By James Vassilopoulos
In a stunning victory for the Maritime Union of Australia, the US-owned company, International Purveyors, which had sacked its unionised workers at its Cairns port a week earlier, agreed on September 19 to allow them to load the vessel MV Java Sea. The ship was bound for the Freeport mine in Indonesian-controlled West Papua (officially known as Irian Jaya).
Major issues to do with jobs and working conditions remain to be resolved however, and negotiations over an enterprise bargaining agreement have now begun.
The International Transport Federation intervened on the request of the MUA to stop the MV Java Sea from entering the Cairns port. The ship had been anchored off-harbour and was delayed for 24 hours by the ITF, John Coombs, national secretary of the MUA, told ABC Radio.
International Purveyors, which operates the Cairns port, had earlier terminated its contract with Northern Shipping and Stevedoring, thus sacking the seven full-time and 20 casual unionised wharfies employed by NSS. International Purveyors sought to use four non-unionised workers on individual contracts to load ships bound for its parent company's mine in West Papua.
A picket was immediately set up by the sacked workers and their supporters, although it did let trucks carrying supplies for the Freeport mine through to the wharves.
Rio Tinto, the company attacking miners at the Hunter Valley No. 1 coal mine, is embroiled in the dispute, owning 12% of the Freeport mine. The Suharto dictatorship in Indonesia also has a share, controlling 8% of the mine.
In other developments on the waterfront, the September 18 Illawarra Mercury reported that 30 army personnel had set up camp at the multi-purpose birth at Port Kembla. This is the second case of the army being seen on the waterfront. Two weeks earlier, soldiers attempted to enter the White Bay wharves of Sydney. According to Tony Papaconstuntinos, assistant national secretary of the MUA, they were stopped by threatened strike action.
Army Major Steve Delaney told the Mercury the troops were "from the 10th regiment in Sydney whose normal role is stores handling over the shore". Mick Armstrong, an organiser from the MUA's south coast branch, was told the soldiers were there for "tactical training", but said he didn't believe that. Armstrong said the move was part of the Howard government's preparation for using "troops as strikebreakers at Port Kembla".
According to Labor MP for the Wollongong federal seat of Throsby, Colin Hollis, "the Howard government had commissioned consultants to advise on a covert plan to use defence force personnel in an attempt to smash the MUA". During questioning in Senate estimates committee hearings, transport department officials confirmed that $90,000 had so far been spent on consultants, with a further $600,000 to be spent.
In August, a leaked government report jointly prepared by a consultant from the firm ACIL and individuals previously associated with the National Farmers Federation, outlined plans to destroy the MUA. These include the use of non-union labour, forcing striking workers back to work, seizing union assets and assessing which unions may support the wharfies.
The August 15 Financial Review reported that the NFF has "proposed bringing in the troops". The NFF's industrial director said that one option was the "use of servicemen — in the national interest — to keep the docks operating during a strike". The NFF has already raised this option in meetings with the minister of defence (and ex-president of the NFF), Ian McLachlan.
The dispute in Cairns is highly significant for employer and government plans at other ports and with other workers. South Queensland MUA branch secretary, Mick Carr, told Green Left Weekly that the Cairns dispute was not about productivity, but about the government's aim to break the maritime union.
Carr said the wharfies had received "tremendous support" from other working people in Cairns. Workers from "all industries in Cairns" have been saying that the employers are trying to do the same thing to them, "do away with penalty rates, reduce their wages and bench mark them to something which is cheaper and not as safe", he said.
Under the Workplace Relations Act maritime workers are not allowed to strike (primary boycotts), nor to conduct solidarity strikes (secondary boycotts) with other workers. According to Carr, this was why the sacked picketers had to let the trucks through.
"Reith wants us to break the law so that orders can be issued and they can break the union financially", Carr told Green Left. He said the MUA is not about to "fall into that trap" and would try as much as possible to stay within the law.
Papaconstuntinos told Green Left Weekly that if the government is "so rabid about destroying the trade union movement" then workers were ultimately going to "revolt and practise civil disobedience". He believed that "millions of people" would go out on strike to defend their working conditions.
Asked if this was possible after the demobilisation of the union movement over the last 15 years, Papaconstuntinos replied that "workers, whether blue- or white-collar, understand that our struggle is their struggle" and they would not be "fooled or hood-winked" by Reith or federal treasurer Peter Costello.
It is clear that the government, together with employer groups like the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the National Farmers Federation, have the maritime industry in their sights for a major attack.
Part of the government's preparation for such an attack is painting the wharfies as massively "overpaid". Reith, for example, keeps talking about wharfies getting $100,000 a year for working a 30-hour week. In fact, the average stevedoring award rate is $30,000, with some workers in the big container terminals earning around $70,000 for working anywhere from 50 to 80 hours a week.