Lessons from the Your Rights at Work campaign
Lessons from the Your Rights at Work campaign
As unions launch a round of protests under the Change the Rules banner, it’s worth recalling the history of the Your Rights at Work campaign, which concluded in 2007.
Directed against the Howard government’s anti-worker WorkChoices legislation, Your Rights at Work protests were the biggest working class mobilisations in Australian history. The campaign cost John Howard his seat in parliament and tipped his Liberal government from power.
Yet the fruits of the campaign were meagre for the trade union movement. Labor rolled into government at the 2007 election with a blank cheque from unions about what reforms to enact. The result was the Fair Work Act, a suite of minimal improvements alongside the retention of most longstanding anti-union laws.