Port Botany picketers demand a fair go
By Cameron Parker
SYDNEY — Waterside workers at Patrick Stevedoring's Port Botany facility called a week-long strike from March 25. Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) members are staffing around-the-clock pickets at the two entrances. The strike follows a week of overtime bans and a three-day unpaid "work-in" at Port Botany.
The bans were imposed as part of the MUA's campaign to have current award conditions enshrined in a new enterprise agreement being negotiated with Patrick. Under the 1996 Reith/Kernot workplace laws, industrial action can be taken only in a designated enterprise bargaining period.
During the bans, Patrick ceased paying its work force, claiming that to do so would break the law, but did not inform the workers of this.
Patrick called in "supplementaries" (ticketed temporary workers) to complete the overtime but did not tell these workers they would not be paid. Jeff Rixon, a maintenance electrician at Port Botany, had done three 10.30pm to 5am shifts before finding out he would not be paid.
Under the new workplace relations act, however, Rixon could not protest — his union had to give Patrick 72 hours' notice that it wasn't going to put up with this injustice.
The workers' response — the work-in — was "exactly what Patrick didn't want us to do", Rixon told Green Left. "They wanted us to walk out, but that would have given them the excuse they needed to sack the lot of us.
Patrick claims it wants to eliminate "inefficient" work practices on the wharves, but waterside workers have made many sacrifices over the last 15 years in the name of efficiency. Steve, the picket delegate, explained that 26,000 waterside workers nation-wide have been made redundant in that time and "efficiency" has meant fewer workers doing more work. This is why overtime is such a big issue for waterside workers.
Rixon explained that dock workers work an average of 60 hours a week. Before the MUA initiated a work bans campaign 18 months ago, the company would call workers at any time and order them to front up. The workers demanded a roster, "so they could plan a life, have time to see their families, take their kids to school, that sort of thing", said Rixon. "If they get rid of the union, the first thing to go will be our roster."
The picketers are clear about the nature of their employer. "This is the sort of company that will let apprentices do their full four years then sack them", one told Green Left. Another, pointing to brand new cranes on the dock, said, "That one should be in Melbourne, and that one in Brisbane. This bloody company is so incompetent it can't even manage to get the right cranes to the right dock."
The waterside workers and the MUA need our support. If they lose this fight against the government and stevedoring bosses, who'll be next?