Hope on the picket line
It’s a sight for sore eyes.
For the past two weeks, a news cycle usually dominated by trivia, tragedy and paid talking heads has featured an unusual sight: striking workers. The people whose labour makes society function, who are most of the time ignored and invisible, are walking out of their workplaces, into the streets and onto the nightly news.
There have been construction workers in Brisbane and nurses in New South Wales taking action. But, more than anyone else, it’s the 1,800 warehouse workers striking in Victoria and NSW who have pushed working conditions, corporate greed—and, crucially, workers’ power—onto the political agenda. Organised by the United Workers Union, these workers have seriously disrupted the super-profitable “business as usual” of Woolworths supermarkets—one of the biggest, most ruthless, and fiercely hated companies in the country.
Two weeks into the strike, the outcome still hangs in the balance. But win lose or draw, the warehouse workers’ strike is likely to be the most significant industrial dispute in Australia this year. As Red Flag has argued, every worker in the country has a stake in its outcome.
Perhaps the most powerful moment of the strike so far came on Monday 2 December. Up until that point, management’s policy seemed to be one of sucking the energy and momentum out of the dispute. Management locked the gates of the strikebound facilities on day one, ramped up alternative supply chains, harassed workers by phone and text, and waited for demoralisation to set in. But faced with significant and growing gaps in supermarkets, and gaping holes in the stock at Dan Murphys, management decided to take a chance.
On Sunday 1 December, Woolworths CEO Amanda Bardwell put out a statement claiming that only a minority of workers at the giant Melbourne South Regional Distribution Centre in Dandenong South were union members; that the vast majority of workers were keen to scab on the strike; that management had reached a deal with the Shop Distributive and Allied union (which is notorious for undercutting other unions, and even legal minimums, in their enterprise agreements); and that as a result, full production would resume at South Dandenong from 6am Monday morning.
Anyone aware of Woolworths management’s commercial practices, such as allegedly lying about their own prices, will not be surprised to learn that this statement was, to put it mildly, a little shy of the truth. Out of slightly more than 300 workers at the Dandenong centre, the UWU have a membership of more than 240 (and growing). The SDA, by contrast, have seven members at the facility. Unsurprisingly, Bardwell’s statement neglected to mention this relevant fact.
Perhaps Bardwell and team believed their own bullshit. Perhaps they thought that one day of transparent PR spin would be enough to demoralise the workers and their supporters. If so, management were in for a shock. By 5am on Monday, a crowd of around 100 workers and more than 200 community supporters—a large number of them mobilised by Victorian Socialists—were assembled, ready to turn back any scabs.
An hour passed. Then another. And then another.
Spirits were high on the picket as workers, students and well-wishers chatted, chanted, and practiced our picket drills. Rumour was that the would-be strike breakers had been put on a bus, then taken off, then put back on, then taken off.
It wasn’t until 12 hours after management’s supposed start time that a tiny crew of would-be scabs turned up, only to be turned away from the facility with no great drama. Management’s grand reopening turned out to be just another Woolworths fake news story.
As word of the victory spread, workers on other pickets celebrated. Rhys, a worker at the Erskine Park distribution centre in Sydney, told Red Flag, “Hearing about this big Melbourne story on Monday. They [management] failed, you know, this morning they failed. And today they’re trying to get an injunction through Fair Work to open that site. And it just makes you laugh. You know, it’s not scary. It’s just funny.”
Workers mercilessly mocking their management as the company flail around looking for a way to neutralise worker power and worker solidarity, is an unparalleled, and much too rare, joy.
Of course, the future is unwritten and so far, though the company has moved on some issues, the strikers are yet to fully win their main demands. It’s encouraging though that some heavy artillery of the union movement is taking an interest, with the Victorian Building Industry Group of unions declaring that they will support the striking warehouse workers “industrially, politically, and financially until these workers win this dispute”. But with pressure increasing on all sides, it’s impossible to tell how the dispute will resolve.
Even at this stage though, the strike—as with any serious dispute—has shone a revealing light on politics and society.
Predictably, the Liberals, though willing to mouth off once in a while about a “big stick” approach to taking on the big supermarket companies, have not uttered a single word to support the people actually taking on these same companies—the striking workers.
Labor politicians have barely been more visible, with Cabinet ministers’ reported comments falling well short of any actual support for the workers’ demands. The Victorian Greens have finally crept out of witness protection on the issue, posting two Instagram reels in support of the strike in the past day or so.
By far the most prominent political party supporting the strike has been Victorian Socialists. The party’s support extends not just to social media posts, but to party members and supporters doing one of the most important things in politics: turning up. The Melbourne Age (in a rare sympathetic report) noted the presence of many VS supporters at Monday’s early morning picket:
“Activist and Victorian Socialists federal Senate candidate Jordan van den Lamb—known as purplepingers online—issued a call-out to followers on social media on Sunday, urging them to attend Monday’s action in Dandenong South. Party member Ryan Stanton said activists, students and trade union members were among those who turned out with the party to support Monday’s protest. ‘Woolworths is one of the main drivers behind the cost-of-living crisis,’ Stanton said. ‘They’ve been price gouging...but what a lot of people don’t know is that they’re also doing their best to make working lives harder for the workers who actually pick the stock that goes to the stores.’”
It’s no surprise that socialists, for whom workers’ struggles are at the centre of social change and the vision of a new world, are also some of the most active supporters of those struggles when they erupt.
But the strike reveals much more than the real values of political parties. Like any major dispute, the strike makes it obvious who does all the goddam work around here—and who doesn’t. Without workers’ labour, it turns out, none of us have toilet paper, pasta, frozen goods, chilled goods, beer—or anything else. Anyone who doubts this can wander through one of hundreds of Woolworths supermarkets or liquor stores in Australia’s most populous states. The strike shows anyone who cares to look that even in this automated age, workers and our labour underpin everything.
What a contrast to Woolworths management.
Throughout the strike, Bardwell and her extensive team of executives, HR goons, lawyers and spin doctors are no doubt working as hard as they ever do. The stream of dishonest press releases, legal threats and fake-welfare harassing phone calls to striking workers is testament to that. But nothing at all of any value to human beings results. The billable hours rack up, but not one extra roll of toilet paper gets to the stores.
To put it plainly: this layer of CEOs and executives and their well-paid flunkies is parasitical. They contribute nothing of value to society, but feed off the rest of us. In even simpler terms: they need us, but we don’t need them.
The Brad Banduccis, the Amanda Bardwells and their bought-and-sold servants in politics and the media can wander around as if they’re the most important people on the planet. A major strike, however, makes it abundantly clear whose labour really matters—and who would have nothing without it.
The essential nature of the work millions of workers do every day, to society and to the capitalists’ profit-based “business as usual” set-up, gives workers enormous power. But it’s obvious that this power can only be exercised collectively.
This mundane fact has important consequences. Any strike points in the direction of solidarity and collective action, and an ethos directly at odds with the dog-eat-dog individualism fostered by the system. Even a quick look at the scope of the warehouse strike, and its demands, shows this.
Everyone on strike knows that warehouses commonly shut after 20 years, sometimes more, sometimes less. Each time this happens, Australia’s current system of enterprise-by-enterprise bargaining (introduced by Labor in the early 1990s) allows a company like Woolworths to set up a new shelf company, and dictate a new enterprise agreement on favourable terms. The gains won by previous rounds of struggle are largely wiped out, and workers in the new facility (many of whom have come from an older facility) have to start on lower pay.
This is why one of the strike’s main demands is for a national agreement or at least for a series of nationally applied minimums, which Woolworths has to meet for existing and new sections of its supply chain. A minimum pay rate of $38 per hour is one key part of this.
In other words, each of the Woolworths strikers knows that the only way to secure their own long-term interests in having decent wages, is by fighting for many thousands of workers they have never met to get a minimum pay rate of $38 an hour. A secure victory for one, it turns out, can only be achieved by a victory for all.
Not just the demands of the strike, but also its scope, show the same dynamic of expanding solidarity. If one warehouse goes on strike, it’s a major hassle for Woolworths management. But this impact is multiplied, and multiplied again, with each warehouse that joins in the action.
This is why the elected officials, organisers, delegates and members of the UWU have put years of effort into lining up the expiry dates of the enterprise agreements covering the distribution networks of the major supermarkets. “United we stand, divided we fall” is not just a pleasant-sounding slogan. It reflects a class logic: the logic of working-class people in struggle for their own interests is to fight in ever-widening circles of solidarity.
And this logic intensifies once the actual strike starts. Ask a striking worker about their experience of the strike. You’ll get an answer about how great it is to see and feel their own power in the flow-on effects from their strike. You’ll get an answer about the joy of forming a bond with people who share the same workplace and the same task but who have never had a chance to meet and talk, let alone establish a connection in common struggle.
And you’ll get an answer about overcoming the sort of “divide and conquer” between shifts and job roles that management thrives on and promotes. Rhys, one of the strikers at Sydney’s Erskine Park distribution centre, explained to Red Flag how significant it is to see one of the main divisions in the shed—between day shift and afternoon—simply dissolve during the strike. “To see how together we are, it’s like it’s not two shifts, there’s just one shift” he said, “There’s just one way out—and it’s great to see that it’s everyone supporting everyone”.
This logic of working-class struggle, the logic of “everyone supporting everyone”, can extend beyond shifts, and beyond sheds. Far beyond, in fact.
One of the most generous and moving acts of solidarity with the warehouse strikers comes from refugees, a group of people who have been vilified and demonised in Australia for decades. A large group of refugees recently held an epic 100-day protest camp outside the Department of Home Affairs in Melbourne’s Docklands area, demanding the dignity and security that Labor promised them ahead of the 2022 election.
This extraordinary protest received invaluable support from the UWU, whose Victorian office is located nearby. Many of the refugees involved are now returning that solidarity in the most practical way imaginable: by assisting the strike kitchen. As the refugees explain on their Facebook page:
“Striking workers are heroes. They challenge the divisions created by bosses and prove that unity can overcome the barriers keeping us apart. Their struggle inspires us all to fight for a more equal and just society. In solidarity with these workers, Rathy and Maki have decided to start a Strike Kitchen called Meals for Equality. Starting Monday, they will prepare meals for the striking workers, showing that refugees and migrants stand united with the workers. When politicians like Dutton and Albo blame refugees and migrants for problems they created, we must counter this divisive narrative.”
This is not just a gift to the striking workers. It’s a concrete example of solidarity that in months and years to come we can throw back in the face of anyone who buys into the lie that migrants and refugees are a threat to workers in this country. This example proves the exact opposite: while one of the biggest companies in the country was trying to starve and bully striking workers back to work, refugees were on the pickets, helping to keep the strikers fed.
This sort of industrial action, and the solidarity it inspires, is far too rare in Australia today. In the 1970s, Australian workers had one of the highest strike rates in the world. Millions of workers struck to win decent wages and conditions, and an important minority of militant, political unionists led industrial campaigns to support other workers, to preserve low-cost housing, to win equal rights for women, against the Vietnam War, for Aboriginal Land Rights and against Apartheid in South Africa.
This tradition of industrial action was deliberately broken by the Labor governments of the 1980s. The result of this defeat has been the decline in union density and living standards. Along with that, the low level of strikes had led to a breakdown in the sense of solidarity and common interest on display at the picket lines outside distribution centres right now.
It is this solidarity that, when able to develop fully, points to a new and different sort of society, one which puts ordinary people in the driver’s seat. Workers can become so used to accepting society’s injustices and atrocities because they feel deprived of the power to change it. Strikes, and the solidarity they spark, can lead in the other direction, by demonstrating in practice that workers actually do have power, and that there is an alternative to this resignation. Any serious strike shows this potential power of our side. And once conscious of this power, workers are not necessarily content to stop at a wage rise or better conditions.
The outcome of the warehouse strikes is still in play. But it’s clear that the warehouse workers and their struggle are an inspiration, and an education, to us all.
