Tag Archives: 457 Visa

Anti-Racism, Unions

Win Freedom for Refugees! Defend 457 Visa Workers’ Rights!

Racist Scapegoating of Refugees and 457 Visa Workers Is Aimed at Attacking Workers’ Rights

Trade Unions:

Win Freedom for Refugees!

Defend 457 Visa Workers’ Rights!

Perth, July 2012: A setback for workers’ unity and the struggle against racism. Demonstration called by union tops demands Australian workers be put ahead of 457 Visa workers. Although rally leaders stressed they were not against immigration, pitting Australian workers against their overseas counterparts can only fuel hostility to migrants and refugees as well. Yet many left groups, like Socialist Alternative, hailed this divisive July 2012 rally.

Perth, July 2012: A setback for workers’ unity and the struggle against racism. Demonstration called by union tops demands Australian workers be put ahead of 457 Visa workers. Although rally leaders stressed they were not against immigration, pitting Australian workers against their overseas counterparts can only fuel hostility to migrants and refugees as well. Yet many left groups, like Socialist Alternative, hailed this divisive July 2012 rally.
Asylum seekers in Nauru protest against their cruel detention.
Asylum seekers in Nauru protest against their cruel detention.
March 2012: Police attack and arrest protesters at the Nyoongar Aboriginal Tent Embassy in WA. As refugees, guest workers and non-white migrant communities are attacked by the racist establishment spewing hysterical claims that these immigrants are “flooding the country,” this same ruling class establishment conducts vicious racist oppression of this country’s first peoples. Unlike refugees and other migrants who come to this country merely to seek a better life, the British colonialists that established capitalist Australia came with the purpose of conquering the Aboriginal people and plundering their land. The Australian capitalist rulers’ continued racist assaults on Aboriginal people are, just like their attacks on refugees, aimed at scapegoating vulnerable communities for the poor social services and other hardships caused by their system and additionally at justifying their ongoing conquest of Aboriginal people’s land.
March 2012: Police attack and arrest protesters at the Nyoongar Aboriginal Tent Embassy in WA. As refugees, guest workers and non-white migrant communities are attacked by the racist establishment spewing hysterical claims that these immigrants are “flooding the country,” this same ruling class establishment conducts vicious racist oppression of this country’s first peoples. Unlike refugees and other migrants who come to this country merely to seek a better life, the British colonialists that established capitalist Australia came with the purpose of conquering the Aboriginal people and plundering their land. The Australian capitalist rulers’ continued racist assaults on Aboriginal people are, just like their attacks on refugees, aimed at scapegoating vulnerable communities for the poor social services and other hardships caused by their system and additionally at justifying their ongoing conquest of Aboriginal people’s land.
Trotskyist Platform banner at Sydney May Day 2013 rally opposes competition for jobs between local and 457 Visa workers and calls for local and 457 Visa workers to unite to take industrial action to force bosses to increase hiring.
Trotskyist Platform banner at Sydney May Day 2013 rally opposes competition for jobs between local and 457 Visa workers and calls for local and 457 Visa workers to unite to take industrial action to force bosses to increase hiring.

July 10: “Nauru Same as Guantanamo!” Referring to the notorious U.S. jail and torture site at Guantanamo Bay, that was the chant of asylum seekers locked up in Nauru during desperate protests earlier this year. Whether imprisoned in Nauru or in the malaria-infested Manus Island camp or on mainland hellholes like Villawood Detention Centre, asylum seekers fleeing to Australia are today being treated every bit as inhumanely by this ALP government as they were by the former Howard government … and then some! Continue reading Win Freedom for Refugees! Defend 457 Visa Workers’ Rights! →