Unionists, activists and students met at Victorian Trades Hall on Saturday, 15 October, for Socialist Alternative’s union conference – For the Union Makes Us Strong. Union revival was a theme. Across 13 sessions, the history and politics of building (and rebuilding) union strength were discussed by militants with decades of experience and others just taking up the fight.

“We wanted a serious educational event about the history and politics of the Australian labour movement and the lessons that we can draw from that to take into the future and back to our workplaces”, said Jerome Small, Socialist Alternative’s industrial organiser.

The battle at Robe River in the Pilbara was recounted, in a feature session, by Graeme Haynes, co-convener of the combined unions committee during the 1986 dispute. In a colourful conversation with Liz Ross, Haynes brought the historic dispute to life for an audience visibly gripped by his account. Speaking to Red Flag at the end of the day, Haynes – who attended a number of other sessions – said he was heartened to see “people still picking up the challenges and going with them”.

The challenges confronting union activists today were taken up in many discussions. Roz Ward examined the situation for tertiary sector unionists in “Class and power in the ivory tower”. In “Whatever happened to strikes?”, Tom Bramble detailed what’s behind the sharp decline in industrial action rates. A panel of warehouse workers discussed the challenge of building union power in hostile and highly casualised workplaces.

Monash Student Association office-bearer Yasemin Shamsili said that the number of young people at the conference reflected its relevance to students. “With two-thirds of students living under the poverty line, unionism is a student issue”, she said. For the Union Makes Us Strong was endorsed by the Monash Student Association.

Reflecting on the conference in its closing session, Jerome Small said: “We got our teeth stuck into some of the issues around the workers movement, a lot of the history, some of the first-hand tales of the bitter fruits of class collaboration and the intertwining of radical politics and industrial revival.”

“We are given challenges that no one has ever had before”, he said. Yet the task today is not unique, he insisted: “Every union revival had never been done before until someone bloody did it.”