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MUA - Here To Stay!
Our National Council in April coincided with the date 24 years ago that Patrick Stevedores sacked almost 2000 workers around Australia, and set their dogs and balaclava-clad enforcers on to the Australian waterfront.
It was 7pm on April 7th, 1998 that bosses and the Howard-led Liberal Government of the day set off one of the nation’s longest and most bitter industrial disputes.
The High Court later found that there was a probable criminal conspiracy against the union and its members by the government and the company.
Today, two things mark this significant anniversary.
Firstly, the commencement of a newly finalised Enterprise Agreement with Patrick Terminals -- which will deliver immediate, significant and ongoing pay rises and long-term job security for our members.
This comes after two years of negotiation, dispute, and struggle in the face of a management team that had not learned the lessons of the past and wanted to cancel their entire workforce’s agreements and send them back to the Award. Reports abound of them and some other Stevedoring employers lobbying the federal government over the last two years to remove the industrial rights under the Fair Work Act afforded every other working Australian woman and man in the workplace.
Secondly, the Australian Trade Union Institute has released an excellent historical resource for educating future generations about the social, economic and historical importance of the 1998 waterfront dispute.
It includes some excellent historical footage from the MUA’s own archives, and is a timely reminder on the cusp of the 2022 Federal Election of the lengths a Liberal Government will go to on behalf of their big business backers.
Just as we did 24 years ago, the MUA stands resolutely defiant against these attacks by conservative political figures and their sponsors in the big end of town. We are armed with the facts, united by the courage and determination of our membership, and with the backing of unionised maritime and transport workers around the world. We will keep our essential domestic supply chains in Australian ownership and working transparently in the public interest of our nation during this time of massive upheaval and international dysfunction.
We are on the cusp of a Federal Election. Mobilise and reach out to everyone you know to vote out Scott Morrison and his Government. This is the only way to secure your access to decent employment , secure jobs and a genuinely independent Australia where the rights of working Australians are always placed first in word and action. The union can assist you with the facts and anything you may need in the task. Contact your branch to join the campaign efforts locally.
Another Grubby Act
DP World advertises itself internationally as a progressive business concerned with social and corporate responsibility that supports labour rights and works ‘in a responsible way that prioritises sustainability and impact on the people, communities and environment in which we operate’. The company now has serious questions to answer following the ruthless sacking of 800 seafarers at its subsidiary P&O Ferries in the UK.
On March 17, in a strikingly similar act to what Australian Seaferers have been subjected to over decades, P&O Ferries fired 800 British-based seafarers with 30 minutes notice over a pre-recorded Zoom call. The company made the decision without any consultation with its workforce or their unions.
The MUA, The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) and European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF) are calling on DP World to engage in proper and transparent discussions with their maritime workforce and unions to repair the situation. The Rail and Maritime Union and Nautilus have been long term friends and brothers and sisters of Australian maritime workers. The former RMT general secretary Bob Crow was a particularly strident and militant supporter of our union throughout his working life and up to his premature death. He attended every quadrennial conference of our union for many years making many friends as a true comrade and working-class internationalist.
In the Zoom sacking, P&O Ferries told workers this was a “tough” decision, but it would “not be a viable business” without the changes.
In fact, P&O Ferries’ owner DP World has made record revenue and profits throughout the pandemic, turning over $10.8bn in revenue and $1.2bn in profit last year, a 33% increase in profit compared with the previous year. The company has paid out $376.1 million in dividends to shareholders over the past two years alone.
In another act reminiscent of what Australian Seafarers and maritime workers have come to expect from many of these multinational shipping and supply chain companies and the Australian government, a leaked memo has exposed that Ministers were informed of P&O Ferries’ intention to sack these workers the night it happened. The Conservative UK Government did nothing to stop it, reminiscent of the collusion between conservative government and bosses throughout the Australian waterfront and seafaring industries.
The P&O debacle illustrates the pervasive cynicism and arrogance of many multinational supply chain and transport companies and their complete lack of attention to anything but their self-interest. The union has asked DPW Dockworkers worldwide in particular to bring the matter to their local management’s attention to deliver our complaint to the senior management of DP World in Dubai as part of the international campaign to restore those workers’ rights and employment.
Waterfront Productivity - the rap and not the crap
Amidst growing employer-militancy and contrary to their rhetoric of Fortress Australia, the now Morrisonled Liberal Government is using a Productivity Commission inquiry to ventilate misinformation and fake news to escalate an industrial and political crusade against the Maritime Union and its membership. Stevedoring employers have made submissions but have done so on the basis they are kept confidential.
Submissions like those from foreign shipowner lobby Shipping Australia are full of fake information, prejudice and elitist doggerel masking the fact that their companies use Australia to gouge profit, avoid taxation and exploit international crews many of whom were not repatriated during COVID.
While they vilify Australian maritime workers they also defend their shipping monopolies and cartel conduct, which is exempt from Australian Consumer and Competition Law. They seek to further destroy national protections for an Australian domestic shipping industry to continue gouging obscene profits – in this they are led assertively by AP Moller Maersk and their towage company Svitzer Australia. The Maersk group posted a 23-billion-dollar profit last year off the back of the pandemic and all other shipping companies had similar results.
Instead of trading blows in an inane public debate initiated by big business that pits the Australian community against a skilled and proud workforce, the Maritime Union seeks to reframe the debate as one about economic resilience, seaport productivity and the importance of Australia’s domestic supply chain security. The first step towards this is rebuilding our domestic shipping capacity. Labor gets it The union welcomes Labor’s plan to establish a Strategic Fleet of Australian flagged and crewed vessels to restore Australia’s domestic shipping sector and guarantee our national trading and shipping capacity in times of crisis or national disaster.
The MUA has always believed that a vital element in Australia’s national security is a sovereign shipping capability, which is becoming even more important as the international security situation in our region becomes less certain and our fuel reserves dwindle to less than 70 days’ capacity. Our lack of fuel security has been described as a “national security Achilles’ heel” by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
It’s a disgraceful failure of political leadership that has allowed our shipping industry to be taken over by foreign-flagged and foreign-owned vessels with dubious safety standards, exploitative labour practices and little or no regulation.
Scott Morrison was quick to blow his own trumpet over a plan to build a fleet of nuclear submarines by 2040 but re-establishing a national strategic fleet is an even more pressing issue that he has completely failed to act on.
Climate change and the inevitable increase in weather-related disasters in Australia, the Pacific and South- East Asia require additional uplift and relief capacity to support our Defence forces, while fuel security is vital to the economic and social needs of our nation and it’s reckless in the extreme to be reliant on foreign-flagged and foreign owned shipping to maintain our fuel supply. At the moment, however, even the Royal Australian Navy is ringing the alarm bell about their access to adequate fuel reserves.
With the continuing and escalating fears of public security, economic resilience and long term industry planning and growth required to deliver on an Australian Strategic Fleet, it is essential that the outcome of this election sweeps away the political failures of the past in this essential area once and for all. The Labor policy platform does that. Anthony Albanese has done that.
Labor’s Australian Shipping policy should be adopted as a bipartisan commitment by securing and embedding it in legislation now, before the election, while the great and sustained lie being driven by the international shipping industry’s sabotage of this key and fundamental protection of our domestic economy must be exposed once and for all.
Protect the truth and our jobs and future. Vote for an Albanese Labor government and get everyone you know to do the same directly or via preferences on Election Day. •
