MUA: Rank and File challenge warmly received
By Dick Nichols
For Dave Cushion, the National MUA Rank and File candidate for Victorian branch secretary, the Maritime Union of Australia election, which began on April 14, is about "reestablishing ourselves after the dispute". The "dispute", of course, was last year's momentous struggle against Patrick Stevedores backed by the National Farmers Federation and the federal government.
The settlement nearly halved the number of full-time workers on Patrick sites, increased the ratio of casual to permanent workers, cut staffing levels on equipment like cranes and increased management's power over rosters. Most importantly, it boosted management's ability to divide and rule the various classes of wharfie — permanents, permanent part-timers and casuals — and drained confidence in the leadership of the union.
Cushion, from Patrick's East Swanson Dock in Melbourne, told Green Left Weekly that members are looking for "someone who will truly represent them". This is reflected in two features of the current ballot: the feeling that the present leadership has drifted from the ranks and the fact that the various opposition tickets and individuals all stress the need for local representation, such as port committees.
Ian Bray, one of the National MUA Rank and File's candidates for assistant national secretary, agrees. "From state to state, without exception, the biggest issue is the lack of communication from the official structures of the union. People feel they're being treated with contempt", he said. The Rank and File proposal to empower job delegates and other local structures is "overwhelmingly supported", Bray added.
Among seafarers, the predominant concern remains the loss of the industry roster, agreed to by a delegates' conference in 1997 under intense pressure from the government and ship owners.
The intensity of feeling over this issue comes through in a letter sent to the National MUA Rank and File web page. Sydney-based seafarer Jamie Armstrong wrote: "Under company employment we now see members of this once proud union too terrified to ask for some of their basic entitlements. Nobody wants to be the delegate any more out of fear of not being asked back. Health and safety is starting to decline to terrible levels ... and more rust buckets will come onto the coast now that the employer has full control over the labour pool."
Job security is the main issue on the Western Australian wharves, where casualisation is very high. In other ports, working conditions under the of enterprise agreements in the wake of the Patrick settlement are a major concern.
Incumbent's problems
Against this background, the difficulties facing incumbent officials are not small. Their defence is that they have done the best possible given the ship owners', stevedoring companies' and government's offensive. Defying the mood on the wharves, the incumbents continue to claim the Patrick result was a victory.
Election literature for the Victorian incumbents simply lists the attacks the union has weathered over the last four years. They promise the leadership will maintain its "competence" and the "unity". Despite repeated challenges to do so, the incumbents have avoided debating their opponents.
Bray told Green Left Weekly that the leadership's tactic is to "to resort to mud-slinging and private accusation". The National MUA Rank and File had been smeared as wanting to "drag everyone out the gate at the drop of a hat" and being willing to "deliver everyone bound and gagged to the boss" in enterprise bargain negotiations.
"We're accused of being both 'Trotskyites' and supporters of Bronwyn Bishop", Bray laughed. "But our position is clear. It will be up to the ranks to decide when and how industrial action will take place."
Bray expressed outrage at incumbent officials engaging in electioneering under the guise of conducting union business, at the MUA membership's expense: "Mick Doleman [assistant national secretary] spent three days in WA last week, paid for by the members, and had one union meeting with 14 members. The rest of the time he was backing the local official team [Terry Buck, Wally Pritchard and Dean Summers]."
The leadership has sought to divert attention from the issues in the election with accusations of "outside interference" in the union's affairs. Doleman used monthly stop-work meetings to attack Green Left Weekly for its coverage of the rise of the rank-and-file movement within the MUA.
More generally, a whispering campaign is being conducted against "Trotskyist" and "outsider" activity in the union. One target is the Democratic Socialist Party, which made no secret of its criticism of the Patrick settlement and its support for the rank-and-file movement.
The DSP's view is at odds with that expressed in a "resolution on unity" adopted at the recent national conference of the Maritime Unionists Socialist Activities Association (MUSAA), to which a number of MUA officials, including Doleman, belong. The resolution states that "a number of external forces are seeking to distort what was clearly an overwhelming victory for workers in the Patrick dispute".
The DSP has issued a statement on the MUA elections that states: "The DSP supports the National MUA Rank and File. We believe that a win for its team would be a further step forward for the militant and democratic unionism the Australian trade union movement sorely needs.
"It would strengthen the trend that started with the victory last year of the Workers First team in the Victorian branch of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union. It would help inspire the growth of similar movements in other unions where workers are determined to stop the retreats of incumbent officials."
The statement says "the issues in the election are of concern to the broader trade union movement, to the left in general, and to anyone committed to maintaining a strong unionism as workers' first line of defence against the greed of the employers. Expressing an opinion on such issues as the final result of the momentous Patrick battle is not 'interference' in a union election by 'outsiders' but a contribution to the debate the entire trade union movement needs to have about the way forward. MUA members, like all of us, can only benefit from such a debate.
"In this context the demand to 'keep the debate within the union' can only be interpreted as an attempt to scare MUA members into rejecting any ideas that don't have the blessing of the MUA leadership (or for which they have no answers). It is an insult to MUA members, who apparently can't be trusted to work matters out for themselves.
"Ironically, this tactic smells of government and right-wing 'red-baiting' attacks on the old Communist Party of Australia when it commanded mass support in the two main unions that came together to form the MUA, the Waterside Workers' Federation and the Seamen's Union of Australia. Weren't the CPA called 'extremists' to whom decent workers should never pay attention?" (The full text of the statement can be found at <http://www.peg.apc.org/~stan/dsp>).
Third ticket
Given the disillusionment with MUA officials, it comes as no surprise that a split has developed among the incumbents' ranks. A third ticket for the position of assistant national secretary has thrown its hat into the ring.
Jake Haub, a delegate at Patrick, Darling Harbour, and Dave Hauser, a delegate at Port Botany, stress many of the same issues and proposals of the National MUA Rank and File, especially the need to revive port committees, have proper preparation of enterprise agreements and thorough consultation with the rank and file. Haub and Hauser underline the need for "quality of life" rosters, a reference to such horrors as the 12-day straight night shifts at Patrick.
Despite the similarity of their policies with the Rank and File, Haub and Hauser have included Doleman on their ticket as third assistant national secretary.
This reflects their closeness to the positions of Central NSW (Sydney and Port Botany) deputy branch secretary Jim Donovan. Donovan initially endorsed the Patrick settlement but has since fallen out with MUA national secretary John Coombs over its application, as well as the new P&O Ports deal.
The aim of the Haub-Hauser ticket is to sacrifice the other incumbent assistant national secretaries, Jim Tannock and Mick O'Leary (who are close to Coombs), by strengthening the MUSAA-Communist Party of Australia axis within the union. Haub and Donovan are both CPA members, and the CPA has recently sought to establish a "socialist alliance" with MUSAA.
The election is the first in which the MUA will vote as a fully amalgamated union and it's proving a novel experience for many. "What struck me most was the maturity of MUA members", Ian Bray told Green Left Weekly. "They want to hear our stand on the issues and are prepared to give everyone a fair go.
"It's been a positive experience for a lot of younger workers who have come onto the wharves mainly as casuals. Many are experiencing a union election for the first time, and you can see that it's making them think. They see that the MUA is still alive and there to be taken back."
[Dick Nichols is national industrial convener of the Democratic Socialist Party.]