By Two Wollongong Friends of Palestine

We arrived at 5:45 a.m. It was an overcast morning in November, but unlike last time the sky was already light, dawn had just passed. We were in the middle of a regional industrial zone that was already alive with machinery churning, trucks arriving and departing, and workers from various sites smoking or drinking coffee at the gates. As we walked down the road to Bisalloy Steels, where the picket would be, a friend struck up a conversation with some men on the street. They had heard about the picket happening down the road, but weren't too keen on discussing the basis of it: better things to do with their short time on 'smoko'. In the distance we could see some comrades already gathered at the gates of Bisalloy. 

It felt good to see their numbers already growing. In the week leading up to the picket, we had received intel from workers and unions at Bisalloy that the company was saying they had to cross the picket line. The night before we again had it confirmed that operations would continue, the bosses having issued an ultimatum that if workers didn't cross the line, they'd have to take leave or go unpaid. So we had expected there would be some conflict today, most likely with the police as they sought to break the picket. We came prepared, with pallets and other materials to reinforce the barricades. 

But as we arrived it was impossible not to notice how quiet it was. The usual industrial clamour of the steel treatment plant, the hiss and stamp of the machinery, was silent beyond the fence. All doors were closed, signals that no work was underway were lit up, and no one was inside. Few police were visible, scattered up and down the street. A piece of paper on the office door proclaimed, "Closed for the day for annual company picnic".

What had happened? Were they really closed once again? Had just the threat of another picket been enough for them to shut up shop? 

Palestine Solidarity in Australia: Pickets and Blockades

In Australia, as across the world, a massive wave of struggle rose against the genocide in Palestine, comprised of a wide constellation of political groups and practices. Compared to previous iterations of Palestine solidarity here, this wave has been more widespread, involving a broader range of tactics. These included regular rallies and marches across major cities, student encampments at several universities, an encampment at the Prime Minister's office, pickets and blockades of key infrastructure, and smaller scale actions involving lock-ons, targeted property damage and sabotage, among other practices. 

Pickets here have traditionally been divided into trade union pickets and community pickets. Trade union pickets are organised by unions, usually while involved in legal industrial actions, during strikes or to challenge lock-outs. Due to the repressive legal context in Australia, the only legal pickets that unions can organise are during a specific time of bargaining, usually every 3 or 4 years.

Community pickets can occur to support workers in an industrial campaign where legal restrictions limit the actions of unions. In this case, community pickets are often a tactic endorsed by a union and used to further its campaign. Another type of community picket is organised and run by the 'community', i.e. people from outside the picketed workplace organising and participating in the picket themselves. It is only the latter type that has been used in the Palestine solidarity movement.

The first call for a blockade and community picket came in November 2023, targeting the Zionist shipping company ZIM. Simultaneous calls for port blockades in both Melbourne and Sydney were made to prevent the loading and unloading of various ZIM ships. Initially, the calls resulted only in protests outside the port, without disrupting the shipping line at all. Soon, however, pickets were attempted at each port. 

At Port Botany, in Sydney, two community pickets were held. While these were not trade union pickets, the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) was involved in both. The MUA is the most militant union in Australia, and its Sydney branch is particularly left-leaning. Their support bolstered confidence, but police broke both pickets and arrested dozens of participants, including MUA branch officials.

It's worth noting that in New South Wales (NSW, where Sydney and Wollongong are located), certain economic zones and infrastructure are designated "protected" and subject to stronger anti-protest laws. Incidents at these sites carry heavier fines and a higher likelihood of imprisonment. The ports in Sydney are subject to such laws.  While it was significant that these pickets challenged the laws, and welcome that the MUA played a role, the number of arrests and the character of repression has meant that no further action has taken place at Port Botany since March 2024.

In Melbourne (in the state of Victoria), the situation with port actions has been different. The first picket there involved "actionists" (a term some Australian leftists use to distinguish themselves from "activists" by emphasizing direct action), MUA members, and others. For the first few days, it appears the MUA branch told its members at the port to honour the picket, but after the picket was broken by police on the third day it was not reestablished. The picket provoked debates along factional as well as tactical lines as to how much deferral to union members there should be, and which tactics and practices were legitimate on the picket.¹

Since these early pickets in November 2023, the tactic has spread to other ports and industrial areas in Victoria and NSW, as well as Queensland and other states/territories. The pickets organised at Bisalloy differ from those outlined above, providing insights into other ways that this tactic can disrupt supply chains.

Who are Bisalloy Steels?

Bisalloy Steels is located in the Illawarra region of NSW, in the Wollongong suburb called Unanderra. It produces hardened, 'quenched and tempered' steel used for both military and civilian applications, including armoured vehicles, watch towers, panic rooms, and jail/prison infrastructure.

The company purchases steel 'coil' from BlueScope Steel (located at Port Kembla, also in the Illawarra), treating it with high heat and chemical reactivity. Bisalloy product is predominantly used in military vehicles such as Merkeva and Boxer-CRV tanks, and so-called 'civilian defence vehicles', such as retrofitted armoured cars produced by Plasan Reem. The absolute devastation wrought by Israel's Merkevas in Gaza and the West Bank is now well known. The use of civilian armoured cars, however, may not be initially apparent. 

These vehicles are popular in illegal settlements across Palestine, facilitating their expansion and allowing settlers to move across the country with impunity. In the hands of Israeli occupiers, armoured vehicles function as weapons. They are used to harass and threaten journalists trying to document settlers' activities. Olive farmers often describe the first sign of settlers descending on the harvest as the glint of sunlight on these vehicles swooping down from the ridges where many settlements are located, and into the valleys where olive trees grow. The quenched and tempered steel covering the car's chassis allows for the mounting of launchers for tear gas canisters, for ramming ancient trees, and for protecting the occupants from incendiary devices settlers launch into fields to burn olive groves.

The company engages in two-way trade with Israel. For example, in 2023, Bisalloy contracted Plasan Reem to assist in the building of naval frigates for the Australian Navy. In addition to their existing provisions to the Zionist entity, Bisalloy's product guides increasingly hint at their product's possible application in incarceration technologies — cells, secure rooms, and watchtowers.

Under the banner 'No Illawarra Steel for Genocide', a network called Wollongong Friends of Palestine has organised a series of pickets at the Bisalloy Steels factory in Unanderra.

Organising Community Pickets

The wave of Palestine solidarity has seen the largest street mobilisations in Australia since protests against Australian involvement in the Second Gulf War. Like elsewhere, Wollongong had weekly protests in the streets, drawing several hundred people each (a consistent number for a regional city of 300,000). The families and friends who connected at the rallies had previously organised a community iftar (fast-breaking dinner during Ramadan), mass postering at a local politician's office, and an evening vigil. The rallies in turn became an open organising base for other actions, including the Bisalloy pickets.

After each of the weekly rallies, planning meetings were made accessible to a wide array of locals interested in advancing the struggle. The open format allowed participants to develop an environment where everyone felt able to contribute to discussion, to debate tactics and objectives, and to disagree freely. The practice of debate, which involved both regular and irregular participants in the planning process, contributed to propagating the idea that a picket/blockade of Bisalloy could be successful, while also building decision-making infrastructure that would become important on the picket lines. Mass, open organising of the pickets enabled mass, open organising at the pickets.

The meetings also allowed for a cross-pollination of people and ideas where the possibility of undertaking the picket became more realistic for more people. Weekly protests drew a variety of people, many of whom had never been involved in direct action of any sort before. Rallies served as an entry point, and the weekly open meetings built trust, while consistent conversations about disruptive tactics built courage and interest. Finally, picket training and skill shares built the capacity for mass, militant action. 

The process of preparing for the pickets had to be consistent, slow, and steady. At first, there was a sense from some that it would not be feasible to disrupt the production and circulation of materials at Bisalloy. They argued that a protest outside of the factory would be more viable. It took ongoing conversations — in cars, during marches or trainings, whilst we cooked iftar meals during Ramadan — to work through this perception and emerge with a collective sense of readiness for a little more risk-taking. Though not everyone was ready to take the same risks at the same time, our collective arrived at a point where we felt that trying to fully shut down Bisalloy was possible. 

Our approach to organising the pickets, aiming for a practice of mass action with an internal articulation of autonomy, sought to navigate beyond the apparent binary that seemed dominant in the wake of Israel's 2023 invasion of Gaza. This binary tended to pose participation as either passive or limited to a closed group supported by observers. While rallies could be important, they tended to involve a kind of passive participation for the majority of people present. Alternatively, closed affinity groups were capable of impressive actions of disruption, but rarely fostered a practice of widespread participation in militancy. We hoped to develop more widespread participation in the picket, while also encouraging people to take initiative with further actions.

The approach to the pickets aimed to break down as much as possible the division between "organisers" and "the organised", or between planners and participants. In so far as the struggle against capitalism cultivates the formation of collective bodies of class power that could become vehicles of revolutionary action, we have sought to build the pickets as one such instance of this power: an organ of struggle in its own right. This has involved creating participatory political spaces, including the pickets themselves, where everyone present has the ability to contribute meaningfully to decisions, to contribute materially as they are able, and to use a variety of methods to shut down IDF supply chains. We have aimed to promote mass action with an internal articulation of autonomy as a method of class movement away from simply observing actions planned and controlled by others, and to initiate mass action that we navigate collectively.

On the Pickets

There have been five pickets and three other actions at Bisalloy since October 2023. There was an office occupation, which emerged from an open community meeting but was not publicly advertised in December 2023. In April 2024, a group entered the facilities and locked on to machinery, disrupting operations for several hours and prompting the company to build an extra security fence. The pickets aimed to build off these actions, while also taking a different approach.

The first two pickets were limited in duration to three hours from 6:00 to 9:00 a.m., seeking to interrupt the morning change of shift and prevent any materials from entering or leaving the factory (though each picket ended up lasting longer). The third picket was called for twelve hours, from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. And the last two pickets were open-ended from 6:00 a.m. Decisions about the length of each picket were made through discussion in our planning meetings, reflecting on the lessons of each previous picket. 

Bisalloy is not a large industrial site, but it stretches a couple of hundred meters along an industrial road. There are two vehicle gates spaced about 150 meters apart, and an office entrance between them. It was necessary to have enough numbers to be able to block all entrances, and we also needed ways to communicate across the pickets. We prepared simple systems of communication, through delegates whose role was simply to share information to the common channel about needs and updates from each gate. The picket at each gate functioned as its own hub for deciding how to run that picket. Within this wider system of communication and decision-making, affinity groups could make their own decisions on how to act.

Decisions during the pickets, to the extent they were necessary, were made collectively through meetings at individual gates and across the whole picket. These decisions were made through discussion and, where possible, consensus. At the same time, there was no pretence that these decisions would be binding for everyone. 

Meetings allowed for clarity on what we knew about the site that day (for example, when we had been told in advance the site would be shut) or to gather observations from the whole picket (Were there cars in the carpark? Were the factory's roller doors open?). Picket meetings were also convened to discuss potential challenges to the picket from cops or others. 

For example, when a cop tried to intimidate a small group of the first picketers to arrive on site, we held a meeting on one of the site's driveways to decide how to respond. It was quickly proposed that we would begin our hard picket, with anyone reluctant to step onto the driveway remaining on the grass. Affinity groups quickly moved towards the driveways, and the picket continued unchallenged. 

The pickets have been successful, but it has been a strange success. Each time, hundreds of people have turned out to participate. During the first two shorter pickets, nothing moved in or out of the gates. When we called longer or indefinite pickets, the company shut operations completely for those days. While we prepared for confrontation with police and other hostilities, it turned out that neither the police nor anyone else has posed a serious challenge to any of the pickets. Each time, we assembled at each gate, blocking all entrances to the site, and waited for a confrontation that never came. Aside from the one attempt to intimidate picketers into leaving the site, mentioned above, no threat has been made and production has been stopped on five occasions.

This lack of confrontation may be partly explained by the numbers of people turning up to the pickets. It may also reflect that, while the workers employed at Bisalloy have not participated, they have played a role. In the lead-up to each picket, we have communicated with workers at the site, with the unions that have coverage there, and the South Coast Labour Council (SCLC — a regional council to which trade unions affiliate). In this way, we were able to learn what to expect. For example, we were told on various occasions that at least some of the workers were sympathetic, even though they were not participating. Prior to the picket in September, we were told that the company had decided to close for the day. On a later occasion, we were informed that the company was insisting workers cross the picket line — though in the end the company closed on that occasion too. It may be the case that sympathies within the shop played a role in shutting operations. 

It is also worth noting that the SCLC took the interesting step of initiating an audit into worker exposure to war crime prosecution due to employment in industries implicated in the genocide. This opened the possibility, within the legal framework of industrial law, for workers to refuse work that put them at risk of prosecution. Unfortunately, no one has taken up this opportunity.

Another factor is that the openly organised and public mobilisations for the pickets played a role in influencing the company's decisions. The open publication of the call to shut down operations at Bisalloy in defiance of the law, as well as the openness of preparatory meetings, likely played a positive role not only in building confidence in the actions, but also in spooking the company.

Given the lack of challenges to the pickets, on each occasion they ended up being more like street parties, with the road overtaken by picketers, music, art, discussions, kids spaces, and meals provided by Food Not Bombs. The success of the pickets has meant that certain organisational measures remain untested, such as our capacity to resist police attempts to break the picket line, to practice the organisational principles of participatory decision-making alongside autonomous action, and to maintain and expand the pickets in a context of stronger repression.

Picket as Tactic and the Question of Class Composition

A common criticism of community pickets is that they are weak, especially when compared to industrial actions taken by workers employed at the picketed site. For example, a recent article by the Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group argued that, 

"The community" is also a poor substitute for working class organisation. Community blockades of manufacturing sites, ports and other infrastructure correctly identify the importance of disrupting production but they lack the power to achieve what they set out to do. A community blockade (unsupported by workers at the blockaded site) lasts as long as it takes the police to break it up.²

While we do not disagree that workers at these factories taking action would be very welcome, powerful, and an important step in class struggle, the fact of the matter is, aside from the MUA-supported actions mentioned earlier (which were broken by police), not one industrial action of that nature has taken place. Under current circumstances in Australia, the police don't even have to break up industrial actions, as the character of industrial laws has already made it extremely unlikely that such actions occur. Of course we should support such actions whenever possible, but this sort of critique tends to abstract from the existing terrain of class struggle that we can see in front of us.

Moreover, the notion that community pickets do not create a point of tension where workers employed at the site might take action is ill-founded. To take the example of Bisalloy, we can see how the community pickets have contributed to some, albeit not enough, movement by workers and their official representatives.  Given the lack of direct worker action in these sites, and the inability/unwillingness of unions to break out of the legal binds on formal industrial action, community pickets do constitute a means of rebuilding class power appropriate to the contemporary class composition of deindustrialised regions, where shopfloor modes of organisation no longer hold the power they once did.

The condition of the proletariat is not synonymous with the status of being an employee. From a communist viewpoint, limiting the consideration of working-class organisation and power to employees is problematic. The law of value and the rule of capital operate at the level of a totality, across the social factory. In this context the production, reproduction and circulation of capital are all constituted as terrains of class struggle. Class movement involves the construction of organs of power that challenge capital, as well as the negation of our condition as variable capital subject to the law of value. Such modes of organisation necessarily involve, but are not limited to, the shop floor. Given that the proletarian condition extends beyond the workplace across the social factory, articulating a communist politics must avoid reductive notions of class organisation.

Of course, a challenge that the Bisalloy pickets have confronted is how to develop stronger proletarian relations across the gates of the factory. We can look to examples of class organisation that involve but also exceed the workplace in grappling with this challenge, such as the NSW Builders Labourers Federation of the 1970s. The BLF took up 'green bans' (refusal to work on projects that would harm the natural or cultural environment, including disruption of proletarian neighbourhoods), as well as women's and queer liberation struggles, as key organising objectives, demonstrating how proletarian relations could become a part of class movement within and beyond the workplace.³ Wollongong's own history as a working-class town also provides lessons, where the Wollongong Out of Workers' Union struggled for both the right to work and the refusal of it.⁴ Class alliances across the boundary between the neighbourhood and the shopfloor have been pivotal in the reduction of toxic production practices that poisoned everyone in proximity to the industrial zones of Port Kembla. These histories offer some guidance for developing the politics of the Bisalloy pickets. At the same time, we would suggest that it is precisely the reality of proletarian relations within and beyond the shopfloor developed over the course of Wollongong's history that has contributed to the success of the pickets so far.

Finally, community pickets can articulate proletarian internationalism against the social factory — in this case, against capital's military supply lines that connect proles within and outside of Wollongong's factories to the atrocities facing our fellows in Gaza. Without overstating the significance of the pickets, they do constitute a form of class organisation appropriate to the conditions in Wollongong today.

Epilogue

Once again, we gathered in the pre-dawn twilight across the driveway at Bisalloy. The police took their positions along the street. A hundred of us discussed the fact that, for the first time, we had received no information about whether the factory would be open or closed today, whether our picket was likely to be challenged. We agreed to take our positions across the three entrances and wait. 

Early signs were good. There were no cars in the employee carpark, the enormous roller doors were closed, and no one could be seen moving around the site. A solitary hardhat sat on the picnic table where workers often take their lunch. We settled in. Discussion groups started at various gates; bands played at the entrance to the office. It was a hard picket, a demonstration, and a radical street festival, all in one. 

During our second meeting of the day, around 8:30 a.m., a picketer called Bisalloy's front office. With the phone on speaker, everyone got quiet and leaned in. Closed for 48 hours, we were told, due to "the protestors". Later, we learned through the unions that workers had been sent offsite for training. Our picket ended at 10:30 a.m., and no workers entered the site the rest of the day, or the next day either. With this latest picket, we have shut Bisalloy down for nearly 100 hours over 2024 and 2025.

Another picket has been set for May 8, 2025.

The authors of this piece are communists from unceded Dharawal Country who have participated in Wollongong Friends of Palestine and helped to organise the pickets at Bisalloy.