Saturday, December 16, 2017

MUA – Victory For Workers Rights and Conditions

Wearing a dark T-shirt and blue jeans, the first speaker steps to the front of the podium. He is a sturdy man, tanned skin, a beard down to his chest.




"Comrades," says the unionist, Will Tracey, into the microphone loudly. "We have a very serious issue."

Beyond them, over at the wharves, are rows of towering gantry cranes and multi-coloured shipping containers – red, blue, orange and grey.

The noise from the rally is extremely loud, but across the road at the Port of Melbourne, all is quiet. High stacks of shipping containers are sitting idle on the docks. They have been forcibly stranded here for the past two weeks.

Twenty years on from the infamous 1998 waterfront dispute, when Patrick stevedores locked out 1400 maritime union members, the docks of Melbourne this month emerged as the scene of an escalating union war; this time, engulfing the port's newest stevedore, Victoria International Container Terminal (VICT).

What happened here, though, was not just about power and pay on the wharves. It was also representative of a new brand of militancy that has become part of the playbook of the wider labour movement and its peak bodies, who believe our workplace laws are "broken".





Outside VICT, since the start of December, a pro-union picket line defied repeated court orders and spent an entire fortnight maintaining an around-the-clock presence, illegally blockading its terminal access gates so neither trucks nor staff were able to enter.

Caught in the crossfire of the feud were more than 1000 shipping containers carrying millions of dollars of Christmas retail goods, fresh food, and medicine. Among them were 22 tonnes of Oreo cookies, 25 tonnes of milk powder, 26 tonnes of beer, 40 tonnes of coffee, 58 tonnes of sports shoes, 97 tonnes of peanut butter and 170 tonnes of cheese.

The cargo was being "held hostage" by the unions, employer groups said, and so too were the fortunes of stevedores, freight companies and the wider supply chain.

The union action was part of a protest against what unions claim was an underhanded strategy by the stevedore to smash the power of the maritime union by supposedly targeting and terminating a casual wharf worker, Richard Lunt, who had been leading a union campaign.

"We certainly can't have a company that stands over people who are willing to stand up for unions inside that gate," Mr Tracey roared to the crowd, over the podium scaffolding.

"We have a company ... that's trying to destroy the MUA's rightful place on the waterfront."

At the centre of this stand-off were accusations that VICT was engaging in "union-busting" tactics after terminating Mr Lunt. The company said it was because he had been identified as ineligible for the security clearance required to work on the docks due to a 20-year-old criminal conviction. The union claimed  he was singled out because he had been leading a union campaign inside the terminal.

A broader issue, it is plainly clear, was that VICT had circumvented the Maritime Union of Australia to strike a wage deal that paid vastly inferior rates compared to the city's other waterfront operators.

Under the VICT agreement, a different union, the Maritime Officers Union of Australia, is the lead party. It was signed up by between five and 10 higher-paid supervisors, on behalf of the current workforce of more than 120.

The MUA claimed a victory on Friday, finally calling off the picket line, after the company ceded to pressure and reinstated Mr Lunt on its books. The company would continue to pay him, but he would not return to the workplace, pending the outcome of a court case next year.

"A workable resolution has been reached in discussions between the union and company management which is a welcome relief at Christmas," union secretary Paddy Crumlin said.

"The MUA would like to thank the Melbourne community and broader trade union movement for backing this worker in his time of need and standing up for decent pay, conditions and job security for all working men and women."

For many in the union movement, the dispute at VICT speaks about a bigger problem and feeds into a national discussion about what they see as a pressing need to change workplace laws.

Secretary of Geelong Trades Hall Council (GTHC) Colin Vernon, who had vowed to mobilise Geelong workers at Webb Dock, told Green Left Weekly that this was a “fantastic result for the workers”.

“It just goes to show that when workers and unions stand together, they can beat anyone.

“The odds were stacked against the workers in this one but when they did pull together, we showed they could win.

“It doesn’t matter if they’re a multinational corporation, or whether they’re a corrupt government. It doesn’t matter who they are, we can beat them.”

The community assembly had been organised over close to three weeks. A major solidarity rally with the community assembly was held at Webb Dock on December 8 and a second major rally had been planned for December 19.

A dispute between the MUA and VICT over a non-union workplace agreement that undermines working conditions, negotiated between VICT Human Resources and Industrial Relations director Mick O’Leary and five workplace supervisors, remains ongoing.
The Australian Council of Trade Union’s new secretary, Sally McManus – who courted controversy after telling the ABC this year that she believed in the rule of law only when the “law is fair” – said the dockside picket had become a “front line” in the fight for better rights at work.
  • “We must change these broken rules, we must,” Ms McManus said at last Friday’s rally.
  • “One of the workers who stood up to be a delegate worker here was a casual worker. Well what rights do casual workers have in this country?
  • “Our bargaining rights are so fundamentally broken when bosses can cancel EBAs [enterprise bargaining agreements], when they can vote up dodgy EBAs like they have here. There will be no limits.
  • “We must fight, comrades, until we get better and stronger rights at work.”

Under the leadership of Ms McManus and The Victorian Trades Hall Council's youngest-ever secretary, Luke Hilakari, there has been a renewed injection of vigour and energy into union campaigning that has become unmistakable.

"We've got no choice," Mr Hilakari says. "People have realised if we aren't going to be out there campaigning against some of the worst atrocities humans face in  the workplace, then what are we here for?"

The stevedore at Webb Dock was just the latest big Australian employer to face assertive campaigning from the union movement over what it claims are substandard wage agreements or violations of workplace rights.

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