Unions should conduct anti-far right training

Written by: Nick G. on 5 July 2025

Above:  Following a gang fight in which some, including African youths, used machetes, Nazis capitalised on the event, calling for a ban on “Niggers”, not machetes.

A group of retired unionists in South Australia, the Democracy Alliance Australia (DAA), is calling on the ACTU and State and Territory peak union bodies to conduct anti-far right training.

The growth of right-wing forces is part of global phenomenon. Although serving the interests of the most reactionary sections of imperialist finance capital, fascism appeals to white working class youths who blame immigrants and followers of so-called “woke” causes for problems endemic to capitalism. They elevate men’s aggressive identity, shaped by membership of “fight clubs” in certain gyms, to a virtue, and assemble in black-clad uniforms and face masks in order to strike an intimidatory pose.

Far-right racism and attacks on migrants, demonising of “woke” issues, and the assertion of aggressive male identity serve to divide the working class. A divided working class is a weak working class. The right had success in targeting disgruntled workers when it organised a section of the CFMEU membership to attack the Melbourne offices of the union in an anti-vaxxer demonstration during the Covid lock down.

In parallel with the street thugs are the parliamentary servants of capitalism and imperialism who pass a range of anti-democratic and anti-union legislation.
The combination of these two forms is sometimes referred to as “two-track fascism”.  There does not need to be a formal connection between them: they operate from different platforms but serve the same ends. 

Overseas, several peak union groups are conducting anti-far right training. The British Trade Union Council has anti-far right training courses. The local off-shoot of a British group, All Together Now, offers paid training to challenge far-right extremism. These are welcome developments, but they are also limited in their scope to training people to identify misinformation and disinformation spread by extreme right-wing lobby groups and largely concentrate on the street thug track of fascism, ignoring the role of the parliamentary track in creating anti-people and anti-union laws.

The DAA has written to ACTU leaders Sally McManus and Michelle O’Neill seeking to discuss anti-far right union training, but so far without a response.

We believe that the voice of rank and file workers should be raised in support of the DAA’s call. Workers through their unions should call for two-track anti-fascist and anti-far right training courses to be conducted by their own union and peak bodies of unions at the State, Territory, and federal levels.

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