Health and Safety Representatives have a very important role in the workplace – representing members of their DWG, who elected them to this position in all matters related to occupational health and safety. Their role is to take issues up to the employer to get them resolved. They also have a role in monitoring the employer’s compliance with their duties under the OHS legislation. The OHS Act gives them rights and powers to assist them in doing this. These include the right to training so HSRs have an understanding of the law. Sometimes, though, there can be some confusion when it comes to certain obligations. Here’s a recent, vaccination-related, example.

Zane Alcorn, rank and file member of the CFMMEU, constriction division.

How long have you been a union member?

I’ve been a member of the CFMEU for about 6 years and was a member of MEAA and LHMU prior to that. So on and off for about 13 years. Prior to that I was involved in the student union at Newcastle uni and I was elected enviro officer at one point.

Why did you join the union?

Back around 2006 or so I went to a May Day film screening by Green Left in Newcastle and watched “Rocking the Foundations”. Here we go, what’s this boring black and white video these crusty old socialists want to show us, I thought.

I am a rank and file CFMMEU Construction Division member (hereafter CFMEU) and have prepared this report for the Workers Solidarity Bulletin as part of the collective process of CFMEU members -and all unionists and progressives - grappling with the violent attack on CFMEU staff and officials on September 20. My hope is to contribute to an analysis of why the attacks occurred, and how to confront the forces behind the attack. It is not my intention to use this opportunity to attack the CFMEU leadership.

Other writers have analysed the extent to which the protest of September 20 was composed of actual CFMEU members combined with reactionary, far right and neo fascist elements. Regardless of the exact proportions of who was in attendance and regardless of criticisms that one may have of certain actions the union leadership has or has not taken in recent years, physically attacking and seeking to violently intimidate elected officials and union staff, and laying siege to and trashing the CFMEU office, is absolutely unacceptable and abhorrent. At the time of writing it has become evident that in addition to being physically attacked, several CFMEU officials and staff were also infected with Covid-19 by the mostly unmasked crowd on September 20.

Michelle Reeves, rank and file member of the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU)

How long have you been a union member?

A long time! Joined at 16 at my first workplace with a union presence.

Why did you join the union?

When I was 16, I was lucky enough to be working in a unionised industry!  Most of my team were in the union, had union stickers on their desks, and pamphlets about joining in the break room. Union presence was high, and most workplace matters were discussed through a unionist lens.

The Maritime Union and tug workers at ports across Australia are locked in battle with the country’s largest towage operator, Svitzer, in industrial action to protect their hard-won working conditions in the face of Svitzer’s sabotage of enterprise bargaining talks and in addition, their sacking of 18 tug workers at Geelong.

In our last edition, we brought you an interview with Aran Mylvaganam from the Tamil Refugee Council, about the Murugappan Tamil family’s plight to return to Biloela. In this edition, we report on how the police respond to peaceful pro-refugee protesters.

On Friday 25 June, Victoria Police and their Public Order Response Team (PORT) aggressively intimidated peaceful protesters who had been protesting the imprisonment of the asylum seeker men being held prisoner in the Park Hotel in central Melbourne. After rallying outside the Park Hotel on Swanston St, Parkville on Friday evening in a protest organised by the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism, the protesters marched down to Trades Hall on the corner of Victoria St & Lygon St. The police accompanied them on their way down to the Hall, blocking incoming traffic with their vehicles and then formed up to prevent them entering Victoria St when they reached Trades Hall.

Felicity, rank and file member of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation

How long have you been a union member?

9 years.

Why did you join the union?

I joined the ANMF because they provide professional indemnity insurance which was a requirement to start nursing. The ANMF has been a great resource and always available to answer queries about pay or conditions.

The Murugappan family is a Tamil family facing deportation under successive Liberal and Labor Governments’ cruel and racist immigration policies. The family was first taken into detention in March 2018, then moved to Christmas Island in August 2019, after a last-minute court injunction blocked their deportation to Sri Lanka. They lost their attempts to gain refugee status in Australia in May 2019 when the High Court refused to let them appeal against a deportation decision. The Federal Court later decided Tharnicaa, the younger daughter, had been denied procedural fairness, prolonging the family’s legal fight with the government. When Tharnicaa became ill with Sepsis, she was evacuated off Christmas Island and brought to Perth, where now she and the whole family have been united, but remain in community detention.

Workers’ Solidarity’s Jiselle Hanna and Pier Moro interviewed Aran Mylvaganam, from the Tamil Refugee Council.

Olly, delegate at the Australian Services Union VicTas

How long have you been a union member?

Since my first job as a teenager.

Why did you join the union?

Working class people are the overwhelming majority of society. We do all the work, we produce all wealth, and we should run things ourselves. The only way to do this is to come together with our fellow workers and organise – to win better wages and working conditions today, and to build towards a world where we control our own workplaces and run them democratically in the interests of everyone, not just for profit.

On 10 May Israel Defence Forces’ began mass bombardment of the Gaza Strip, in retaliation for Hamas and other groups’ rocket fire towards Israel.

This new chapter in the Palestinians’ struggle began on 6 May in Sheikh Jarrah, a Palestinian neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem. Six Palestinian families who have lived in Sheikh Jarrah for decades are under imminent threat of eviction from their homes which are to be annexed by Israeli-Jewish settlers, who routinely subject them to harassment and violence. Israel’s Supreme Court was to decide on confiscating the homes under Israeli occupation law in early May. On 6 May, hundreds of Palestinians filled the streets in Sheikh Jarrah to protest the evictions and were met with brutal violence from settlers and Israeli security forces who stormed the nearby al-Aqsa Mosque during prayers a day later. The Palestinians’ mass defiance forced Israel’s Attorney-General to intervene and delay the Supreme Court’s ruling.