The Maritime Union of Australia is fighting Patrick stevedores' attempts to use the pandemic to cut conditions and wages, reports Jim Mcllroy.
Paul McAleer
The Maritime Union of Australia (Sydney branch) has thrown its support behind the Black deaths in custody campaign. McAleer and Paul Keating told Liv Adams and Rachel Evans that the Gurindji people's walk-off from Wave Hill in the Northern Territory remains an inspiration.
Two companies have used the COVID-19 pandemic to justify mass sackings of ferry workers, report Jim McIlroy and Rachel Evans.
Jim McIlroy reports on a call for unions to take strike action on May 1 under the banner of workers’ rights, social justice and climate action.
Hutchison Ports workers in Sydney and Brisbane walked off the job for 24 hours on April 5 to protest the company’s ongoing refusal to move away from outsourcing jobs and the overseas remote-controlling of already semi-automated equipment.
More than 300 members of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA), their families and supporters gathered at the M Club in Maroubra on April 7 to mark the 20th anniversary of the historic Patrick’s dispute in 1998.
The Patrick stevedoring company had conspired with the John Howard Coalition government to send in security guards in balaclavas, dogs and scabs to force waterfront workers out and attempt to eliminate the MUA from the docks.
MUA Warns Historic Peace on the Docks Under Threat within Patrick’s Terminal
The Maritime Union of Australia warns Qube Logistics is threatening the newly-struck national peace on the docks by opening a small, effectively non-unionised container yard within Patrick’s Port Botany Terminal.
“We're all very happy and proud of our efforts in this dispute: 106 days ago we didn't have a job and now we are going back inside,” a waterfront worker at the Hutchison Port Botany community assembly told Green Left Weekly on November 19.
He was commenting on the settlement agreed between Hutchison management and the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) to bring to an end conclusion the long-running industrial battle over the jobs of 97 workers sacked by text and email on the night of August 6.
The long-running dispute between the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) and Hutchison Ports is edging closer to settlement.
An MUA member at the Port Botany community assembly told Green Left Weekly on October 30 that letters offering voluntary redundancies were being issued by the company that day. MUA members have a week to reply.
They said that substantially improved redundancy entitlements, “roughly equivalent to 26 weeks' pay,” are being offered — a big gain on the previous offer of nine weeks' pay for three years of service.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott's blocking of a conscience vote for marriage equality in a six-hour Coalition party room meeting has angered supporters of equal marriage.
The grassroots movement for marriage equality, a defining feature of Australian politics over the last 11 years, has been reinvigorated over the last two months.
Rallies are being organised by Equal Love in Melbourne and Adelaide on August 15 and 16. Liberal MP Warren Entsch's cross party bill will be put on August 17.
On August 8 and 9, rallies took place in Sydney, Perth and Brisbane.