Australia: let's make Mayday massive! All out on 1 May
[Workers Power Australia, March 2001]

In November last year the M1 Alliance was formed out of the S11 Alliance, which had organised protests against the World Economic Forum in Melbourne.

It aims to bring the spirit of Seattle and S11 to the traditional international Workers' Day: May Day. We aim to bring the new layers of young activists to the labour movement, and bring the labour movement to the anti-corporate globalisation activists.

Here we outline issues arising from debates within the campaign to build for united global protest and strike action on May 1.

Within weeks, the police ombudsman's report will be out, giving us their verdict on whether police violence at S11 was justified in the eyes of the state government. The 2-300 injured protestors should be clear on this already: We have the right to protest free of police harassment and thuggery. And no report is going to change that.

As the movement for May Day protests around the world grows, activists are debating the key issues learned from S11: In particular, how can we prevent the injuries on our side this time?

Many would argue that peaceful protest is the best way to avoid police attack. But they are wrong. No amount of chanting "give peace a chance" or "we are peaceful" made any difference at S11.

When we start to challenge the power and authority of the rich and powerful, no matter how peacefully, the police will do their job and protect their interests, no matter how rotten.

Others argue that being attacked by police is a politicising experience. The logic seems to be "the more you get battoned, the more you learn that the police are not there to help us".

This is wrong. Movements can be stunted and crushed under severe police repression. It is urgent that we learn ways to protect ourselves and supporters of campaigns from such attacks again.

The clear aim of the government and the police at S11 was to squash a new movement of activists fighting back against the ravages of capitalism. Next time we can't let them get away with this.

While many at S11 may have learned that the police are not on our side, they would have learned more by knowing how to resist these attacks. And some have been turned away and will think twice next time their safety is threatened.

It can be shown that the more prepared for self defence you are, the less likelihood of attack. The MUA pickets were not attacked by police on the Saturday morning following Easter because they were defended by hundreds of well organised trade unionists and community supporters, along with barricades and building workers.

Thousands of protestors during the late 1960's fightback learnt that peaceful protest was never a a defence against police represssion. Things are no different now. In fact the police are better able to learn their own tactical lessons with each demonstration. Against the capitalist institutions around the world. We must do the same.

May Day
The M1 Alliance is preparing to blockade the Stock Exchange and surrounding streets, in protest at corporate tyranny and for global justice. We hope to spread to Yallourn Energy (now owned by China Light and Power) and succeed in shutting down corporate Melbourne. Such action requires preparation and planning for defence should it be attacked.

This does not mean that we want to go out of our way to provoke police attack, but that we prepare for what will very likely occur.

This requires a united and organised action. We need to elect our own marshals who can assist in the organisation and defence of our blockades. We need trusted and experienced delegates that marshal people to where they are needed, when they are needed.

These delegates should be not only elected, they should be accountable to the protest. Any marshal seen to be undermining the demonstration, should be removed and replaced. At S11 this opportunity existed on each of the pickets, although was not made use of. We need to find such opportunities again on M1, so that protestors also feel they have control over the demonstration.

We are not in favour of unelected and accountable marshals, whose only role is to boss people around and prevent the rally from taking militant action. We need marshals whose role is to support the will of the protest and to defend it should police attack occur.

Organised self-defence does not necessarily mean taking up arms against the oppressor today. What it does mean is being clear that the police will be prepared to attack our protests, and that the best way to prevent the brutality of S11 is to be prepared to defend ourselves from this.

This is a direct challenge to those who advocate non-violence. Peaceful or non-violent protestors will not defend themselves or others from police attack.

We could learn something from the black bloc tactic of "unarresting" for example. Here any demonstrators grabbed by the police are forceably grabbed back by the rest of the demonstration. Not non-violent but a real way to stop people being persecuted and beaten and to give others the confidence to be part of a demonstration.

The non-violence argument is based more on morality than reality. It begs the question of what is violence? Is pushing back against police lines violence? Are marbles under police horses violence?

Its much clearer for us to say from the outset that we will defend ourselves and others and we will organise ourselves so we can do that. That might not win so many points with the give peace a chance crowd but it will mean a stronger demonstration with more confidence and less chance of arrest or injury.

Turn to the working class
For nearly two years anti-globalisation and anti-capitalist protestors in "the West" have targetted the most rotten institutions of global capitalism.

The International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation, the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, the European Union - all have been the centre of mass protests.

These protests follow years of demonstrations against these institutions in the Third World. Workers and peasants in these countries have had to bear the brunt of debt to the World Bank and directives from the IMF on how their economies should be restructured to benefit big business based in the imperialist heartlands - in particular the US and Western Europe.

Against the media lies, these protests continue. And in the face of massive police repression. The last 5 months alone have seen 4 protests against 4 of these institutions: in Melbourne, Prague, Nice and Davos.

However these protests continue to suffer from a key weakness. The working class, while coming out in large numbers in support of these demonstrations, remains distant from the protest movement.

We must unite these protests with the mighty force that can really challenge not only these individual institutions, but the driving force behind them; the capitalist class.

This force for change is the organised working class. Most importantly, the sections of the labour movement organised in the unions, with the real life and hard learned experience of fighting for decent conditions and defending their actions against police attack.

The working class continues to bear the brunt of the neo-liberal policies supported and fought for by these institutions: attacks on the right to organise, attacks on working conditions, cuts to health, education and social welfare, lost jobs and increased poverty.

The working class has the power to really hurt the capitalist class where it counts: by withdrawing the labour that makes their profits.
The police at S11 were keen to avoid confrontation with trade unionists, not only because many have more experience on picket lines.

The government ministers, police commissioners and state bureaucrats that make decisions like whether or not to beat into peaceful protestors, also know something else: A confrontation with the unions could mean strike action and loss of profits for their buddies in business - something they'd prefer to avoid.

But the organised labour movement is well aware that losing a day or more's pay requires a real reason. This is where May Day provides an opportunity for the anti-capitalist movement to prove that it's interests are with the working class.

The key focus for the day MUST be action which can unite these forces. And what better target than Yallourn. Support for these workers fighting casualisation, privatisation and the Industrial Relations Laws is key over the next weeks and months.

But there is another hurdle we must overcome: the trade union bureaucrats. While Leigh Hubbard and his friends in Trades Hall are supporting calls for demonstrations on May Day, their conception is different to ours.

We hope to shut down as much of corporate Melbourne as possible, to really show the businesses that have so badly affected our lives that we will not take this lying down. The leaders of Trades Hall would prefer a quiet march, and picnic in a park.

This is not our history of May Day. Our May Day is one of courageous struggle of the working class against our exploiters and oppressors.

Support workers now in their struggle against capitalism: Victory to the Yallourn power workers.

Help us build for the biggest trade union involvement in May Day possible: General strike from M1 to smash the IR laws.

All out on May 1!

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