MUA's court victories a setback for Howard
By James Vassilopoulos
Taking advantage of a seemingly unlimited legal fund — legal expenses are a deduction from taxable income under Australian corporate law — Patrick Stevedores has appealed to the High Court against the April 23 judgment of the full bench of the Federal Court. That decision upheld Justice Tony North's order for the reinstatement of sacked maritime workers.
Whatever the High Court decides, the two Federal Court victories for the Maritime Union of Australia were an important political setback for Patrick and the Howard government. It may well have tipped the scale in a battle that is still far from over.
Mick Doleman, national organiser of the MUA, quoted in the April 24 Australian, said that the decision by the full bench of the Federal Court was a "principled" decision that was a victory for the trade union movement in Australia.
MUA national organiser Mick O'Leary said: "We've got 1400 people who are ready to go back to work; they're ready to go back in the gate and get this country moving again.
"I call on the government and Chris Corrigan to forget about these legal challenges. You're finished. You're done."
Justice North ruled that the MUA had an "arguable case" that the sacking of 2000 wharfies on April 7 was carried out as part of an illegal conspiracy. Hence he granted the MUA's request for an injunction to restore the pre-April 7 situation until the MUA's suit has been tried and decided.
The surprise late-night sackings, with the use of hooded thugs and savage dogs, had already aroused widespread disgust with Patrick and with the government that endorsed such measures.
A judicial ruling that the actions may have violated even the government's own anti-union Workplace Relations Act can only further discredit the union-bashers and expose the hypocrisy of their appeal to "law and order".
Result of struggle
Even in a strictly legal sense, the injunction to reinstate the sacked wharfies is a result of the militant picket lines maintained by MUA members and their supporters.
Patrick argued before both North and the full bench that, even if it were later convicted of illegality, the usual legal remedy was the award of damages, not an injunction to restore the previous position. The full bench replied that this was true only when the further course of events had made such a restoration practically impossible. In other words, if Patrick had succeeded in operating more or less normally with scab labour, MUA members would probably not have got their jobs back even by winning their conspiracy suit.
More broadly, judges are as aware of public opinion as anyone else. The widespread opposition to Patrick and the Liberals' attacks puts pressure on the courts not to view the dispute purely from the Patrick/government side.
This opposition has been reflected in the large pickets on the docks around the country, especially in Melbourne, and in the springing up of spontaneous suburban groups to support the wharfies, warehouse workers going on a 24-hour strike and widespread international backing — from San Francisco to Tokyo.
The clear political lesson is that working people can gain wider support and achieve victories when they fight back against sackings and other attacks by the Coalition government.
Sabotage
Patrick boss Chris Corrigan and Peter Reith, while paying lip service to "obeying" the court decisions, have been busily laying the basis for violating them in practice, claiming that it is "impractical" to resume operations using MUA labour.
The basis for this claim is that the "labour hire" companies, which Patrick last year quietly made into the formal employers of the wharfies, are now insolvent, Patrick having withdrawn all their funds.
This is all thimble and pea stuff, since the "labour hire" companies are all owned by Patrick. But it could provide legal pretexts for the administrators of the companies to refuse to rehire the wharfies.
In these circumstances, the MUA has felt compelled to agree that its members will work without wages "to the extent necessary for the employer companies to trade profitably". This leaves it open for workers not to be paid for a substantial period.
Workers also cannot take industrial action while the Federal Court injunction is in force.
In addition, the MUA has also offered to provide loans to the insolvent companies if that is necessary to get them operating.
The court ruling does not require Patrick to pump back the millions of dollars it took out of the three labour-hire companies.
Corrigan has also stated that Patrick may not resume operations at the ports of Adelaide, Bell Bay, Burnie, Port Kembla and Newcastle. This could provide a pretext for not rehiring workers, and then resuming with a scab work force at a later date.
Webb Dock at Port Melbourne, run by the National Farmers Federation front company, Producers and Consumers Stevedores, is unaffected by the Federal Court decision and will continue as a non-union stevedoring berth. The NFF would like to open up further beachheads, especially at Brisbane and Fremantle.
The struggle is thus far from over, and the MUA still needs and deserves the solidarity of the entire working class. The legal victories on April 21 and 23 should encourage renewed support activity on the docks and in the streets.
On April 20 the ACTU executive, under pressure from the widespread rank-and-file support for the MUA, decided that "the unions, Labor Councils and the ACTU" should "give the maximum possible support to the sacked Patrick workers"; and that it therefore "endorses the picket and public demonstrations in support of the sacked workers and the decisions of the Labor Councils ...".
However, "maximum possible support" in this case did not include calling for a national day of action of all unionists and supporters of the right to organise.
That will have to be organised by forces other than the ACTU executive. On May 6, Victorian unions have called a stoppage and rally against the Workplace Relations Act, the reactionary law that prohibits solidarity actions between unions. This should become a national day of action.