Weipa: record of a strike

Weipa: Where Australian unions drew their 'line in the sand' with CRA
By Patrick Gorman
Weipa Industrial Site Committee through CFMEU Mining Division
69pp., $5
Reviewed by Jennifer Thompson This book by Paddy Gorman, editor of the CFMEU Mining Division's journal Common Cause, is testimony to the courage and shrewdness of the 75 Weipa strikers and their families. It is largely a day-by-day account of the seven week strike against the union-busting policies of the CRA-owned mining company Comalco. Weipa, published by the Weipa industrial site committee, begins with a look at the background to the strike, both CRA's anti-union ideology and its strategic campaign to de-unionise its workplaces. Gorman and a number of activists involved in the dispute launched the book at the Teachers' Club in Sydney last week. Weipa CFMEU Lodge Secretary, Richie Ahmat, accompanied by fellow strikers Rob Grinstead and Lloyd Roots, thanked the ACTU, the CFMEU and all of the strike's supporters. Queensland CFMEU Mining and Energy Division vice-president Hector Heumiller sounded an important note saying that while it was the best battle he'd ever been in, it had only just started. He said unionists needed to "keep boxing on" pointing to the Pilbara and other places where CRA's strategy had reduced unionism to "small pockets of members". Others including CFMEU national secretary Stan Sharkey, national president John Maitland and ACTU official Bob Richardson commented on the significance of the dispute and the continuing six-month strike at another CRA workplace, the Vickery coal mine at Gunnedah in NSW. Gorman drew attention to some of the book's highlights including: the high level of solidarity Weipa's population gave to the strike; the support given by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community who, in 1957, were kicked off their land without compensation by Queensland's National Party government in concert with Comalco; and the tremendous support from the rank and file of the union movement around Australia as well as the general public and the Bougainville solidarity movement. What becomes obvious from reading Weipa, regardless of the CFMEU's role in its publication, is the overwhelming support Weipa workers have for that union. By contrast the Australian Workers Union leadership which, with the support of the company, has principle union status at Weipa has played very little positive role. Perhaps the main analysis missing from Weipa is how much the union leaderships contributed to the current low level of unionisation. Union leaderships' adherence to wage restraint through the Accord, their failure to stop the dismantling of the award system by demobilising the struggle in deference to the ALP's needs in government played some role in allowing CRA to go as far it did before a fight began. Overall, the book is well worth getting. Funds will go to a fighting fund established by the Weipa workers to finance struggles to defend and extend past gains of the workers' movement.