leadership of Confédération française démocratique du travail (CFDT - French Democratic Confederation of Labour) expelled workplace unions from the Confederation’s federations in health, post, and telecommunications over a series of wildcat strikes that the workplace unions had supported. These expelled workplace unions formed a new federation within Post France and France Telecom, the Solidarity, Unity Democracy PTT - which played a leading role in subsequent mass mobilisations in defence of employment conditions, pensions, and workplace rights within French society over the three decades. Their success led to further splits by the left-wing of CFDT particularly in transport, health, and government services. These make up the core of the Trade Union Solidaires which is one of the most militant and left-wing confederations within the French labour movement.  

     Damesin R. and Denis, J.-M. (2005) ‘SUD trade unions: The new organisations trying to conquer the French trade union scene’, Capital & Class, 86:17-37.

     Connolly, H. 2012 ‘Union renewal in France and Hyman’s universal dualism’, Capital & Class, 36(1):117–134.
24 Stilwell op cit.
     Wright op cit.
25 McKenzie, M. 2018 ‘The Erosion of Minimum Wage Policy in Australia and Labour’s Shrinking Share of Total Income’, Journal of Australian Political Economy, 81:52-77.
26 Lapavitsas, C. Kaltenbrunner, A. Labrinidis, G. Lindo, D. Meadway, J. Michell, J. Painceira, J. P. Pires, E. Powell, J. Stenfors, A. Teles, N. and Vatikotis, L. 2012 Crisis in the Eurozone, Verso: London.
27 Humprys, E. 2018 How Labour Built Neoliberalism: Australia’s Accord, the Labour Movement and the Neoliberal Project, Brill: Leiden.
     Stilwell op cit.
28 Peetz op cit.
     Peetz, D. and Australian National University, Centre for Economic Policy Research 1997 The Accord, compulsory unionism and the paradigm shift in Australian union membership, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Australian National University Canberra.
29 Peetz op cit.
     Hillier, B. 2020 ‘Sally McManus is a neoliberal’, Red Flag, [online document] accessed 23 May 2021. https://redflag.org.au/node/7340
     Harvey, D. 2005 A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford University Press: Oxford.
     Quiggin, J. 1999 ‘Globalisation, neoliberalism and inequality in Australia’, The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 10(2):240—59.
30 Mirowski, P (2013) Never let a serious crisis go to waste: How neoliberalism survived the financial meltdown, Verso: London.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This article is posted under copyleft, verbatim copying and distribution of the entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved. If you reprint this article please email me at revitalisinglabour@gmail.com to let me know.

Read more...

The limits of Modern Monetary Theory as a solution to neoliberalism

Lisbeth Latham

The application by some governments of quantitative easing (the printing of more money) in response to both the Global Financial Crisis and the economic crisis unleashed by the COVID Pandemic has helped to raise interest in the heterodox economics approach of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) as the appropriate approach economic development in countries such as Australia. While there are definitely important insights that can be drawn from MMT to inform appropriate budgetary responses, particularly in times of economic crisis, advocates of MMT tend to oversimplify the budgetary problems facing sovereign states during crisis, particularly those states which unlike Australia are not imperialist powers, even if a relatively weak one, and are instead in a dependent position within the global economy, but more importantly, mistakes where the real political struggle around budget priorities exist within the context of neoliberal politics.

MMT is a heterodox macroeconomic approach that focuses on the role of the government in the creation of money/currency and how, with the ending of the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1971 and the end of the convertibility of US dollars to gold, governments gained greater freedom in their monetary policy due to not being bound by the need to be able to honour their currency with gold.

Central to MMT is the idea that no government which is a sovereign issuer of its own currency can ever go bankrupt as they are able to create more money, and that doing so is preferable to a government borrowing money as it avoids the need to pay interest on such a debt. Some advocates of MMT argue that this glimpse of the true nature of the economy fundamentally unravels the core premise of neoliberal austerity which has seen the deprioritisation of spending public services across the globe.

However, the reason we have seen aggressive attempts globally to wind back social spending is not that the neoliberals genuinely believe there just isn’t enough money to spend on public services. Instead, neoliberal austerity is driven by a desire to transfer as much of the wealth being produced into the hands of capitalists, a process that is driving unprecedented levels of wealth concentration. Everything else is simply verbiage to prettify and obfuscate this drive to boost and concentrate profits. In this context, the answer of “printing more money” is still the question of “how do you maintain a sufficient level of profit growth to maintain the capitalist system?”. Shifting this priority will take a struggle against capital and its governments, and all too often MMT tends to push its advocates away from this conclusion into a tangential argument about whether there is genuinely a limit to the money supply.

By shifting the terms of debate to the question of “is there a limit to money”, advocates accept what are really false arguments of capital and their representatives in government as having been given in good faith. While the neoliberal drive has relied heavily on the appearance of a lack of alternative choices, Thatcher’s insistence that “There is No Alternative” being one of the greatest examples, the reality is that in the midst of arguing for the need for surplus budgets, most advanced capitalist countries have happily racked up deficits but at the same time they have been shifting spending priorities, so simply arguing “there are no limits to the spending” is unlikely to address the reality that these governments want to prioritise spending on subsidising business profits rather than on social spending.

This reality can be seen in the examples which MMT advocates point to as proving their point. For many MMTers the increase in government spending, as if from nowhere, in response to the COVID pandemic and in response to the Global Financial Crisis of the late 2000s, is evidence of the truth and power of MMT as a solution. Whilst this does show that governments can spend more, we need to also recognise that spending has also primarily been focused not on meeting the needs of the general population but on maintaining company profits and avoiding mass defaults - indeed the US government’s bailout of US automakers was tied to workers accepting cuts in their working conditions. Moreover, this spending has not been sustained, not because it “cannot be”, instead it has been intentionally wound back and the previous rounds of spending used as a justification of future austerity. This is not to say that the creation of money cannot be a solution to government finances. However, it does highlight that it is necessary to see the questions of how much money the state spends and on what as being primarily political.

Related to this problem is a tendency of MMT advocates to dismiss the question of taxing the rich as not important, as the government can meet its budgetary needs via money creation, and thus from an MMT perspective taxation only really plays a role in the currency circulation which can include, if a government so chooses, wealth redistribution via social spending. There are a number of problems with these positions. It tends to detach money from the real economy and part of the reason we are seeing unprecedented levels of market capitalisation and accompanying individual concentrations of wealth, is that money is not circulating and is instead being drawn from the real economy into speculation in the stock market. More importantly, there is a tendency to reduce the question challenging the concentration of wealth to an at best secondary question - when in reality it should be the primary one of moving to a point of contestation as to who should control the means of production and not just the means of creating money. This problem is highlighted by John Christensen and Nicholas Shaxson regarding how to respond to the massive tax avoidance highlighted in the Panama Papers. “To illustrate this clash, take the words of UK Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell during the Panama Papers tax haven scandal that “every pound avoided in tax by the super-rich is a pound desperately needed by our National Health Service, our schools and our caring services.” We’d strongly agree with this statement — though Bill Mitchell, a prominent MMT economist, attacked it as a “dangerous and misguided narrative for progressives to engage in,” because it “fuels damaging myths” about how the tax and spending system works”.

An easy and ready dismissal of MMT is that its application would simply result in a repetition of the hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic in the early 1920s or Zimbabwe in the late 2000s. However, as Mitchell and Fazi point out there were other factors at play here that triggered hyperinflation most notably disruptions in the supply of goods, not simply the creation of additional money, moreover, they point the example of the creation of additional currency during in Germany between 1933 and 1937, which enabled the Nazi government to rebuild the German economy.

The MMT discussion of the potential risk of inflation, which partly relies on the accurate assertion that creating more money will be no more inflationary than any other stimulus effort such as borrowing more money. They tend to treat the impact of increased money supply in the economy as not just felt via inflationary pressures within a national economy - because most economies are in trade relationships with other economies, changes in volume on money can impact on exchange rates which in turn impacts on trade in those goods being sold internationally will experience a reduction in price on international markets, whilst imported goods will cost more. This can be beneficial to both exporters and manufacturers reliant primarily or exclusively on internal markets - as with the falling value of the currency both become more competitive - if it goes too far it can cause considerable dislocation in the internal economy of a country.

Moreover, if we accept that hyperinflation is a potential problem, even if not primarily driven by the creation of money, then we have to also recognise that MMT’s focus on money as being the solution to modern problems of the economy - particularly where shortages are caused not by a lack of money, but a lack of goods - which we have begun to see during the COVID pandemic due to dramatic shifts in consumption patterns of certain goods, most notably personal protective equipment and vaccines, and as a result of disruption in manufacturing and supply chains due to the virus and accidents such as the blocking of the Suez Canal in March by the Ever Given.

In these circumstances simply creating more money or giving more money to people will not solve these supply issues, indeed it will potentially exacerbate the problems and give rise to Inflation at least in part of, if not the whole of the economy.

While MMT focuses on the ability of governments to simply create money in order to overcome problems with either needing to stimulate the economy or to enable necessary and vital government programmes. These are not the only challenges facing the global economy. Moreover, by articulating an almost evangelical view of having unlocked the secrets of the economy its advocates tend to forget that primarily the issue of spending and consumption in national and international economies are not primarily driven by economics, but instead by politics - with economics being a justifier for political positions.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

This article is posted under copyleft, verbatim copying and distribution of the entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved. If you reprint this article please email me at revitalisinglabour@gmail.com to let me know.

Read more...

Naked class war will continue post the pandemic, but it is not a break with neoliberalism

Lisbeth Latham 

The current crisis is sparking significant discussion about policy direction for our societies coming out of the pandemic. Zack Brestin’s article is an important contribution to that debate. While I agree that neoliberalism has been demonstrated to be a failed system and that we can expect to see an intensification of naked class warfare, however, I think it is a mistake to believe that we will see a break with neoliberalism is mistaken. What we are likely to see, unless working and oppressed people are able to resist it, is a deepening of the logic of neoliberalism rather than a break with it.

Neoliberalism has been the hegemonic economic and political outlook in the world for more than 40 years. However, defining neoliberalism is extremely difficult. This is for a range of reasons:

• Its proponents largely deny that it actually exists;
• It is so hegemonic that it articulates itself in numerous ways has it has permeated through a range of different political traditions on both the left and the right;
• One of the mechanisms for its hegemonic position is that it subverts and destabilises other outlooks rather than necessarily articulating a consistent position - a primary avenue for this is through what a number of authors have referred to as the neoliberal thought collective.

Having said this there are a number of features that can be associated with neoliberal positions, these include:

• Facilitating the free movement of capital by removing barriers to capital investment and shattering trade barriers;
• Increasing barriers to the movement of workers, which results in increasingly constrained rights and marginalisation for migrant workers;
• Prying open more aspects of social life for capital investment;
• Reduction in government social spending primarily premised on the justification of the need to rein in deficits;
• Increase in subsidisation of capital either directly or indirectly via the opening government services to capitalist competition;

Unfortunately, all indications are that these features will be deepened in the wake of the current crisis, just like they were in response to the Global Financial Crisis, and just as they have been after every crisis of the neoliberal era.

Why is this? I think we have to explore two aspects of neoliberalism, the first is that it is a response to the deep-seated and long-run economic crisis the global capitalist economy caused by the overaccumulation of capital which has resulted in capital finding it increasingly difficult to profitably invest outside of seeking to commodify all aspects of social life, redirect social spending into boosting profits and via the increasing financialisation and securitisation of the economy. However, these responses can only provide short-term relief to the problems that it is trying to address and has the tendency then to exacerbate the underlying crisis because it has both eliminated existing protections against crisis - such as the serious problem caused in the current pandemic by so many workers having little or no effective sick leave, resulting in workers with symptoms faced with the stark choice of attending work sick (and potentially infecting co-workers and by extension their families) - and that it has spread the direct impact of the economic crisis into more and more parts of the economy.

In response to both the failure of neoliberalism to avert crisis and the tendency to exacerbate crisis - while you would expect this to result in the death knell of the orientation, has repeatedly in crisis after crisis in the advocates of neoliberalism successfully enforcing prescriptions of the deepening of neoliberalism in the economy.

While this may seem both counterintuitive and running against the developments in the current crisis - with many advanced capitalist countries seeing government responses that have included the expansion of welfare payments, subsidisation of the payrolls of qualifying companies, and taken over privatised hospitals to meet the needs of responding to the pandemic. The reality is that many of these actions were taken late and begrudgingly, with many of the neoliberal governments which have introduced these frameworks already rolling back these programs despite the crisis being far from over. Neoliberal spokespeople both within and outside of government arguing that post-pandemic recovery will require a deepening of the deregulations of labour markets and privatisation, and the winding back of social spending to pay for the debt built up in responding to the crisis, that is, the shifting of the social cost the crisis onto working people in order to defend and prop up capitalist profits. This push is not inevitable, but resistance by working people in the current period is going to be difficult but as the struggles that are breaking out internationally in response to the crisis, it is possible.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This article is posted under copyleft, verbatim copying and distribution of the entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved. If you reprint this article please email me at revitalisinglabour@gmail.com to let me know.

Read more...

Buenos Aires Teachers Strike Against Face-to-Face Teaching During COVID Second Wave

Lisbeth Latham

Teachers in public schools across Buenos Aires have been on strike since April 19 following a decision by the city government to oppose a ban on face-to-face learning as part of a national lock-down. Education unions argue that the city’s decision, made in the midst of a new COVID outbreak and despite a federal decree to close schools and transition to remote learning, unnecessarily increases the risk of contracting and spreading the disease.

Since the start of the pandemic, Argentina has been hit hard by the pandemic with almost 3 million people infected and more than 60 thousand deaths. From the outset, there has been ongoing tension between Buenos Aires city government and the federal government over how to respond to the pandemic crisis - with the pro-business Horacio Rodríguez Larreta and his allies opposing policies aimed at limiting the spread of infection but which they, like other neoliberals globally, argued undermined the economy.

In the wake of the new wave of infections, President Fernandez’s government issued a Decree of Necessity and Urgency which included a national lockdown including the closure of schools until the end of April - on April 30 it was extended until May 21. On announcing the extension of the lockdowns and curfews across the country Fernandez said “The measures against the pandemic are strictly to save lives. The rules we put in place must be complied with equally by all". The lockdown is aimed at limiting new infections which were running at record highs particularly amongst those under 18-years of age. The Buenos Aires municipal government responded with a court case to block the decree in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area - however, the court has not yet made a final decision, however, the city government has attempted to keep public schools in the city open. The opposition Juntos por el Cambio coalition within the federal parliament is also expected to launch their own court challenge against the lockdowns.

In response education unions in middle and higher education called strikes beginning April 19, with strikes having been renewed as the government has failed to respond. The strikes which have seen 90% of students and teachers not attend for face-to-face classes have been justified by the unions as necessary public health measures to protect not just students and teachers but of the lives of all those in the metropolitan area. With the Confederación de Trabajadores de la Educación de la República Argentina (Confederation of Education Workers of the Argentine Republic - Ctera) arguing the strikes are a defence of health and life and are necessary as:

• the Buenos Aires health system is close to collapsing because new strains impact children the most.
• the Buenos Aires government didn't condition schools to prevent the spread of the virus.
• children, IF THEY USE public transportation to go to school this increases the risk of contagion.
• Larreta isn't vaccinating teachers and non-teachers to prevent the disease.
• in Uruguay, Britain, Chile, Israel, Italy closed schools to reduce cases and it worked.
• we want to stop coronavirus from taking more lives.

The strain on Argentina’s health care system is reflected by there being more than 5,300 people currently receiving intensive care for coronavirus complications, COVID patients occupying 68.4 per cent of beds available nationally, and 76.6 per cent in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area.

In a statement released on May Day, the Ctera said “with masses of teachers, families and students, we have been fighting against the lies and misleading advertisements with which Larreta intends to continue to use education in a political campaign at the expense of the health and lives of the citizens of the City.

In addition to calling for the municipal government to abide by the closure of schools, the union is also calling for a continuation of the vaccination program, particularly in schools, and for urgent steps to be taken to ensure that all students have access to computers and the internet to allow virtual teaching during the lockdown.

The statement ended “Despite the pressure and the discounts on our salary, we will carry on convinced that our fight saves lives.”

Ctera is part of Union de trabajadores de la educación (Union of Education Workers), one of the Argentinian affiliates of Education International. Ctera has established a Solidarity Fund in Defence of Health and Life to support striking teachers.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This article is posted under copyleft, verbatim copying and distribution of the entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved. If you reprint this article please email me at revitalisinglabour@gmail.com to let me know.

Read more...

France: Workers and students occupy theatres to demand the reopening of the cultural sector

Protest outside the occupied Odeon Theatre

Lisbeth Latham

On March 4, workers and students within France’s cultural sector began occupying the Theatre Odeon in Paris as part of protests aimed at increasing government support for the sector in the face of the economic impact of the COVID pandemic. Since March 4 the occupations have spread and there are now over theatres across France that have been occupied. The movement is an important development within the French labour movement’s response to the current crisis and follows the central role played by workers at the Paris Opera played during the 2019-2020 movement to defend pensions.

Striking Ballerinas perform Swan Lake December 2019

Like in most countries the COVID pandemic has caused considerable disruption to the French economy. In response to the crisis, the French government has sought to support the wages of workers (albeit those workers who have had their hours reduced only have up to 60% of their incomes protected) and the capacity of companies to survive even if they were no longer able to operate - this has included making available government-backed financing. All aid to business is tied to a restriction on these companies not paying either bonuses or dividends for a period they receive the support.

At the same time as businesses have been supported, France’s cultural sector has been repeatedly ignored and abandoned by the Macron government. While workers have had access to wage subsidies museums and theatres were not initially provided with the same support as other businesses, and despite widespread planning regarding how to safely reopen in the context COVID, have been largely ignored in government planning for reopening following the end of France’s second national lockdown in December, with the exception of bookshops and small private galleries, which have been treated by the government as shops rather than cultural spaces in planning.

This abandonment of France’s cultural sector. Which has been so central to French identity for the past century. Has caused considerable anger in France not just because of the immediate and potential long term impact on the affected spaces, but also the potential weakening for French culture in face of globalising cultural imperialism emanating particularly from the US. With fears that France’s efforts to protect the French language and cultural products, which itself is part of the French imperialist project in francophone countries that remain from France and Belgium’s former colonial empires, and its cultural and economic hegemony over these neo-colonies. While this tension between the maintenance of French identity and its own cultural imperialism means that the process is not unproblematic the destruction of the French cultural sector would be a significant loss to the diversity of cultural production globally and a disaster for the workers within the French cultural sector.

The tensions within this space have been reflected in a number of protests, most notably an impromptu performance by cellist Gautier Capuçon in a supermarket to highlight the difference in restrictions operating in theatres and other spaces as compared to commercial spaces. While these differences can be justified on the basis of what constitutes an “essential service” it also demonstrates significant anger at the abandonment of the cultural sector and its workers.

On March 4 protests were held across France. In Paris, the protests culminated in the occupation of the Odeon Theatre by workers and students, particularly the General Confederation of Labour’s (CGT) cultural worker federations the Syndicat Français des Artistes Interprètes (French Performers Union - CGT-SFA), Fédération nationale des syndicats du spectacle de l'audiovisuel et de l'action culturelle (National Federation of Audiovisual and Cultural Action Unions - CGT-Spectacle) and Syndicat National des Professionnels du Théâtre et des Activités Culturelles (National Union of Theater and Cultural Activities Professionals - SYNPTAC-CGT).

On March 4 protests occurred in France calling for the reopening of Cultural Spaces. In Paris, students entered the Odeon Theatre. Since March 4, the occupation movement has spread, by March 14 occupations had spread to 30 cultural buildings across France.

Map of occupied theatres source:@occupationodeon

In response, Roselyne Bachelat, Minister of Culture, announced that the government announced that it would be making €20 million available to support the cultural sector. However, this package is totally inadequate to meet the challenges facing the sector and is dwarfed by the support provided to companies in other sectors by the government. At the same time, Bachelat has sought to delegitimise the movement, arguing that the occupations posed a physical threat to the buildings - many of which are historic sites.

The CGT-SFA has rejected these claims issuing a statement on March 17 stating:

“Madame Bachelot, we are not rambunctious children whom you can publicly lecture for what you seem to consider to be a whim on our part. We demand a minimum of respect, even though for many months we, performers, workers in the performing arts, have been considered non-essential to the life of the country. Our struggle, far from giving our jobs a bad image, on the contrary, gives us back our dignity.

 

If the actions we are taking disturb you Madame Minister, know that this is precisely the goal we are looking for, and as long as we have not obtained satisfaction with the demands that we are making, we will continue”.

Moreover, the occupations have been supported by the managements of the occupied buildings, an example being David Bobée, director of the Théâtre du Nord in Lille, who reported by Radio France Internationale on March 15, as expressing his “complete and total support to this new mobilisation” which he described and an appeal to “revive the performing arts as quickly as possible”.

The CGT-SFA, SYNPTAC-CGT, CGT-Spectacle and SUD Culture, the cultural worker federation of the Solidaires union confederation, in prosecuting their campaign to reopen cultural buildings not simply by advocating on behalf of cultural workers, but by linking this struggle with the broader efforts in France to opposed attacks by President Macron and the Castex government on the rights of all French workers.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This article is posted under copyleft, verbatim copying and distribution of the entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved. If you reprint this article please email me at revitalisinglabour@gmail.com to let me know.

Read more...

How the Neoliberal Thought Collective uses "feminist" language to defend misogyny

Lisbeth Latham

Other the past months federal politics has seen the airing of a series of allegations of inappropriate behaviour and outright sexual assault against Morrison government ministers and staffers. These allegations have caused understandable anger amongst wide sections of society, most particularly women - highlighted by the Marchs 4 Justice on March 14 and 15 in numerous cities and towns. In response government ministers and their supporters and defenders in the media have relied on dubious legalistic arguments based on spurious legalism and denials of misogyny. Much of the responses to these defences have tended to see these arguments as reflecting a lack of understanding of concerns and/or poor leadership on the part of Morrison. However, these interpretations tend to make the mistake of seeing the statements and arguments coming from the government and its support networks as being genuine, if ill informed or mistaken. I would argue that instead these arguments are not at all genuine, but are instead of a conscious destablisation and misinformation campaign being conducted by sections of the neoliberal thought collective within Australia to buttress and defend the government and if we are to respond effectively to the current crisis we must accept this reality that significant sections of the media are not good faith actors.

Capitalism as a system is a highly unstable system, it has a tendency toward crisis and contains within it a significant number of contradictions which further this instability. At the same time, despite predictions of inevitable limits and the possibility of collapse, it has demonstrated itself to be an remarkably resilient and flexible system that has been able to adapt to, absorb, neutralise, and eliminate potential threats. Central aspect to this resilience has been the capacity of capitalism and its supporters/beneficiaries to construct a cultural hegemony in support of the system which works to normalise and integrate, and where necessary, smash threats to the system. Within late capitalism, as neoliberalism has become the hegemonic response to capitalist crisis and contradiction this hegemony, particularly amongst ordinary people, has been increasingly been buttressed by the neoliberal thought collective(s).

The concept of a neoliberal thought collective, developed by a range of theorists of neoliberalism such as Philip Mirowski and Dieter Plehwe, refers to the networks of neoliberal idealogues and promoters that exist within and move between academia, think tanks, and media. During the early period of neoliberal thought, when it represented a marginal approach seeking to overturn the dominant social democratic and liberal responses to capitalist crisis, served to help spread ideas and promote the legitimacy of neoliberalism as a response to capitalist response - however has it has emerged as the dominant system the NTC not only promotes neoliberal responses to crisis within its own networks and more broadly, but seeks to defend it’s system by destabilising and undermining alternative approaches - most succinctly articulated in Thatcher’s maxim “There Is No Alternative” in this way demonstrating, as Steven Lukes has suggested, that an important aspect power is the ability to limit possible policy options which are available. Central to the approach of the NTC is to deligitimise alternative perspectives and approaches by co-opting and misusing the language and ideas of its opponents, effectively neutralising by creating confusion as to what these positions actually represent and are arguing.

As mass anger at the allegations against Christian Porter and Liberal staffers - and the acts by the government to protect them rather than hold them to account has increased we have seen a new wave of defences being articulated based a superficially feminist basis - which appears as an apparent break from the attempts at rape apologism and victim initially mobilised by the government and its supporters - most notably Peter van Onselen. This is best reflected in a number of opinion pieces by fairfax columnist Parnell Palme McGuinness titled “Boomer feminism is not what we need at this transformational moment” and “Scott Morrison is not a misogynist, what lacks is a female inner circle” which follow an November 2020 piece “Please, not in the name of feminism:Expose of ministers’ private lives”. In these pieces McGuinness attempts to exploit and mobilise existing divisions within the Australian feminist movement, most notably between older second wave feminists and feminists who have emerged and been influenced by feminisms third and fourth wave.

The significance of these articles is not the actual arguments contained within them, which are dubious and disingenuous, but they way they have sought to mobilise feminist language in justifying a defence of Porter and Morrison. Whilst these articles have been widely seen as bad articles with weak arguments, in drawing responses and shifting debate onto the their spurious arguments the articles work in both shifting the debate away from what to do about an attorney general who is faces credible allegations of rape and a governmetn which defends him to the validity of McGuinness’s argument and adds to the general divisions which exist within the current movement.

It is necessary to simply reject outright any attempt to distract from the seriousness of sexual assault within our community and the failures of institutions to address this violence. At the same time it is vital that we recognise that the only way to move the movement forward and achieve real change is to support the mobilisation of survivors and their supporters with the aim of making attempts to ignore the movement and continue as normal are simply impossible.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

This article is posted under copyleft, verbatim copying and distribution of the entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved. If you reprint this article please email me at revitalisinglabour@gmail.com to let me know.

Read more...