Maritime Union of Australia stop-work meetings held around Australia last week to update members on the Webb Dock dispute showed that wharfies and seafarers are angry, determined to win and not alone. The meetings all voted for a $50 levy on members and began the job of organising to put the wharfies' case to the public.
Martin Iltis reports from Adelaide that the 200 MUA members who attended the February 9 stop-work in Port Adelaide heard that federal workplace relations minister Peter Reith had accused Adelaide's waterfront operator, SeaLand, of making the city inefficient, unproductive and overpriced. Rick Newland, SA state secretary of the MUA, accused reporters of not seeking to publish the truth on issues such as productivity levels.
Efficiency on the waterfront was not the real issue behind efforts to break the unionised work force, according to MUA assistant national secretary, Paddy Crumlin. "The message to workers is clear. They have no chance, if the strongest unions are crushed, of maintaining reasonable wages and work conditions."
Crumlin pointed out that the $100 million the National Farmers Federation (NFF) spent on leasing an area of Webb Dock, not even designed to assist commercial ventures, would have been more usefully spent on drought relief for farmers. Crumlin said the unionists must be prepared to take their message to the streets and to the bush.
Cheryl Kernot's role in the passage of the Workplace Relations Act was raised by Crumlin, who also criticised Laurie Brereton's attacks on workers' rights when he was Hawke and Keating's minister for industrial relations. Despite his criticisms of the ALP, Crumlin emphasised that, because of its link to the working class, it was essential to work with other groups to re-elect Labor.
About 40 local MUA members went to Melbourne to join the February 10 rally there.
Alex Robinson and Roberto Jorquera report from Fremantle that the 350-strong WA branch stop-work meeting on February 9 unanimously supported a resolution "condemn[ing] the role played by Chris Corrigan, and his blatant support for Reith and the NFF". The resolution called on the Patrick board to remove Corrigan, and begin genuine negotiations with the MUA.
Included in an MUA media release about the meeting was a statement from the Rural Action Movement of WA that the NFF does not represent the majority of farmers in its waterfront reform policy, or in general.
In a media conference following the meeting, MUA national organiser Jim Tannock said the Patrick-NFF Webb Dock operation would most likely recur in Fremantle, especially if the NFF defeated resistance from Melbourne dock workers. Webb Dock ("Dubai on-shore") would be a training ground for more non-unionised labour to staff similar ventures in Sydney, Brisbane and Fremantle, he said.
In Sydney, Marina Carman reports, around 1500 MUA members and supporters attended the February 9 meeting, along with delegations from the Hunter Valley mines and Port Kembla steelworks.
Speakers appealed to the media to stop telling lies about wharfies' pay and "laziness". Channel Nine was singled out for not giving the wharfies a "fair go", after using 10-year old footage of wharfies on a tea-break.
Many organisations and individuals have pledged their support for the union; the list read out to the meeting included the Labour Council (NSW); many unions; parents and teachers associations; Friends of the Earth; former NSW builders labourers' union leader and environmentalist, Jack Mundey; magistrate Pat O'Shane; Bishop Desmond Tutu; actors; poets; academics; musicians and Olympic medalists.
The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union and the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union addressed the meeting, and overseas wharfies and transport union federations sent messages of support. Other speakers stressed that the NFF does not represent struggling farmers, and that the union had sent money to farmers during the last drought.
Union leaders outlined the broad direction of the campaign, but declined to go into any detail because "as soon as we walk out these doors we'd have an injunction slapped on us". Their plans include a lobby trip to Canberra and campaigning for more public support.
The meeting made clear that the stakes are high, but the general message to members was wait for the leaders' instructions and "keep cool heads". As if to deliver a warning, Jack Mundey told the crowd that one of the unions' major errors during the ALP-ACTU Accord days had been the lack of rank-and-file involvement in decision making.
After the meeting, the assembly marched to Patrick's office for a street rally where wharfies' wives and mothers condemned the media's lies and described the reality of the long hours that wharfies work to bring home decent pay.
The 400 MUA members who met in Brisbane on February 10 voted in favour of holding a solidarity rally on March 4 at King George Square in the city, reports Graham Mathews.
South Queensland MUA assistant secretary Col Davies told Green Left he expected ACTU and other trade union support to ensure that the rally was large and effective. The union is planning to leaflet railway stations and campaign for more public support in the lead-up to the rally.