On 15 August 1890 the Steamship Owners' Association told the Melbourne, Australia, branch of the Mercantile Marine Officers' Association that it would not negotiate a wage claim with the marine officers' union while it was affiliated to the Trades Hall Council. As of 2011 the union has about 13,000 members. Like their counterparts around the world, the stevedoring companies and other major corporations in Australia, with the active assistance of the unions, are using the COVID-19 pandemic to completely restructure their operations and unleash a major assault on the working class. The ports must be placed under public ownership and democratic workers’ control. The Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) is currently in a dispute with DPW, which has threatened to sack 200 workers and replace them with casuals. Australia’s biggest port operator, DP World, has taken legal action to try to stop industrial action by maritime union members as wharfies prepare to hold a 24-hour strike in Brisbane on Friday. So far, the Maritime Union appears to have been heavily targeting the two biggest ports in Australia: Melbourne and Sydney (Port Botany). Australian dockworkers to strike at DP World terminals 18 Mar 2019 Members of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) at the ports of Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, and Fremantle are protesting a DP World decision to cease providing workers with income protection insurance. From the outset, the union has been determined to isolate and contain the dispute whilst assuring waterfront employers that it is prepared to negotiate and impose their demands. On Tuesday, Morrison repeated Patrick’s allegations of lines of ships outside Port Botany. The Waterside Workers' Federation of Australia traces its roots to the formation on the Australian waterfront in September 1872 of two unions in Sydney, the Labouring Men's Union of Circular Quay and the West Sydney Labouring Men's Association, which merged ten years later to form the Sydney Wharf Labourers' Union. As MUA national secretary Paddy Crumlin told the Australian newspaper this week “We want a resolution to the thing.”. What was the ‘victory’ on the Australian waterfront? While the MUA rejected Patrick’s demands yesterday, declaring that the company’s offer would lead to “massive casualisation of the workforce” and the “stripping away of job security,” its shutdown of industrial action demonstrates yet again the union’s role again as an industrial police force. On the Australian waterfront this means the removal of rostering restrictions, cuts to full-time jobs, even greater workforce casualisation and higher productivity demands. The marine officers objected to this condition and struck. Create New Account. 27,062 likes. Asked by reporters if he would follow the Chifley Labor government’s use of troops in 1949 to smash the national coal strike, Prime Minister Morrison replied, “I’m not going to pre-empt any of those sorts of things.”. The Maritime Union of Australia (MUA), the Maritime Officers Union and Australian Institute of Marine and Power Engineers planned to strike after a breakdown in negotiations with Dutch-based towing company Smit. MUA members began taking action early in September for a new enterprise agreement (EA) with work bans on extra hours and short sporadic stoppages that continued to allow ships to load and unload. The Patrick waterfront strike in 1998 was shut down by the union, which then ratified the elimination of another 650 waterfront jobs—almost half the stevedore’s workforce—increased crane rates to up to 26 an hour and allowed the greater use of casuals (see: “What was the ‘victory’ on the Australian waterfront?”). Australia's south-east hit by scorching heatwave, The abandoned Soviet nuclear missile base hidden in a Polish forest, Man dies after being crushed between ute and truck, Volunteer firie charged with lighting over 30 fires in south-west NSW. Today, over 50 percent of the Australian waterfront workforce is casualised. The MUA has overseen decades of restructuring on the Australian waterfront, rubber-stamping and enforcing the destruction of thousands of full-time jobs, extensive casualisation of the workforce and increased exploitation, with every betrayal hailed as a “victory.”. See more of Maritime Union of Australia - Newcastle Branch on Facebook. Seamen, wharf laborers, and port workers followed the marine officers out on strike. The Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) yesterday called off limited industrial action by its nearly 1,000 members at Patrick Terminals in Sydney, Melbourne Brisbane and Fremantle. The Maritime Union of Australia delivered an eleventh-hour undertaking to DP World on Saturday to suspend its work bans and go-slows for six weeks ahead of a Fair Work Commission hearing to … The Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) has announced it will immediately suspend industrial action that saw wharf workers refuse to work unless shipping company Patrick Terminals agreed to a pay rise. DP World Australia (DPWA) is bracing for more dockworker strikes as the 15-month dispute with the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) drags on. The strike began in Adelaide and rapidly spilled over into all the other colonies. The MUA is proud of the high union density in the maritime industries, and encourages all maritime workers to join the union to benefit from the solidarity and collectivism that unionism brings. It shows that the ruling elite is prepared to deploy troops against the emerging struggles of the workers, if the union bureaucracy is unable to keep a lid on them. DP World’s four container terminals in Australia are facing a series of strikes this week by dockworkers following the end of a three-month bargaining period during which maritime union leaders and terminal management were unable to reach a new labor and wage pact. The alternative to the corporatism and nationalism of the unions is a socialist perspective, based on the fight for the international unity of all workers. To improve your experience. Port employees and seafarers, who are involved in an inherently global industry and are exploited by the same transnational corporations, wherever they are in the world, must increasingly link their struggles internationally. Patrick rejected this yesterday and demanded that if the existing working conditions were to be retained, annual wage increases would be just 1.5 percent—i.e., a cut in real wages when adjusted for inflation. In reality, the 40 ships supposedly waiting to berth in Sydney included vessels thousands of kilometres away, in places such as Papua New Guinea, Christmas Island and New Caledonia. When Patrick applied this week to Australia’s industrial tribunal, the Fair Work Commission (FWC), for a ban on all industrial action, the union responded with a so-called “peace-deal.” This included a rollover of the existing agreement for two years, with a 2.5 percent wage increase per year and a commitment that there would be no industrial action for 12 months. "We need to get our produce out of that port," Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack said. "(They are) painting us as unreasonable, lazy slobs, which they've been doing for 120 years," branch secretary Paul McAleer told 9News. In 1998 the Maritime Union of Australia was involved in a waterfront disputewhen Patrick Corporationattempted to sack 1400 waterfront workers across Australia and introduce non-union contract labour. DPW Australia is now in dispute with the militant Maritime Union of Australia (MUA). While police had been used in strikes before 1890, the military had not usually been called in other than at the Lambton Colliery strike in the Hunter Valleytwo years earlier. Main article: 1998 Australian waterfront dispute. Earlier this year, UK’s second largest union, Unite the Union, joined the campaign. Australian maritime union betrays Hutchison workers, Australia: Hutchison Ports dispute at the crossroads. Up to 90,000 containers at Port Botany in Sydney are stuck in limbo as the union attempts to negotiate a pay rise. On Sunday night, the MUA launched a 24-hour strike at DPWA’s Fremantle terminal in western Australia, claiming the company had “failed to bargain in good faith” during negotiations for a new workplace agreement. A four-hour work ban stopped activity on the wharves briefly a month ago, but the union has continued with bans on overtime. Morrison’s refusal to rule out the use of the military is a clear threat to the working class. The Maritime Union of Australia is going head to head with the Federal Government after being accused of slowing down container ships full of exports. Patrick’s actions followed a similar move by DP World Australia (DPWA), Australia’s largest container terminal operator. However, the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA), a division of the Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union (CFMMEU), is continuing to try … In 1884 the Melbourne Wharf Labourers' Union was formed with the support of Melbourne Trades Hall representatives, after shipowners refused to allow waterfront workers to attend E… The delays mean surcharges are being added to each container, damaging any potential profit. International Committee of the Fourth International. Over the past weeks, Patrick, DPWA management and the Shipping Australia industrial lobby group, along with the corporate media, have whipped up a hysterical campaign falsely claiming that the limited action at Patrick was holding up 40 container ships, and causing a backlog of 90,000 containers, including medical supplies. By 9News Staff 8:18pm Sep 28, 2020 The Maritime Union of Australia is going head to head with the Federal Government after being accused of slowing down container ships full of exports. Armed troops were deployed to support the police in Sydney, Melbourne, Newcastle and a number of other ports around Australia, as violence escalated against non-union labour and against the property of companies operating shipping, the mines, the whar… The record demonstrates that there will be no defence of jobs or conditions by the MUA, which has decimated the workforce on the ports and imposed every employer demand, while suppressing opposition, including through the use of threats and intimidation. "We've got containers lined up for China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, New Zealand, Fiji," he said. Crane order positions DP World Australia for growth The union wants a six per cent lift in pay and has denied that the delivery of medicine has been interrupted. Late this evening the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) issued notice of intent to take Protected Industrial Action lasting 48 hours at the East Swanson Terminal in Melbourne beginning next Thursday April 21 at 07.00am and ending 07.00am Saturday April 23. The dispute came to be regarded as a conflict between the wider principle of the "closed shop" for unionists against … DPW Australia is the biggest longshoreman company by volume and it accounts for about 44.4 percent of those container lifts, according to the federal competition watchdog. The union claimed this to be a “breakthrough,” and “a path for other stevedoring companies to resolve outstanding issues, rather than beat up public anxiety.”. About 50 workers from the Maritime Union of Australia have shut down the Victoria International Container Terminal (VICT) over the alleged treatment of one of its members. The union's actions are completely legal, and Patrick Terminals has to prove to the Fair Work Commission that the industrial action is having an economic impact and must be stopped. or. Maritime Union of Australia - MUA, Sydney, NSW. The union had initially been demanding 6 percent annual pay rises for the next four years, but then reduced its claim to 2.5 percent. Log In. A notice of Protected Industrial Action was issued by the Maritime Union of Australia to towage provider Svitzer Australia earlier this week with industrial action yesterday as follows: The Maritime Union of Australia covers waterside workers, seafarers, port workers, professional divers, and office workers associated with Australian ports. The Maritime Union of Australia is known around the country as having the strongest and most active rank and file members of any trade union. The posturing of MUA officials about defending jobs and conditions on the waterfront is as bogus as government and employer claims of lines of ships being held up by industrial action. The MUA has not issued any statement about Morrison’s remarks or their implications. Maritime Union of Australia, Sydney Branch, is among the growing number of trade unions that have joined the Boycott HP campaign and continue to strengthen it. See more of Maritime Union of Australia - Newcastle Branch on Facebook. Details Posted Wednesday, 13 April 2016 4.4 years ago Tags Australia, Strike Australian Strike Action Update. Pete MacSmith from NSW Milling in the NSW Central West said the company had a bumper canola season, but were currently unable to get their product onto ships. Fremantle Ports, the operator of the harbor servicing the Western Australian state capital of Perth, said a 48-hour strike by a labor union demanding higher … Up to 90,000 containers at Port Botany in Sydney are stuck … There is absolutely no way the limited, legal forms of industrial action undertaken by wharfies are capable of causing the massive delays claimed by the company.”. It applied to the FWC on September 15 for the termination of industrial action at its port sites on the grounds of the “significant harm to the economy” that would result. Auto news: Tesla planning to make 'Chinese-style' vehicles - caradvice.com.au. Maritime fuel spill in Port Phillip Bay following replacement of Australian seafarers with foreign crew Friday, 11 December 2020 A maritime pollution incident in Port Phillip Bay this week, involving diesel spilling overboard during refuelling operations, appears to … What is required is a complete break with the union, and the development of independent rank-and-file committees to coordinate a genuine industrial and political struggle of all waterfront workers, and broader sections of the working class, against the company-union attacks. Today, Patrick Terminals went to the Fair Work Commission to force the union to call off the industrial action and the Federal Government has offered its support. Log In. Christian Porter, Australia’s industrial relations minister, denounced the action by DPWA workers as a “threat to our economic recovery” and on Saturday Prime Minister Scott Morrison accused the MUA of “holding the country to ransom.”, The MUA responded to the employer, government and media allegations by pointing to the limited and token character of the industrial action. During the strike military units were extensively used in New South Wales and Victoria. Anyone resisting these attacks is hit with a barrage of anti-worker hysteria. The same Thursday afternoon the Maritime Union of Australia notified DP World it would defer its bans on shipping vessels until next week but would … A PLANNED eight-day strike at busy Port of Fremantle will be called off if assurances about job security are provided to workers, the Maritime Union of Australia … We urge workers at Patrick’s terminals and other stevedoring companies seeking a way forward to contact the World Socialist Web Site and discuss this perspective. 1890 - maritime strike Although the origins of the 1890 Maritime strike are disputed, the events that accompanied and followed this strike were a turning point in Australian history. In line with Australian Council of Trade Unions ongoing secret talks with employers, the MUA’s central concern is ensuring its role as a corporatist labour-broker and maintaining the draconian “Fair Work” legal framework established in 2009 by the Rudd Labor government with the support of all the unions. There had been rolling work stoppages at DPWA’s Port Botany facility and a planned 24-hour strike in Brisbane. The MUA immediately responded by suspending action at DPWA until November—as a sign of “good faith”—and recommencing closed-door negotiations. 2015 Hutchison Ports Dispute. Watch the brand new season of RuPaul's Drag Race now on Stan. Under the Hawke and Keating Labor government’s “waterfront reform program,” the maritime unions collaborated with employers to impose sweeping restructuring across the country’s ports from 1987 to 1991, driving up crane container movements from 14 to 23 per hour and halving full-time employment across the sector from 8,300 to 3,800. Shipping Australia is sad to note that there continues to be disruptive strike action by the unions during the current health and economic crisis. The maritime union denies the action is capable of causing the delays being claimed The union has been negotiating with three stevedoring companies for a 6 per cent wage increase over four years. Your web browser is no longer supported. The hearing will resume on October 26 when Patrick will ask the FWC to permanently terminate the industrial action on the grounds that it is negatively impacting on the economy. English (US) This means the fight for a workers’ government. National secretary Crumlin insisted that the only action at Patrick’s Port Botany terminal was “a single four-hour stoppage about four weeks ago, along with bans on working excessive hours…. It is an affiliate of the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) and represents the interests of affiliate members in Australia. The Port of Brisbane, in the State of Queensland, saw some strike action last week. ... 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