The following is a message from jailed unionist Craig Johnston to the November 25 Melbourne rally calling for his release and for an end to the criminalisation of unions.
From my prison cell in Loddon I thank you all for attending this rally. I hope this rally is the start of the campaign to fight the federal government, which has decided to criminalise all you unions and union activity.
With the reelection of the Howard conservative government we will see a massive increase in the demonising of unions and many unions and unionists will be charged under more unfair, unjust laws introduced by this fascist government.
Our challenge must be to say no more unionists are to go to jail. We need to send a clear message that there will be no more Craig Johnstons; no more unionists sitting in jail for doing their job.
While the government will start the attack on the construction unions, they will spread the attack to ALL other unions.
Howard and his ilk hate unions and hate working people. They believe they are born to rule and we are born to serve.
We must continue to campaign to overturn these unjust laws and we must continue to break these laws. If the law is wrong, break it and break it again and force the government to repeal it.
There have been many unionists jailed in Australia's history, from the shearers back in the 1890s through to construction workers in the 1990s. Workers from many unions have continued to be jailed. I am just another victim of the rotten system that jails workers.
In the 1890s when shearers were jailed for trying to stop scabs doing their work during the big shearers' strike, Banjo Patterson, the famous poet, said "When they jail a man for striking, it's a rich man's country yet."
It seems nothing has changed in Australia two centuries later.
Comrades, dare to struggle, dare to win — if you don't fight, you lose!
Yours in unity,
Craig Johnston, political prisoner
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, November 24, 2004.
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