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An ongoing investigation by the Socialist Equality Party |
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Return to Record of the Workers Inquiry The Workers Inquiry: the political issues The Workers Inquiry into the Wollongong leukaemia and cancer crisis, to be held in Port Kembla this coming weekend, July 19-20, has already raised crucial political questions, not just for workers and residents in the Illawarra region but the entire working class. In one form or another the question has been continually raised: to whom will the inquiry report its findings? If the findings are not to be presented to the government and the various official bodies for consideration and action, then what is the inquiry's purpose? What could it possibly achieve? Such questions arise from a definite political outlook. They are based on the belief that the only viable political activity the working class can engage in is to submit its demands to the official institutions and pressure them to act. Unless that is done nothing will be gained. These conceptions, in turn, are based on an erroneous view of the various regulatory bodies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Illawarra Public Health Unit -- that they act to curb the worst excesses of the profit system, and somehow balance the demands of companies such as BHP with the needs and interests of society as a whole. Accordingly, there is no means for the working class to defend its interests other than through such bodies. But the real purpose of these organisations is not to defend the interests of working people. It is to ensure that the elemental strivings of the working class for decent living and working conditions and for a healthy social environment are bureaucratically smothered. Moreover, to the extent that workers understand that their basic demands are continually threatened by the operations of the profit system, the various regulatory organisations work to ensure that this understanding never assumes the form of an independent political program. In other words, the commonly-held conception -- that there is no way for the working class to defend itself other than through demands to the present authorities -- is an upside down view of the world. Far from the government institutions providing the only means for effective action, the more the demands of workers are confined to such "official channels" the more easily they are suppressed. Only to the extent that the working class acts as an independent force and begins to directly challenge the domination of society by profit interests will it be able to defend anything. These are the political conceptions underlying the Workers Inquiry. Its aim is not to make a submission to the government authorities, but to inform the working class and develop its own independent movement. The test of events These issues have been thoroughly tested out in the circumstances surrounding the mounting cancer problems in the Wollongong area. The real role of all the government bodies supposedly established to protect the health and lives of workers and residents has been increasingly exposed. There is a plethora of such organisations, including the Illawarra Public Health Unit, the Environment Protection Agency, the Cancer Council and WorkSafe and WorkCover. Yet not one of them sounded the alarm over the fact that at least 11 young people had contracted leukaemia in just four suburbs near the BHP steelworks and Port Kembla copper smelter since 1989. These agencies sat on figures, showing a distinct pattern of leukaemias over a two decade period, with the incidence up to 20 times higher close to the Port Kembla smokestacks. The Workers Inquiry has now obtained the figures from the Cancer Council. But for years workers and their families were kept in the dark. Those who contracted leukaemias or cancers were led to believe that theirs was simply an individual tragedy. The initial breakthrough in this official wall of silence only came when one of the young leukaemia victims, 20-year-old Melissa Cristiano, took a stand. When she first contacted the Illawarra Public Health Unit, its officials did not even bother to return her phone calls. But she refused to be fobbed off and went to the media to demand answers. Suddenly, the situation started to turn. Other victims' families also began to speak out, producing widespread community concern and outrage. The response of the state Labor government was to go into damage control. It set up a whitewash investigation by the Public Health Unit, controlled by a steering committee dominated by BHP and the other government agencies implicated in the health crisis. If it were not for the launching of the Workers Inquiry, the government would have succeeded. The Health Unit would have been able to hand down a coverup report as it has in the past. However the convening of the Workers Inquiry has made it impossible for the government to bury the leukaemia issue. The inquiry has provided a forum through which victims and their families, workers and residents have begun to come forward and organise, assembling powerful evidence with the assistance of concerned scientists and doctors. Any lingering doubts about the role of the Carr government and the possibilities of action via the official bodies were dispelled by the passage of special legislation to shut down the legal challenge to the reopening of the Port Kembla copper smelter. On the very eve of the court case, the government intervened to stop it, in order to block damaging evidence about the real levels of sulphur dioxide, lead, carcinogens and acid rain that will be suffered by workers and residents. Simultaneously it pushed through another Bill extinguishing all rights of appeal against such toxic projects anywhere in the state. The legislation was passed unamended through both houses of parliament with the support of every single Labor as well as Coalition MP, and the enthusiastic backing of the trade union movement. For their part, the Democrats and Greens dropped all talk of calling for amendments and inquiries and did nothing to oppose the legislation. Several years ago BHP drafted special legislation for the Papua New Guinea government to end all rights of local villagers to sue the company for the environmental and agricultural disaster produced by its Ok Tedi mining project. In the same way, the NSW legislation was dictated directly by the copper smelter consortium, which threatened to pull out of the project unless the government immediately terminated all legal avenues of resistance. Drawing the lessons The Workers Inquiry is based on the lessons of these bitter experiences. By contrast, the leaders of groups such as Illawarra Residents Against Toxic Emissions (IRATE) have continued to promote the poisonous illusion that action within the official framework can pressure the authorities to change course. They have mounted protests, lobbied MPs, collaborated in Health Unit reports and joined "consultative" committees on the basis that this is the only "effective" form of action. Never once, however, do they even attempt to address the record. In the past two decades, in the Illawarra as elsewhere, there has been no lack of demonstrations, petition campaigns, parliamentary deputations and rallies to try to stop industrial pollution and the siting of toxic dumps in residential and farming areas, or to halt the closure or cutback of hospitals, schools, child care services and factories. In virtually every case these efforts have come up against a political brick wall. Governments and companies have repeatedly rejected appeals for reconsideration and trampled over all opposition. And the Labor and union bodies to which workers once looked for leadership have been in the forefront of the attacks. As the Liberal and Labor parties have become increasingly discredited, the Democrats and Greens have also attempted to divert the anger and hostility of workers and young people back into the parliamentary framework. The Workers Inquiry was initiated by the Socialist Equality Party to cut a path through this political impasse. Its aim is to provide workers, residents and young people with the new forms of organisation, information and understanding they need to fight independently in defence of their interests. The inquiry is laying bare the inner workings of the profit system and revealing the essential social relations which exist not just in Wollongong but under capitalism as a whole. The Workers Inquiry cannot, by itself, bring an end to the destruction of lives and health. That requires the development of an independent political movement of the working class on a socialist program which challenges the profit system by demanding that production and society as a whole be organised according to human needs. But the Inquiry will be a powerful contribution to the development of such a politically conscious mass movement. We urge all readers of Workers News to attend the Workers Inquiry and participate in this decisive development. And above all, we urge you to seriously consider the program and principles of the Socialist Equality Party and join it to build the new mass party of the working class. |