In Spring 2020, when an operator set up a company paying bottom-of-the-barrel rates in a crude attempt at scraping a profit out of the lines by undercutting the militant members of the MUA, the workers of port botany went feral. Led by the lines crew, construction workers, train drivers, university lecturers, teachers and students drove the scabs out.

In a speech on 21 March at the National Press Club, ACTU Secretary Sally McManus read the riot act to the Australian ruling class. If you forgive a couple short forays into lazy jingoism (‘the Australian Way of Life’), she presented an incisive and wide ranging attack on the ingenious ways that the powerful and rich have made conditions very good for themselves and increasingly difficult for the rest of us. It was a call to action addressed to all workers.