Trade Union & Labour Struggles

The Activist – Volume 17, Number 15, November 2007
By Doug Lorimer (Sydney Central branch)

The following is a slightly expanded version of the 7.5 minute LPF opening presentation to the November 20 Sydney Central branch oral PCD on trade union work. A motion to grant the LPF equal time for its opening presentation was rejected by the branch meeting.

In her report on Australian politics to the September NC plenum, Comrade Sue Bolton stated in regard to the fight against the Work Choices laws:

The Activist – Volume 15, Number 9, October 2005
By Doug Lorimer, Sydney branch

At the September 26 national executive meeting comrades Max Lane, John Percy and I presented for a vote four amendments to the NE’s draft resolution on “The DSP and the Socialist Alliance” (see “Minutes from DSP national executive (extracts), September 26, 2005”, The Activist Vol. 15, No. 8). These amendments were motivated in the draft party-building report for the October 15-16 National Committee plenum presented by Comrade Percy to the NE meeting and in our PCD articles printed in the The Activist following the August 15 NE meeting.

The Activist – Volume 13, Number 7, August 2003
By Doug Lorimer, National Executive

There were a considerable number of misrepresentations of our party’s positions in David Glanz’s article in the IST discussion bulletin. In this response we will take up only the most politically important of these.

Green Left Weekly #447 – May 9, 2001
By John Percy

The magnificent M1 protests and blockades of stock exchanges in eight cities around Australia had an impact even beyond the specific demands of the 20,000 activists who took to the streets.

The Activist – Volume 10, Number 7, August 2000
By Doug Lorimer

The Communist Party of Australia has recently published a pamphlet by David Matters entitled Putting Lenin’s Clothes on Trotskyism which claims that the DSP’s rejection of Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution is really a cover for its support for Trotskyism. However, the real purpose of the pamphlet is to criticise the DSP’s position on the 1998 waterfront dispute.

Green Left Weekly – May 24, 2000
By John Percy

As we celebrate the first May Day of the new century, the glaring inequalities, injustices and contradictions of global capitalism appear more acute than ever. The gap between rich and poor continues to widen. Every day on our TV screens, images of obscene wealth and disgusting luxury and waste contrast with pictures of starving populations. Can those bourgeois apologists still claim that capitalism is the best of all possible worlds?

Joint May Day Celebration – May 6, 2000
By John Percy

As we celebrate the first May Day of the new century, the glaring inequalities and injustices and contradictions of global capitalism appear more acute than ever. The gap between rich and poor continues to widen. Images of obscene wealth and disgusting luxury and waste contrast with pictures of starving populations on our nightly TV screens.

DSP May Day Dinner – May 1, 1999
By John Percy

May Day, the day commemorated for more than a century as the international workers’ day, began as the fight for the 8-hour day in the USA in 1886. But our socialist celebration of May Day is more than just an assertion of economic and social rights for the working class within the framework of capitalism. It’s a challenge to the rotten profit system itself. It’s an affirmation that history will not end with this racist, brutal society and that a better world is indeed in birth.

The Activist – Volume 6, Number 1, 1996
By Doug Lorimer

Our strategy for achieving socialism is to build a mass revolutionary workers’ party on the Bolshevik model, which can imbue the working class with revolutionary consciousness and thus lead the masses in carrying out a proletarian revolution and the construction of socialism. Without the leadership of such a party the workers, no matter how massive or militant their struggles, will not be able to achieve decisive victory over the capitalist rulers.

Green Left Weekly #211 – November 14, 1995
By John Percy

The Communist Party of Australia developed a strong base in important industrial unions during the 1930s. As the depression eased, CPA members recruited from the unemployed and trained in action through the struggles of the Depression, had got jobs in industry. This working class base, which became the core of the CPA, grew and was consolidated during the 1940s.