War on the wharfies

One thousand four hundred dockers employed by Patrick Stevedoring in Sydney, Australia, have been sacked. Legal writs are flying all over the world in an attempt to stop solidarity action. This looks like Mersey all over again. Eddie Tucker reports.

International trade unions have threatened to boycott goods from one of Australia's dock-handling companies after it sacked all of its 1,400 "wharfies". Security guards with rottweiler dogs evicted workers at 17 Australian ports in pre-dawn raids in an attempt to introduce non-union, individual-contract labour and speed up production. Thousands of trade unionists around the country stopped work in support of the dockers, raising the prospect of a national strike.

The sacked men represent the entire unionised workforce of the docks company, Patrick Stevedoring, which intends to replace them with non-union labour. The conservative National Party government is encouraging the 'drive for efficiency' that management claim will result from its action.

The London-based International Transport Federation (ITF) told its 500 worldwide affiliates in 120 countries to campaign against Patrick, and the effectiveness of this led in turn to the company's lawyers slapping an injunction on the ITF. On 17th April, the High Court in London threw out the action, and ITF General Secretary David Cockroft hailed the victory and attacked the union-busting of Patrick as "an attack on the fundamentals of freedom and democracy."

The protests are an extension of a waterfront battle that began in 1996, when new laws restricted the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA)'s ability to call strikes. The union, which represents all waterfront workers, has asked workers to remain united and not accept individual contracts with Patrick. Meanwhile, other unions are threatening a national oil strike in support. The Government's stated intent in provoking this dispute is to break the unions' hold on waterfront work by establishing scab docks.

It is speculated that the intervention by the government is a move to bolster Prime Minister Howard's National Party's share of seats in parliament by blaming the labour movement for the touch of Asian economic flu their economy is feeling. Roy Green, Director of Employment Studies at Australia's Newcastle University, told LLB, "Howard is right on at least one point. The waterside dispute will be a 'defining moment' for industrial relations in Australia." Laws against primary and secondary boycotts are as oppressive as the Thacherite legislation on which they are modelled, and all unions face expropriation of assets and jail for any supporting actions, in violation of ILO agreements.

The Labor Party's Transport spokeswoman, Alannah McTiernan, says it is not just waterside workers who should be worried about their jobs, "If an employer can just come in, without there being any local dispute at all, and sack all their employees and say: 'we want to sack you because we're going to replace you with people on workplace agreements', that has amazing ramifications for every worker in Western Australia." Community support is being organised through the trade union movement, and the sister of Patrick's boss told her local paper, "I didn't want anyone to know I was Chris Corrigan's sister" and urged him to return to the negotiating table.

War on the Wharfies is an independent web page which contains news reports on the Maritime Union of Australia's fight against the rightwing attack by the National Farmers Federation, waterfront bosses, and federal and state governments: http://www.users.bigpond.com/Takver/soapbox/index.htm

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