The best and worst of the union movement
Waterfront — the battle that changed Australia
By Helen Trinca and Anne Davies
Doubleday, Sydney, 2000
$29.60, 317pp.
REVIEW BY BOB CARNEGIE
Writers and journalists play an enormous role in creating public opinion and, at certain times, societal myths. They have done an exceptional job in deluding the average working Australian about the type of society we have. And they've done it again with this one.
In Waterfront — the battle that changed Australia, Fairfax journalists Helen Trinca and Anne Davies have given us an elitist look at a dispute which deeply affected the lives of tens of thousands of trade unionists, pensioners, students and other supporters of workers' rights.
Trinca and Davies had the resources at their disposal to examine this struggle in depth. But they chose the relatively conservative path, and have written a book which treats the waterfront dispute as a clash between the hierarchy of the Maritime Union of Australia, the ACTU, Patrick stevedoring boss Chris Corrigan and workplace relations minister Peter Reith.
Waterfront outlines the major events of the April-May 1998 battle in chronological order: the leaking of government documents detailing their involvement, the takeover of Webb Dock, the dispute itself and its aftermath. And it has some interesting facts in it, such as the revelation that, despite the long lead time, the MUA and ACTU had no legal strategy until Melbourne solicitor Josh Bornstein contacted them on January 30, 1998.
That aside, the authors have taken many of the things they've been told at face value; if they'd probed further, the real, and quite different, truth would have emerged. Partly their confusion has to do with quite brazen attempts by a section of the MUA hierarchy to rewrite its role in the dispute.
One chapter, "Trouble in the Tropics", for example, covers the September 1997 attempt to replace the union workforce in Cairns with contract labour, an attempt thwarted by the owner of the Java Sea refusing to have his ship involved in a dispute not of his making.
The role of the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) is recognised, as is that of the International Longshore Association (ILA), which covers waterside workers on the east coast of the United States. The ITF identified the owner, while the ILA pressured him to pull his ship out.
But Trinca and Davies ignore the more significant example, which created the atmosphere for such powerful supportive action — the example of the Liverpool dockers, who fought for two years against their sacking and who inspired waterside workers everywhere.
Another chapter, "Divided Nation, Divided Family", details divisions within the MUA leadership over the berthing of the container ship Australian Endeavour at Patrick's terminal in Sydney, including national secretary John Coombs' threat to suspend deputy national secretary Tony Papaconstuntinos for disagreeing with Coombs' decision to let the ship berth.
Coombs argued that by allowing the ship to be serviced by scabs, the union avoided certain prosecution under the Trade Practices Act. But it also created a great deal of confusion internationally and showed the limitations of the union's strategy.
After being serviced by scabs, the Australian Endeavour, with its all-union crew, sailed to Yokohama in Japan. After a small protest, Japanese dockworkers serviced it — no doubt the sight of MUA members sailing on a ship loaded with scab cargo undermined further protest action. By limiting such an enormous dispute to just Patrick, rather than escalating it to other ports and other shipping companies, the union's national leadership was ensuring the dispute's limited outcome.
A third chapter, "Picket Power", further graphically details the MUA leadership's elitist outlook.
On April 19, 1998 about 1000 supporters of the MUA stormed through barricades and protested outside Patrick's container facility at Fishermen's Island in Brisbane. During the protest, the southern Queensland branch secretary Mick Carr and MUA national organiser Jim Tannock argued heatedly (and publicly) over what the protesters should do. Carr argued they should enter the facility while Tannock said that the point had been made and that was enough.
In the hands of Trinca and Davies, however, Carr has undergone a metamorphosis: "If they get in someone will be killed, Mick Carr ... thought to himself as he tried to calm the crowd".
Trinca and Davies also relate a phone call MUA national organiser Mick O'Leary received from Coombs, after he had seen him battling on a picket line. Coombs advised O'Leary, "Not done, mate, not for a national official". What was all right for the rank and file was not for a national organiser, apparently.
The authors make only fleeting references, however, to the finest act of solidarity in the whole dispute: the collective heroism of the working men and women of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) locals 13 and 63 in Los Angeles. For 17 days, the longshore workers defied US law and refused to service the Columbus Canada, as part of its cargo had been loaded by Patrick's scabs, an act which made Patrick's major clients very nervous.
Trinca and Davies seem unwilling to examine the case, because it is a "difficult" area for some of the MUA hierarchy which, two years after the event, is portraying the actions of these two unions in a very different, and false, light. Its reason is clear: the rank and file led the boycott of the Columbus Canada and an empowered rank and file is the last thing the MUA leadership wants.
Waterfront concludes with a brief analysis of the dispute, concluding that Corrigan came out of it with most of what he wanted and that the MUA is now facing difficulties, in recruitment and other areas.
My outlook is somewhat different. For the MUA to have survived such a ferocious attack was a victory for workers everywhere. It was, however, an extremely short-lived one: what was won on the picket lines has been handed over at the negotiating table.
It is hard to generate solidarity if your team has a trade-off mentality. The cost of this dispute cannot be measured by dollars and cents or how many union members the MUA can't recruit.
This dispute claimed the jobs of 700 permanent workers, add another 500 if you take the redundancies at Patrick's rival, P&O, into account. Casualisation in the industry is now rampant and, amongst the workers I've spoken to, there's a certain despair in the way they see the industry heading.
Corrigan has created the atmosphere he wants for his business and he's now the toast of the town. Since the dispute, the share price of Patrick's parent firm, Lang Corp, has risen a staggering 800%.
On the union side, the dispute has shown that the strategy that "The union can't do this and that, because of the laws" is a strategy doomed to failure. It is a strategy which creates an enormous gap between the leadership and the membership. Danger does not pass by burying your head in the sand or counting on the election of a Labor government.
The 1998 waterfront dispute saw the very best and worst of this country's union movement. The generosity of union organisations and rank and file workers was outstanding. It could have been the start of a re-emergence of unionism, but sadly it wasn't. We may have to wait a long time for another opportunity.
[Bob Carnegie was, until July 1998, a branch organiser with the south Queensland branch of the MUA, as well as a former Queensland president of the Maritime Union Socialist Activities Association (MUSAA), and an inspector for the ITF.]