By Jane Beckmann
NEWCASTLE — More than 700 people packed the Newcastle Workers Club auditorium on November 21 to support the striking Hunter Valley miners. John Maitland, national secretary of the Construction, Mining, Forestry and Energy Union, reported that the national and international solidarity being shown was vital if the miners were to win.
Maitland gave a moving account of a crucial incident on the picket line. It was not clear that miners would be able to stop a train which had been ordered to cross. Just at that point, bus loads of maritime workers arrived, assembled behind their unfurled banners and marched to the picket line to stop the train. The meeting cheered when Maitland said that the Maritime Union of Australia deserves all workers' support. With such solidarity, Reith cannot win he said.
Two members of the US Longshoreman's Union announced that their union would not handle any cargo from the Hunter Valley No. 1 mine.
Maitland explained that the use of private security guards to harass workers at the ARCO mine in central Queensland is an indication of where industrial relations is headed.
In league with the Howard government, Rio Tinto has launched an unprecedented attack on the role of the Industrial Relations Commission as umpire between capital and labour, Maitland said. Rio Tinto was insisting on individual contracts regardless of workers' support for collective bargaining. Howard had also withdrawn Australia from the International Organisation of Labor.
Employers have never offered benefits to workers without pressure from trade unions, Maitland said, adding that organised labour is the bedrock on which all other progressive movements rely. He also condemned the Howard government's failure to apologise to the "stolen children".
Ross Peters, president of the Hunter Valley No 1. Lodge, described the support from mining communities around the country as humbling. He thanked the meeting for its solidarity and said that with organised support the miners and their families could beat Rio Tinto.
Doug Cameron, national secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union outlined Rio Tinto's history of environmental destruction, its attacks on workers and collaboration with right-wing governments and military regimes around the world. This sorry record included the exploitation of Aboriginal people in Weipa and the contamination with radioactive waste of communities in South Africa and Namibia.
At the Freeport copper mine in West Papua — the "terror mine" — Rio Tinto had the protection of the Indonesian army as it dumped more than 100,000 tonnes of scrap into the river every day. Cameron stated that as Rio Tinto employs 51,000 workers in 40 countries, with over $40 billion in sales in 1996, an international campaign was needed to fight it.
A unanimous motion stated that the unions support compulsory arbitration as the only way forward and criticised the Howard government for governing for multinationals and not "all" Australians.
Peter Barrack, secretary of the Newcastle Trades Hall, criticised the Newcastle Herald for its biased coverage of the Hunter dispute. He said the success of the meeting sent a message to Rio Tinto that the trade union movement was prepared to escalate the dispute to support the miners.