Wendy Lowenstein
Weevils at Work: What's happening to work
in Australia - an oral record
A review by dj
Wendy Lowenstein's Weevils at Work should be compulsory reading
for all politicians; they might actually realise that Australians
are not going to take their bullshit much longer. This contemporary
oral history follows Lowenstein's previous oral history work on
the 1930s Depression (Weevils in the Flour) and the Waterside
Workers (Under the Hook).
After ten years of work, interviewing 200 people, Lowenstein was
unable to find a publisher for Weevils at Work and its not hard
to figure out why. This is no fictional account of hard times
in Australia, which can be fobbed off as 'grunge' fiction. Instead,
the 'battlers' that John Howard spends so much time talking about
tell their own stories about their experiences in the workforce,
their adjustment to retirement and unemployment and they offer
opinions on the nature of Australian society at the end of the
twentieth century.
Instead of the patronising right-wing wankery of the radio shock-jocks
such as Bob Francis and John Laws, who seek merely to sell an
audience to advertisers, Weevils allows ordinary people to have
a say in their own words. There are heart-wrenching tales of much
effort for little reward, stirring stories of community, union
and political struggles, the racism and exploitation faced by
migrants and disturbing anecdotes about the nature of the struggle
of workers against bureaucracy, arrogant union leaders, bosses
and government. These are tales from the front-line of the class
war and when you read a book like Weevils, you don't for one minute
hesitate in calling it a class war.
The breadth of people interviewed means a wide range of subjects
are dealt with, from lots of different angles. There are legal-aid
lawyers, furniture removalists, clothing workers with RSI, rank-and-file
union activists, women working in the construction industry, retirees
and artists. A lot of the people interviewed have had to change
their lives after being left for dead by the capitalist system
but they have survived and found new and more enjoyable ways to
exist.
Many of the interviews give real insight into the way Australia
is run by the bureaucratic and capitalist elites. A couple of
Social Security workers tell how the social security bureaucracy
is more interested in keeping their jobs than solving unemployment
problems, schemes are renamed as different governments come and
go, but nothing is done about unemployment and poverty. Those
who have been or are unemployed talk about organising the unemployed
and how the social security system is used to wield power over
welfare recipients instead of helping them. Many of the interviewees
talk about the stupidity and arrogance of managers and bosses,
who would rather exert control than actually produce something
efficiently.
For anarchists and other radicals, particularly students who
might see themselves as a potential vanguard to lead the revolution,
Weevils shows that the working class is no tthe bigoted and thick
bunch as the media so often tell us. Although Hanson may be appealing
to the disaffected, there is a real sense in Weevils, of many
people who are mightily fucked off with the system who are isolated,
do not place any faith in parliament, the state or capitalism
but are unsure about what to do.
While Lowenstein might have decided to edit out racist comments,
you struggle to find racism in the paes of Weevils at Work. There
is hope. While some are involved in various community and other
struggles, others are more than likely to spend lifetimes scared
to voice their real thoughts or unable to involve themselves in
Do-It-Yourself or liberating politics. In Australia and around
the world, its people like these who we should reach out to, even
if they don't want to join an anarchist group.
