Sam Wainwright
Thirty-six seafarers employed on the chemical carrier MT Stolt Australia who were facing the sack won a victory on July 14, when their employer signed a memorandum of understanding with the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA).
On July 7 the ship's owners announced their plan to sail it to Singapore, sack the crew, and re-flag the Stolt Australia in the Cayman Islands tax haven. This would have created a "flag of convenience" (FoC) vessel, which meant the owners could employ a Third World crew paid as little as $100 a week. The 18 crew members on board at the time risked $6000 fines and 12 months' jail by refusing to sail the vessel, keeping it tied up with its load of sulphuric acid at the Zinfex zinc smelter wharf in Hobart.
During the course of the dispute, a support protest sprang up on the wharf, and on July 11 a rally was held outside Stolt NYK's Melbourne headquarters. The combined pressure brought the company to the table, and it agreed to redeploy the crew to other Stolt vessels and negotiate the introduction of an alternative chemical tanker.
Stolt NYK claimed that the vessel was no longer required to work the Australian coast, however the MUA had good reason to be suspicious of this claim. Under the Navigation Act, cargo carried from one Australian port to another is supposed to be carried by Australian-flagged vessels. But shipping bosses can get around this requirement by claiming that there are no appropriate vessels available and applying for an exemption (called single and continuous voyage permits).
Ship owners can manipulate the availability of vessels to create such situations, and the Howard government has encouraged this by handing out more permits than ever before. The Stolt Australia was the last Australian-flagged chemical tanker on the coast.
In the last 10 years, the number of Australian-flagged vessels has dropped from more than 100 to around 52. Government policy has introduced Third World wages and conditions into a sector of Australia's domestic transport system, not only wiping out Australian seafarers' jobs, but also undermining conditions in the land transport industry. However, unlike a land-based, low-wage "export processing zone", the manipulation of the permit system goes unseen by the majority of the population.
With the exception of a small number of specialised commodities, international cargo is now carried by FoC vessels with Third World crews. This process was cemented with the privatisation of the Australian National Line by the Keating Labor government in 1994. By allowing the spread of FoC vessels into coastal trade, the Howard government threatens to completely destroy what remains of Australia's deepwater seafaring work force.
In a statement explaining their stand, the crew of the Stolt Australia said: "We, after much consideration, have decided that this is a fundamental issue for the future of Australian shipping and Australian workers in general.
"We condemn the Howard Government for its wholesale destruction of Australian shipping and for its abuse of the Single Voyage Permit System, which creates serious security and environmental risks to our country, as well as undermining the standard of living of Australian workers by forcing them to compete with cheap Third World labour.
"Accordingly, we as the crew of this vessel have decided that we must take a stand against the massive injustices that the Howard Government has inflicted upon Australian workers."
From Green Left Weekly, July 19, 2006.
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