Rockin' for rights

“... to say that climate change is the overwhelming moral challenge for this generation of Australians is misguided at best and misleading at worst”.

Sunday morning, 22th of April, thousands of motivated people gathered in the Sydney Hyde Park in order to protest against the federal government’s industrial relations laws. The protesters then made their way to the Sydney Cricket Ground to attend the protest concert Rockin’ for Rights, which lasted several hours, and the different bands were interrupted inbetween for some protesters’ speeches. Union members made up a heavy contingent of the crowd, many of which carried protest signs, flags and balloons (see more on http://www.rockinforrights.com.au/index.html).

The main message was: “on election day ... we will be voting for rights at work". Asbestos rights campaigner Bernie Banton also addressed the crowd, saying it was time for Prime Minister John Howard to go.

He said for instance: "We had a victory, but there's a more important victory the day we can say goodbye to John Howard". Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey has conceded the union campaign against the federal government's new industrial relations (IR) laws has gained traction with voters.

Against this, Howards party claimed: "The fact that they have to use rock stars to try to get a crowd illustrates that it's not a widespread fear in the community." He's in politics now, he should avoid trying to be part of what is a protest movement on steroids," Mr Hockey said.

Mr Rudd said Labor should speak to business, unions and families in order to develop an alternative set of industrial relations laws for Australia: "At the National Press Club last week, I announced four new elements of our policy on industrial relations and we've got more to go. But that'll come out in due sequence.''

Some of the criticized points of Howard’s worklpace laws were:

(http://www.rockinforrights.com.au/say_no.html)
· Unfair Dismissal protection has been abolished for nearly 4 million workers
· Workers are being forced onto individual contracts (AWA's) that undercut pay and conditions
· Conditions such as penalty rates, overtime, holiday loadings, public holidays, redundancy pay and work allowances can all be cut
· The minimum wage is set by Government appointees, not an independent umpire

· Ordinary union activities are now illegal, attracting fines of up to $33000

Rene Baxxs, a 25 years old International Business Student at the UTS, gave me some interesting arguments during the protest march. As to him: "it is a "shame" that young employees like you and me can be fired at "any" moment during their first years of work. Where is our security?" He was comparing this to the case of France last year with the CPE (Contrat premiere embauche), where the universities closed for more than four years for similar reasons (new french law bringing in danger the work contracts in the first two years of experience). As to the protest march itself, Rene was surprised of the silence during the march. He said for instance:"In the Netherlands (where he is originated from), people is screaming, the police has to keep an eye constantly on every single corner of the demo. Here, everything was really quiet". Concerning the topic of the linkage of music and protest march, he found this a real nice idea to gather people together: "we need tricks and good music to get together, that's the sad side of our society; but however, both sides, the organization and the music get good publicity!".