ACTU BHP, BlueScope end 100 years of secure shipping jobs

16 January 2019

Corporate giants BHP and BlueScope have announced the end of a century of Australian-crewed iron shipping. 80 Australian seafarers on two vessels that carried iron ore from Port Headland in Western Australia to Port Kembla on the New South Wales south coast who are in the companies’ supply chain have been sacked.

The sacked Australian workers will be replaced by exploited international crews paid as little as $2 per hour.

The multi-national miners have destroyed an industry which provided secure fair-paying local jobs, while the Morrison Government has looked on and done nothing.

The conditions likely to be faced by the crews who replace them are appalling and have no place in Australia.

Quotes attributable to ACTU President Michele O’Neil:

• “For 100 years, iron shipping in Australia has provided good, secure local jobs for Australian workers – BHP’s decision to end this long tradition seems to be motivated by greed.
• “Good, steady jobs will be replaced by work on flag-of-convenience ships where pay can be as low as $2 per hour and workers’ rights are virtually non-existent.
• “The Morrison Government’s refusal to act on flag-of-convenience shipping means that BHP is getting away with destroying local jobs.
• “The overseas workers who will be crewing BHP ships in future are likely to be exploited, underpaid and at risk of serious injury or death. This is the world of work that the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison Government has created.
• “We have written to BHP and BlueScope today calling on them to urgently meet with the ACTU and affected unions and immediately reverse this decision.”

UK – May and Brexit Face Uncertain Future After Historic Defeat in Parliament

But even if the government survives – which it is likely to do as it has the continuing support of the Northern Irish DUP – it has to come to terms with the biggest parliamentary defeat in the history of British democracy, delivered to the lynch-pin of its Brexit strategy.

Without the deal, if Brexit still takes place as planned on March 29, it will be a chaotic process that causes major and immediate damage to the UK's economy.



After eight days of debate the House of Commons rejected the deal that Theresa May negotiated to govern the withdrawal of the UK from the European Union by 432 to 202.

After eight days of debate, the vote on the Brexit deal was lost by 432 to 202, and Theresa May's government now faces a vote of no confidence called by opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn.
The previous worst-ever defeat for a British government was in 1924 when Ramsay Macdonald’s Labour minority government lost by 166 votes.

Scores of pro-Brexit defectors from May’s Conservative party doomed the deal, voting 'no' because they believe the deal did not deliver enough sovereignty or opportunity for the country.

They voted alongside most of Labour’s MPs who believed the deal was bad for the country and hope either to call a new Brexit referendum or to renegotiate a Brexit deal that keeps the UK much more closely tied to the EU.

MUA – Sydney and Brisbane Wharfies to take Industrial Action over Push to Slash Workplace Conditions

Negotiations over a new workplace agreement covering Hutchison Ports workers in Sydney and Brisbane reached a stalemate after the company refused to back away from plans to slash wages and conditions, along with automating some roles and outsourcing other jobs.

The Maritime Union of Australia said the company’s demands include: a 2.5 per cent cut to superannuation; reductions to sick and parental leave; cuts to redundancy and long service leave; removal of income protection; wage cuts of up to $10 per hour followed by a wage freeze; and reductions to safety standards, including the loss of full-time first-aiders and removal of personal protective equipment.

MUA Assistant National Secretary Warren Smith said the attempt by this multi-national port operator to slash the pay and conditions of Australian workers left them with no choice but to take industrial action.

“The world’s largest stevedore, the same company that sacked 97 workers by text message in 2015, is now telling its Australian workforce that it wants to slash their wages and conditions,” Mr Smith said.

“If Hutchison gets its way, waterfront workers would be left 26 per cent worse off in retirement based on the company’s planned cuts to their superannuation entitlements, while redundancy payments would be halved for the average worker, as would long service leave.

“Not content to attack wages and conditions, Hutchison Ports are going after the safety of their workers, with a push to remove the full-time first-aiders who provide potentially life-saving treatment in an emergency, along with taking away basic personal protective equipment.

“On top of that, they want to cut wages by up to $10 per hour, impose a 12 month wage freeze, with pay rises of just 1 per cent a year after that.

“Our members refuse to sit back and watch as four-decades of hard-won conditions are stripped away by a greedy multi-national whose only concern is maximising its own profits.

“We will not accept an agreement that rips us off and reduces our standard of living, and the MUA is committed to using every industrial and legal tool at our disposal in our fight to protect conditions and safety standards on the waterfront.

“The actions Hutchison Ports highlight exactly why the Australian union movement has launched the Change the Rules campaign, to challenge the actions of big corporations who are increasingly using the broken workplace laws to attack the conditions of working people.”

ACTU – Proposed super changes put banks ahead of workers

10 January 2019

The changes to the superannuation system proposed by the Productivity Commission continue the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison government’s ideological commitment to putting banks and big business above the interests of working people.

The recommendation to remove superannuation from the IR system is completely unacceptable and shows the ideological fanaticism which underpins this report.

The proposed changes would block working people from being represented in the system which manages their money, while handing a huge amount of power to financial regulators which the ongoing Banking Royal Commission has demonstrated are grossly ineffective at shielding working people from banks which regularly put profit before their own customers.

The evidence in the report vindicates the union movement’s position that the banks have no place in super due to their systemic under-performance.

Any system which is geared towards promoting the best performing funds would promote industry funds which have year after year outperformed all bank-owned funds, simply because they are run to enhance the retirement savings of their members, not the share price of the big banks.

The success and performance of not-for-profit industry funds has been largely due to their superior governance structure which sees unions as working peoples’ representatives and employers as joint custodians of Australians’ retirement savings.

Any attempt to dismantle this world-class model would inevitably damage the performance of these funds.

Quotes attributable to ACTU President Michele O’Neil:

• “The proposed changes are all about giving more power to the big banks and have nothing to do with making sure more working people have a secure and comfortable retirement.
• “The report shows what has been repeatedly proven, that industry funds out-perform funds which are run for the benefit of shareholders in the big banks.
• “If the government was really concerned about ensuring that all workers had access to insurance and other products through super they would support the ALP amendments to the My Super bill currently before the parliament.
• “The way forward for the superannuation system should involve expanding it to cover all workers and ensuring that all workers – especially women and young people – are getting their fair share, not giving hand-outs to bank-owned funds.“Workers must always have representation in the system which handles their savings. If the banking royal commission has shown anything it’s that we need more consumer oversight, not less.
• “We need to change the rules so that everyone can enjoy the secure and comfortable retirement that the super system is meant to guarantee.”

Support the Los Angeles Teachers' Strike!

JANUARY 14, 2019 — This morning, 34,000 Los Angeles teachers walked out on strike to defend public education against the privatization agenda of Austin Beutner, a former investment banker and current superintendent of the L.A. Unified School District — the second-largest school district in the country.

The demands of the teachers' union — United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) —  include a 6.5 percent pay increase, smaller class sizes, more funding for school counselors, nurses, and librarians, and a cap on the proliferation of charter schools throughout their city

We write this memo to urge all our supporters to extend your support to the Los Angeles educators, who are in the fight of their lives in defense of public education, the cornerstone of our democracy. At the conclusion of this presentation, you will find a Fund Appeal from the Alliance to Reclaim our Schools (AROS), which is working in close coordination with UTLA and the American Federation of Teachers to raise funds to support the strike.

"The Stakes of the Strike Are Extremely High"

Editorial writer Danny Feingold, writing in the Capital and Main magazine (Jan. 10, 2019), described the meaning of this strike:

"The stakes [of the strike] are extremely high not only for teachers, students and parents in L.A., but for public education across the U.S. ... Sometimes strikes are exactly what they seem to be – battles over wages and working conditions, with relatively few implications for anything or anyone else. But sometimes a strike is about something much bigger: a fundamental clash over vision and values, with repercussions that extend far beyond the warring parties. Call it a meta-strike."

This is a "meta-strike" first and foremost because it is challenging the corporate drive — promoted by both Democrats and Republicans — to dismantle public education.

Superintendent Austin Beutner, a Democrat and former deputy mayor of Los Angeles who heads the school district, was not appointed to this position because of his academic skills: he never claimed to have any," Feingold writes. "He [Beutner] is a businessman who made his fortune in an investment company, Blackstone, before founding Evercore Partners, an investment bank. And that is precisely why he was chosen: for his experience and qualities in the field of brutal restructuring in the private sector!"

"As a result," Feingold continues, "Beutner has become the most popular figure in the nationwide movement demanding the uncontrolled restructuring of public schools. Beutner hired a consultant, Cami Anderson, who used to work in Newark, N.J., where she was the head of the city's public schools. It had imposed a restructuring plan, organizing 32 'school networks' that it managed like a portfolio of shares on the stock market. It resulted in keeping the 'good' schools, and simply closing the 'bad' ones, just as in the stock market one gets rid of unprofitable economic sectors.

"In Newark," Feingold adds, "Anderson was behind the closure of many local schools, massive dismissals of teachers and principals ... and finally a revolt by the parents of students who eventually drove her out of the city!"

The strike of the Los Angeles teachers is also taking on the L.A. Board of Education, which was bought in a multi-million-dollar election campaign funded by charter school foundations and other corporate entities (like the Eli Broad Foundation) — all of which got their head start under Arne Duncan, President Obama's secretary of Education.

This is also a "meta-strike" because it extends the 2018 wave of teachers' strikes that erupted in the "red states" (West Virginia, Kentucky Oklahoma, Arizona) into the "blue state" of California.

UTLA President Alex put it this way: “Educators across the country are rising up like we have never seen before. We find ourselves in a defining moment.”

It is, indeed, a defining moment for the entire labor movement. The strikers in the "red states" won most of their demands because of their tenacity. The obstacles in Los Angeles — particularly the obstacle of the Democratic Party — are perhaps greater. But with the support of working people and their unions and community organizations all across the country, the L.A. teachers can win their demands. 

They must win!

Presentation by:
The Organizing Committee of the
Labor Community Campaign for
an Independent Party (LCCIP)