Howard, Reith must go!
By James Vassilopoulos
In its war against the Maritime Union of Australia, the Howard government suffered a double blow last week. First, an opinion poll showed a big drop in support for the Coalition. Then the current owner of the company involved in the Dubai industrial mercenary fiasco announced his willingness to sell documents which allegedly prove that a senior government official was intimately involved in the affair.
As Green Left Weekly went to press, the High Court had not yet ruled whether there is a basis for an appeal against two Federal Court judgments granting an injunction for the reinstatement of the 2000 sacked wharfies.
But whatever its decision, court cases related to the MUA's charge that Patrick Stevedores and the government illegally conspired against it are likely to go on for months and further damage the government.
The government in general, and industrial relations minister Peter Reith in particular, have backed Patrick to the hilt, and any setback the company suffers is likely to affect the Liberals also. People already see the government as sharing responsibility for the sacking of 2000 workers and the use of alsatians and mace spray.
Polls
An April 22 opinion poll commissioned by the Bulletin after the Federal Court finding that Patrick may have broken the law in sacking its work force found that support for the government had fallen to 38.5%. On a two-party basis, Coalition support dropped from 53% to 46.5%.
The ALP gained almost all the anti-Liberal swing, picking up 6% in its primary vote. The Greens increased from 2.5% when the dispute started on April 7 to 3.5% on April 22.
Only 8% of those surveyed supported the Patrick/government position of continuing to use scab labour and the police breaking the picket lines.
An AC Nielsen poll conducted April 17-19 found that a massive 32% of those polled would be less likely to vote for the Coalition because of the dispute. These results show that the government is in deep trouble.
Dubai
On April 29 Andrew Harris, a former Special Air Services officer and now owner of Fynwest (the company involved in training scab labour in Dubai), told the ABC's 7.30 Report that he was offering the company and its documents for sale.
Harris stated, "The documentation I have clearly indicates the government official [not identified by Harris] was aware of all the activities of Fynwest, Container Management Services and Patrick stevedoring from before June last year".
Harris said he would sell the documents for $1 million, and if no-one buys them will make them publicly available.
John Coombs, national secretary of the MUA, told ABC Radio on April 30, "The allegation is that Dr Stephen Webster has been the go-between". Webster is a senior adviser to Reith, who has repeatedly claimed that he knew nothing about the Dubai plans before they became public.
Patrick managing director Chris Corrigan, who in December denied he knew anything about the training of scabs to break the union, but in February admitted his involvement, has denied a claim by Harris that he (Corrigan) offered $100,000 for the documents.
The MUA's suit against Patrick is currently expected to begin in late May. It could be highly damaging to the Coalition, with Reith being subpoenaed to give evidence. The government will have to fend off claims that it has broken its own Workplace Relations Act.
A case of this nature continuing, perhaps for months, would further politically damage the Coalition. If the government and Patrick are found to have conspired to break the law, this could bring down the government. Certainly Reith and Howard would have to resign.
Political conspiracy
Regardless of whether or not there was a conspiracy in a legal sense to violate the Workplace Relations Act, there has clearly been an ongoing political conspiracy by the Howard government against trade unions and their ability to defend jobs, wages and working conditions.
Reith was the driving force behind the Workplace Relations Act. This act was intended to shift the balance of forces decisively to the side of the bosses. The act:
- establishes secret individual contracts, known as Australian Workplace Agreements, which deliberately break down solidarity between workers on the job;
- strips awards to only 20 matters;
- has severe penalties for unions that engage in "secondary boycotts" — i.e., that act in solidarity with another union. Unions can be fined $750,000 for breaking secondary boycott laws or as much as $10 million for breaching section 45DA relating to the lessening of competition;
- makes it easier to sack people;
- limits the right to strike legally to workers who are in enterprise bargaining and who have given 72 hours' notice;
- allows business to hire as many casual and part-time workers as it wishes.
The attack on the MUA was a deliberate attempt to start using the Workplace Relations Act and the power of the government to roll back workers' conditions. The MUA was selected as the target because the government calculated that wharfies, who have won above-average wages and conditions, could be portrayed as "elite" and isolated from the support of other workers.
The government's contempt for workers led it to miscalculate. Working people have seen through the crude propaganda of Reith/Corrigan and realised that their own well-being is also at stake in this dispute.
It didn't bank on the willingness of working people to fight back, as reflected in the thousands who have attended the picket line and been willing to break the laws.
The political conspiracy of Howard, Reith and the entire Coalition government to undermine the jobs of working people and to carry out anti-worker policies is why they have to go.
Now is the time for the Labor opposition actually to oppose Howard and Co. The ALP (along with the Greens and Democrats) should immediately initiate a Senate inquiry into the conspiracy against the MUA, and demand the resignation of the government as a whole (not Reith alone as sacrificial lamb).
This would not just provide support for the wharfies. It would also end Coalition attacks like the scheme to privatise the remaining two-thirds of Telstra and would lift the axe from the neck of all Howard's other victims — students, the unemployed, Aboriginal people, small farmers, the environment and working people generally.