The Australian Waterfront
Australian waterfront union capitulates, calling off industrial action
By Patrick O’Connor, May 28, 2011
The MUA’s capitulation underscores its determination to entrench itself as the enforcer of restructuring measures and productivity speed-ups on the docks.
Australia: Maritime union promotes nationalism in CSL Yarra dispute
By Terry Cook, May 15, 2002
Nine Australian seamen are continuing an occupation of the bulk cargo ship CSL Yarra in Port Pirie, South Australia, in defiance of a company order instructing them to leave. The seamen began the occupation on May 2 and Canada Steamship Lines (CSL) is now seeking a Supreme Court injunction to have them removed, accusing them of “acts tantamount to piracy”.
12 months on
What was the "victory" on the Australian waterfront?
By Terry Cook, April 13, 1999
This week marks 12 months since Patrick Stevedoring, Australia's second largest stevedoring company, sacked its entire 1,427 strong workforce and replaced it with scab labour recruited by the National Farmers Federation.
Jobs and conditions destroyed on Australian waterfront
Maritime union deal aids Howard government
By Terry Cook, June 25, 1998
There were few surprises in the final agreement struck between the Maritime Union of Australia and Patrick Stevedoring to end the waterfront dispute that erupted on April 7 when the company sacked its entire workforce.
The Australian waterfront conflict: a political assessment
By Socialist Equality Party (Australia), May 14, 1998
The ongoing conflict over the sacking of 2,000 Australian waterfront workers has brought to the surface the deep-seated crisis of political perspective in the workers' movement.
The Australian waterfront conflict
How Labor's privatisation handed docks to Patrick's
By Mike Head, May 7, 1998
One revealing historical feature of the conflict generated by Patrick's Stevedores' mass sacking of Australian waterfront workers has barely been mentioned by the media, and certainly not by the union leaders.
Struggle on the Australian docks
The real meaning of the MUA's "victory"
Labor Party and union leaders prepare waterfront betrayal
By the SEP of Australia, April 25, 1998
Whatever the final outcome of the complex legal manoeuvres in the Federal and High Courts, the so-called "victory" proclaimed by the Maritime Union of Australia is a gross betrayal of waterfront workers and workers around the country who have backed their struggle against the Patrick's mass sackings.
Australian unions gave green light to waterfront sackings
How the ACTU stopped action by oil workers
By Terry Cook, April 23, 1998
Fresh information has come to hand revealing that at a top-level meeting on April 3, Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) leaders furiously denounced and threatened oil union representatives for announcing that their members had decided to strike if waterside workers were sacked.
Australia
The waterfront war: why is only one side fighting?
By the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), April 11, 1998
The following statement has been issued as a leaflet by the Socialist Equality Party in Australia. Just three days after the Howard government and Patrick's, one of Australia's largest waterfront employers, sacked over 2,000 dock workers, scab contractors are already loading and unloading ships at many of the company's 17 terminals.
How the unions paved the way for Patrick's attack
By our reporter, April 9, 1998
The Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Maritime Union of Australia have paved the way for today's assault on waterside workers, both in the long-term and the short-term.
Scabs begin training on Australian waterfront
By Terry Cook, February 27, 1998
Encouraged by the acquiescence of the trade union movement, the National Farmers Federation (NFF) has successfully begun training a strike-breaking force of scabs at Melbourne's Webb Dock, in the middle of Australia's largest industrial port.
Employers seek to smash conditions on Australian waterfront
By Terry Cook, February 12, 1998
Backed and financed by Australia's major employers, the National Farmers Federation (NFF) has launched a full-scale offensive at Melbourne's Webb Dock in a bid to shatter working conditions on the waterfront.
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