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THE MARITIME WORKERS’ JOURNAL SPRING/SUMMER 2014

DEPUTY NATIONAL SECRETARY MICK DOLEMAN CALLS IT A DAY AMMA’s Royal Commission Into Trade Unions Fails to Deliver Paddy Crumlin Re-elected ITF President

CONTENTS

6 - 13

National Council Drawing up a defence to relentless attacks from business and Government

16 - 17

Social Dumping Battlelines drawn in defending local employment

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Defending Cabotage Truss gets himself in a tizz about coastal shipping

44 - 45

LNG: Jobs for Gladstone Community Action Group takes baton on maritime jobs campaign

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The MUA does it again Union scoops up three ACTU awards this year

56 - 57

MUA Rescues Fishermen Seafarers skills on display as stranded fishermen rescued at sea

58

Plebs, pros and personalities Rank-and-file raise more than $100,000

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MUA wins Round 1 Unfair agreement for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people pulled

EDITOR IN CHIEF Paddy Crumlin COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR Darrin Barnett EDITORIAL TEAM Ashleigh Telford DESIGN Magnesium Media PRINTER Printcraft Maritime Workers’ Journal 365-375 Sussex Street Sydney NSW 2000 Contact: 9267 - 9134 Fax: 9261 - 3481 Email: journal@mua.org.au Website: http://www.mua.org.au MWJ reserves the right at all times to edit and/or reduce any articles or letters to be published.

Publication No: 1235 A selection of the youth delegates who took part in the MUA’s Youth Conference at National office

For all story ideas, letters, obituaries please email journal@mua.org.au Some articles in this MWJ were sourced from Working Life (workinglife.org.au), an ACTU-run trade union news service

INTERNATIONAL

CRUMLIN RE-ELECTED ITF PRESIDENT T he ITF (International Transport Workers’ Federation) 43rd congress in Sofia, Bulgaria, was hailed as the best ever during its closing ceremony.

ITF president Paddy Crumlin was reelected unopposed, while Steve Cotton was installed as general secretary. FNV Bondgenoten’s Brigitta Paas will hand over the women’s vice president position to the host nation’s Ekaterina Yordanova from the FTTUB in two years time.

Crumlin paid tribute to Yordanova, who hosted the event where speakers included the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of

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Bulgaria.

“What a great congress it has been and we couldn’t have done it without you Ekaterina,” he said. “We made a commitment to leave the Bulgarian trade union movement in a stronger position when we left and that has happened because people here now know the strength of this family.”

The ITF congress adopted a four-year work programme, focussing on organising key hubs and corridors, leveraging key industry players, activating mass union membership and responding to geographic shifts.

One of the key focuses of the conference

was maintaining the ‘right to strike’ as workers across the world continue to struggle for better rights and conditions. Crumlin noted when he was elected four years ago, he detected a groundswell of support for a reinvigoration of trade union activism - not just in the transport and logistics industries, but across the globe.

“The ITF understands just how interconnected we all are and how powerful that can make us if we work hard together and build on the solidarity between working men and women across supply chains, across industries and across borders,” he said.

“The ITF lets brave men and women of the union movement know their fight is not in vain, that they are part of something much bigger. I want to work with all of you to continue the incredible momentum we have built together, to seize this power to continue building a stronger ITF, a smarter ITF, an ITF that continues to improve the lives of millions across the world.”

Steve Cotton said that over the past four www.mua.org.au

INTERNATIONAL

MUA Youth

MYERS AND CAIN REPRESENTING THE MUA ON THE WORLD STAGE

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years a new social consciousness had begun, with uprisings all across the globe and emphasised the trade union movement would continue to provide the answers.

“Globalisation affects us all and it affects no group more than those working in the transport industry,” he said. “So to achieve its mission of improving the lives of millions of transport workers across the planet, the ITF needs to truly think globally.

“World trade dominates our national and international economies. It is a mighty engine linking labour throughout the world. We are all connected and across the globe it is transport workers who do the connecting.

“The mighty engine of globalised world trade – the defining symbol of our times – is powered by us: transport workers the world over.

“The mighty global economic engine has for too long been funnelling the majority of its wealth into the hands of the few and not the many. It is an engine that should benefit all of us.” www.mua.org.au

he MUA has cemented its strength in the areas of women and youth, having both candidates elected into their respective positions as ITF Representatives.

National Women’s Liaison Officer and ITF Asia-Pacific Representative Mich-Elle Myers said it was an honour to be re-elected as the ITF Women’s Representative for the Asia-Pacific Region.

“We have achieved so much with the establishment of a women’s leadership program that is being rolled out across the globe to assist women gain the skills to become leaders in their unions and in fact their countries,” Myers said.

“The fight is ongoing for many campaigns such as White Ribbon, and this Congress has committed to continue this important work through all aspects of union work and committed to the elimination of violence at work and at home - an important and relevant action.”

Myers said she was very proud to represent her union that she holds in such high esteem.

“I am a proud MUA member and very proud to continue the work started by Sue Virago in 1998, when she was elected to the position I now hold,” she said.

WA Branch Organiser Danny Cain was also successful in his effort to be elected ITF Youth Representative for the AsiaPacific Region.

Cain said he thought it was important he took on the role to try and address the declining engagement of youth in the trade union movement.

“Youth complacency is an issue that needs to be addressed in Australia, and at this conference we have seen that we

are not alone in this respect. We need to spread our union message and educate the young workers of the world,” Cain said.

More than 280 young union activists took part in the Congress, which for the first time had an official youth element to it.

Cain said having so many young, enthusiastic activists in one arena, bringing their message and their struggles to the table, was truly inspirational.

“The ITF Young Workers’ Movement has only been in existence for the last 8 years but through the hard work of the founding members, including Sydney Branch Secretary Paul McAleer, we are now at a stage where we have enough capacity to start making significant changes in the world,” he said.

“Countries who do not have youth structures will now be implementing them back in their respective countries; and those who need support in doing so, will be supported through our youth network.”

Cain said the union movement was under attack in Australia, with the MUA at the top of the pile due to its militancy.

“With the support of the world youth movement we can better battle the multinational corporations such as Chevron,” he said.

Cain thanked those who supported his candidacy and used the opportunity to remind the under-35s to become more involved in the union.

“If you are reading this and you are under 35, get down to your next ‘Stoppy’, get down to your next Youth Meeting and play an active part in ensuring that this union has another 140 years of militant struggle,” he said.

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CAMPAIGN

TANDARA SPIRIT CREW STAYS MILITANT AND DISCIPLINED

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Credit: Trevor Powell

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t the time of publication, the sit-in by MUA members on board the Tandara Spirit had approached two weeks with the ship still at anchor in Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay. Both the off going and joining crews have remained steadfast in their determination to fight for their jobs and for the bluewater industry.

The union was informed by Teekay recently that Vitol will “hand back the Tandara Spirit in January 2015” yet to the shock of the 36 seafarers who work on the vessel a plan of stealth was hatched by the company whereby it would leave Australia two days later and dump the Australian crew, unemployed, in Singapore.

The company has ordered the crew to sail twice, once on Friday evening, once on Saturday morning since the Fair Work Commission on Friday afternoon ordered the workforce to cease its industrial action.

Both times the crew advised that they wouldn’t be sailing until management fronted up and told them what was happening with their jobs.

They also advised that the MUA should attend the meeting, which is scheduled to take place on Monday.

While this ship has laid idle for the past 11 days, Vitol has engaged a foreign crewed vessel to carry the cargos that the Tandara Spirit would and should be carrying.

The foreign crewed vessel is paying the foreign crew $2 an hour.

The ship itself is known for its lack of safety compliance and it has been reported that there are multiple safety deficiencies with the vessel.

MUA Assistant National Secretary Ian Bray said: “Make no mistake that this is a concerted effort by the new owners of several of Australia’s oil refineries to systematically remove Australian seafarers from their rightful place of work and replace them with cheap exploited foreign seafarers.

“It is not going to stop with the removal of this vessel from the coast and every MUA member should be ready to make a stand for the comrades on the Tandara Spirit as they are making a stand to protect Australian jobs and the Australian shipping fleet.

“Each and every member on both swings of the Tandara Spirit should be congratulated and resolutions of support should be coming from all MUA worksites to show these courageous members that although they are stuck out in the bay at anchor and isolated,

“We are disgusted by this plan to remove, by stealth, an Australian-crewed vessel with just two days notice in contravention of the EBA and a signed MOU,” - Warren Smith, MUA Assistant National Secretary they in fact are not alone in their struggle.”

Vitol - which trades locally as Viva Energy - is a private $300 billion oil trading company that bought Shell’s downstream business in Australia for $2.9 billion three months ago.

MUA Assistant National Secretary Warren Smith said: “The Abbott Government is handing the nation’s fuel supply and security to corporate and foreign control.

“As an Australian-crewed and managed vessel, with an outstanding safety record, the Tandara Spirit provides a safe and secure way to transport fuel around Australia and to import fuel from overseas. We need more ships like Tandara Spirit, not less.”

With the closure of Caltex’s Kurnell refinery and Shell’s Clyde refinery in Sydney and planned closures by BP in Brisbane, Australia now imports 91 per cent of its petrol and diesel by foreign tankers – up

from 60 per cent in 2000.

There are currently five MUA–crewed tankers that operate domestically servicing refineries but these jobs may disappear as domestic refineries close. Two of those ships are under immediate and imminent threat of removal from the coast.

There are up to 100 international tankers that import refined products to Australia and that number will rise. Not one Australian seafarer would crew any of that massive number of ships that supply our nation’s fuel needs.

The move comes just two weeks after it was revealed in the media that terrorist group Al Qaeda has urged jihadists to attack oil tankers in two maritime hotspots that supply Australia with up to 70 per cent of its petrol, raising concern over the nation’s near complete reliance on imports. www.mua.org.au

CAMPAIGN

The National Roads and Motoring Association (NRMA) has said that Australia has small and declining fuel stocks – about three weeks’ worth of refined fuels.

MUA National Secretary Paddy Crumlin said fuel security raises fundamental questions of national security and sovereign risk for some of Australia’s biggest industries, let alone our food supply and our motorists’ right to expect a constant supply of fuel at a reasonable price.

“Australia is more reliant than ever before on shipping for its fuel security. Yet companies are shifting to use international-

flag, international-owned, internationalmanaged and international-crewed ships with demonstrably poorer safety records than Australian-crewed and managed tankers,” Crumlin said.

“Australian companies and the Australian Government do not have the capacity to take control of, and re-direct, these tankers in the event of a fuel emergency.

“The use of the spot-market to charter tankers contributes to the persistently high rates of deficiencies and detentions of tankers by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, as it leads to a very high turnover

Mick Doleman meets Senator Ricky Muir in Canberra

of tankers used for imports to this country.”

In addition, the Abbott Government wants to unwind Labor’s 2012 changes to the Coastal Trading Act and thereby deregulate the shipping industry and open up the coast to foreign seafarers, who won’t have to apply for visas to work in the industry.

Maritime Crew Visas are also used in the offshore oil and gas industry as a result of changes made by the Abbott Government.

Independent Senator John Madigan has launched a Parliamentary inquiry into the country’s fuel security, to which the MUA is putting a submission.

MUA officials meet with the crew onboard the Tandara Spirit

MUA SUPPORTS WORKERS ON TANDARA SPIRIT

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aritime Union of Australia Deputy National secretary Mick Doleman headed to Canberra to talk to the nation’s leaders about Australia’s energy security and the Tandara Spirit.

Doleman met with Independent Senator John Madigan, who is leading an inquiry into Australia’s fuel security.

The MUA has made a submission to the inquiry, specifically highlighting concerns over the disgraceful treatment of MUA members onboard the Tandara Spirit and the impeccable safety record of vessels which are Australian crewed.

Doleman also met with Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party Senator Ricky Muir, Labor’s Anthony Albanese and Sue Lines, and Senator Janet Rice from the Greens.

Briefings were also conducted with staff from Australian Greens Leader Christine Milne’s office and Palmer United Party Leader Clive Palmer’s office.

“There are widespread concerns amongst politicians about the fact the Abbott Government seems to think the market will provide when it comes to energy security in Australia,” Doleman said.

“The MUA firmly believes Australian workers should be moving all of our nation’s www.mua.org.au

fuel supplies - for a range of national security, fuel security and environmental reasons and this was made perfectly clear.

“Everyone I spoke to in Canberra was shocked to learn that Vitol wants to weaken our security even further and try to remove Australian workers with an impeccable safety record in order to replace them with $2 an hour workers.”

This came on the same day that MUA Assistant National Secretary Ian Bray, Victorian Branch Secretary Kevin Bracken, Victorian Branch Assistant Secretary Bob Patchett and Sydney Branch Assistant Secretary Paul Garrett went onboard the Tandara Spirit.

“I had the honour and privilege to travel by launch out to the Tandara Spirit to meet the courageous comrades who are fighting for their jobs and the future of Australian seafarers,” Bray said.

“Teekay, in my view, did not genuinely attempt to consult and Vitol - the vessel’s charterers - were not very forthcoming about a commitment to employ Australian seafarers.

“The attempt to justify international seafarers taking the jobs of Australian seafarers and only pay them $2 per hour was an absolute joke.

“To our members out on Tandara, we know

other seafarers and wharfies are watching this dispute with keen interest and support you.”

Garrett said: “Massive day today with the MUA members onboard the Tandara Spirit in Port Phillip Bay with Comrades Kevin Bracken and Bob Patchett of the Victorian Branch, plus Ian Bray from National Office.

“The MUA supports members who are protecting their jobs by taking Teekay to the Fair Work Commission and if required, to the Federal Court.

“The company has repeatedly failed to adequately consult their workforce and the charterer Viva/Vitol are moving to replace the ship with workers on $2 per hour on a ship that has a chequered past and is littered with deficiencies.

“Again tonight, the Tandara Spirit remains at anchor whilst the consultation question goes unanswered by the company.

“I know the crew are appreciative of all the support from the maritime community around the coast.”

Meanwhile, MUA Assistant National Secretary Warren Smith was in London attending the ITF Seafarers Section meeting, which will look at ways to provide solidarity to the workers on board the Tandara Spirit and investigate Vitol’s international use of sub-standard shipping.

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COUNCIL

NATIONAL COUNCIL SETS COURSE FOR 2015

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aritime Union of Australia (MUA) National Secretary Paddy Crumlin officially opened the union’s national council in Sydney on October 13. Lead agenda items were offshore visas, the Trade Union Royal Commission, shipping reform, automation and the creation of the Maritime International Federation (MIF).

On the Royal Commission, Crumlin paid tribute to MUA WA Branch Secretary Christy Cain’s performance on the stand.

Training provider METL was the principal focus of the Royal Commission’s hearing into the MUA. The Commission heard from multiple industry witnesses that METL was well governed, played a valuable role in training Australians for maritime jobs and spent all of the money it raised on education and training.

METL is an independent not-for-profit company, with a constitution that prevents it issuing shares. It is owned by nobody.

Further, its constitution requires it to have an equal number of members and Board members drawn from industry, as those drawn

from the MUA. This means industry has an equal say with the MUA over how the funds are spent. It is worth noting that neither the industry nor union Board members receive Directors’ fees.

The commission was told that employers had agreed to contribute to METL. “It became very clear from the first 10 minutes that we shouldn’t have been there,” Crumlin said. “Counsel Assisting the Commission Jeremy Stoljar gave METL a clean bill of heath.”

Crumlin said the Abbott Government is deliberately disenfranchising working men and women through the Royal Commission.

“They’re taking power away from working men and women but giving it to companies Chevron – who don’t give a stuff about Australian workers and their families,” Crumlin said. “They’ve picked a fight with us and we’ll see it through - and if Chevron wants to be a co-operative partner we’ll do it; if they don’t, we’ll still be there.

“The Abbott Government is engaged in a type of social engineering by trying to kill of manufacturing,. for no other reason that it is unionised.

“We have completely unnatural economics right now – the US exchange rate was $1.08 with zero interest rates, now it’s down to 88 cents.

What the Abbott Government wants is a (L-R) WA Branch Secretary Christy Cain, ACTU President Ged Kearney, manufacturing industry National Secretary Paddy Crumlin, CFMEU president Tony Maher, with guest labour and AMWU President Andrew Dettmer, and the ASU’s Sally McManus weak unions.”

Crumlin said this was an important backdrop to the MUA’s elections next year.

“We will do our best to insulate our members and open up the opportunities that they deserve,” he said.

Crumlin had just returned from Kupang, where Indonesia’s Seafarer Union, Kesatuan Pelaut Indonsia (KPI) agreed to enter the Maritime International Federation (MIF) – formerly known as the Regional Maritime Federation.

In addition to KPI, the MIF consists of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA), Maritime Union of New Zealand (MUNZ) and Papua New Guinea Maritime and Transport Worker’s Union (PNGTWU) and has the potential to include the East Timorese union SMETL and other unions in the Asia Pacific region.

The Maritime International Federation aims to bring together unions with similar intentions in order to secure jobs for local maritime workers, to ensure wealth created in the region is benefiting local communities. It is scheduled to begin operation in July next year.

Crumlin welcomed special guests Joe Fleetwood and Garry Parsloe from MUNZ, Reg McAlister and Alex Rawali from PNGTWU, and Hanafi Rustandi from KPI. Crumlin said the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) was integral to the MIF, working with Mark Davis and Shannon O’Keeffe is vitally important to delivering the other unions in New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, PNG and the Pacific.

Later in the Council, the resolutions were passed on the MIF, including endorsing the name change, some small amendments to the rules and an announcement that a full-time coordinator would be installed at the start of the 2015 financial year.

KPI TO ENTER REGIONAL FEDERATION ust a week before National Council, in the small Indonesian town of Kupang on the island of Timor, Indonesia’s Seafarer Union KPI announced its intention to join the Maritime International Federation (MIF).

International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) President and MUA National Secretary Paddy Crumlin said said private companies, supported by certain neo-liberal governments, were consistently trying to undermine organised labour and to defend against these attacks, unions had to

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work together.

“One of the major growth areas for jobs is the Asia Pacific and the international trade union movement hasn’t been able to keep up with this growth,” Crumlin said.

“We need a new model and a federation of like-minded unions is one of the ways we can change the old, tired model to build capacity and drive membership.”

KPI President Hanafi Rustandi said the MIF was an exciting concept and would give the union more bargaining leverage and ability to organise members.

Rustandi talked about how the MIF would

help the union extend into the burgeoning hydrocarbon industry, at places like Kupang.

MUNZ General Secretary Joe Fleetwood said unions need to secure decent paying jobs to create a future for all.

“A federation with our neighbours works in the interest of New Zealand’s working class, as well as the working class in the other countries,” Fleetwood said. “Some of the companies we come across have the wealth to influence governments - some companies, like Chevron, are financially bigger than New Zealand.

“As a result we need to grow our strength using our sheer numbers.”

www.mua.org.au

COUNCIL MP Anthony Albanese backed a robust Australian shipping industry at National Council

ALBANESE CONTINUES TO BACK SHIPPING REFORM & KEY MUA POLICIES

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LP frontbencher Anthony Albanese defended the Rudd/Gillard Government’s record on delivering shipping reform, as one of the first guests to speak at the MUA’s National Council.

As Minister for Infrastructure, Albanese’s reforms to the Coastal Trading Act were the most substantial in a century - in a bid to ensure the survival of Australia’s sovereign flagged shipping industry.

However Abbott Government Minister for Infrastructure Warren Truss in September signalled an end to cabotage, which is the set of rules that levels the playing field for

All of the delegates from the Kupang meeting including MUNZ National Secretary Joe Fleetwood, National Secretary Paddy Crumlin, KPI president Hanafi Rustandi and Deputy National Secretary Mick Doleman at the front

www.mua.org.au

Australian ships on our coast. Truss indicated a willingness from the Government to deregulate coastal shipping and allow Flag of Convenience (FOC) shipping to compete.

“We’re facing a full frontal assault on our reforms,” Albanese told the MUA National Council. “The reforms weren’t protectionism – they were about a level playing field for Australian ships.

“You can’t bring in a Filipino truck driver to haul a load up the Hume Highway. It should be no different on the blue highway.

“We’re not asking for special favours – we’re saying that if an Australia ship is available, it

should be used.”

Albanese said he wasn’t sure how far the Abbott Government would go, “but they haven’t given the reforms a chance to operate.

They’re using the Productivity Commission report into Tasmanian Shipping and the Coastal Shipping Review to try to wind back reforms.

“But it’s worth noting that the Australian Shipowners Association (ASA) is in the same position - it isn’t just the union fighting this.”

Albanese also reaffirmed the ALP’s opposition to the Abbott Government’s changes to the Seafarers Tax Offset.

MUA National Secretary Paddy Crumlin said the retention and improvement of the 2012 Coastal Trading Act by the Abbott Government would protect Australian jobs, the maritime skills base and the environment.

“The Abbott Government’s changes could impact around 2,000 direct jobs and up to 8,000 associated jobs; so 10,000 Aussie jobs could be on the chopping block,” Crumlin said. “Cabotage is not industry assistance, in that no taxpayer funds are directed to the Australian shipping industry.

“Shipping is essential to national security and we cannot allow essential skills to be placed in the hands of non-Australian interests.

“What we don’t want to see is more Flag of Convenience (FOC) ships, with their poor standards and exploited crews, take over our ports and displace Australian vessels.”

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COUNCIL

LABOR PLEDGES TO RETURN CERTAINTY TO OFFSHORE OIL AND GAS SECTOR

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abor continues to maintain the offshore visa changes put in place by the Abbott Government are unfair, compromise employment conditions and create great uncertainty in the oil and gas sector, according to Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Brendan O’Connor.

O’Connor told the MUA National Council that Assistant Minister for Immigration Michaelia Cash wants to create chaos in the offshore oil and gas industry by using Maritime Crew Visas MCVs).

In 2013 O’Connor oversaw the Gillard Government’s strengthening of rules surrounding the use of 457 visas and the introduction of the Offshore Resources Act. “If the ALP is re-elected, we’ll be ensuring employment conditions are not compromised and we will return certainty to the industry,” he declared.

The Abbott Government recently thumbed its nose at the Senate, as part of its ideological crusade to bring in foreign workers to undermine Australian jobs in the offshore oil and gas sector.

The Senate in July voted to disallow Government regulations which determined the type of visas under which workers could be employed in the offshore oil and gas sector. The disallowance was supported by the ALP, Greens, Palmer United Party, Motoring Enthusiasts Party and Senator John Madigan.

The main sticking point was the use of the Maritime Crew (subclass 988) Visa, which requires no labour market testing and can be used to hire foreign workers on greatly reduced pay and conditions, compared to their Australian counterparts.

But instead of listening and working cooperatively, the Government instead chose to wind back the clock by announcing one day later that it would use a ‘legislative instrument’ which eliminated the need for a visa, for those on board ships and other craft not tethered to the Australian seabed.

The Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) and the Australian Maritime Officers Union (AMOU) will soon head to the Full Federal Court in a bid to overturn the Government’s decision.

Asked why we bother having a Senate if its decisions could be overturned in this way, O’Connor said there was ongoing doubt as to the efficacy of what Senator Cash had

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MP Brendan O’Connor said the Abbott Government was doing anything it could to undermine working families

done and whether it was legitimate.

“I haven’t had legal advice. But on the face of it, it is very uncertain and the advice they’re using hasn’t been provided to the Opposition,” he said.

Asked whether businesses were also frustrated by the Government’s actions, O’Connor said: “Employers and unions have things in common – certainty in the industry, and that’s something the Government is not providing.”

MUA National Secretary Paddy Crumlin told National Councillors that the MUA wanted to continue to work closely with the ALP - not just on MCVs but also 457s and continuing to oppose the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC).

“The MUA wants to work through a strategy with the ALP,” he said.

O’Connor said he expected breaches of the 457 visas were more widespread than currently known, and questioned the political motives of the Royal Commissions into Trade Unions and the Home Insulation Program, the planned re-establishment of the ABCC and the Fair Work Amendment Bill.

“The Royal Commission into pink batts was purely a political exercise. We don’t expect to see a single practical improvement to health and safety in workplaces across the nation arising from the Commission,” he said.

“Labor is up for any improvements that can be made to safety or any lessons that can be learnt, so terrible tragedies like this don’t occur in the future.”

The politically motivated Royal Commission into the trade union movement continues and has been granted a year’s

extension by the Abbott Government.

“The Royal Commission is an attempt to diminish the union movement in the eyes of the general public,” O’Connor said. “The extension is not required and is being used so the report will come out in an election year.

“The Abbott Government is using taxpayer funds to attack its political opponents. There are plenty of investigative tools that exist like the Australian Crime Commission, the Australian Federal Police, State and Territory police forces and other law enforcement agencies - to look into the alleged corruption.

“Any criminal behaviour, whether in a union or in a private company, should be a matter for the police to investigate, not a matter for politicians.

“The return of the ABCC will affect your industry - the Government wants to pry and intrude into unions while letting business run riot. Its proposed powers are extreme, unnecessary, undemocratic and compromise civil liberties.”

O’Connor said the Fair Work Amendment Bill - currently before the Parliament – would see the erosion of conditions, particularly in industries where unions are not as strong and workers are less organised.

“The Bill will run roughshod over conditions. It also attempts to de-legitimise unions in the minds of workers,” he said.

“It’s crystal clear that WorkChoices was merely sedated, not cremated as Tony Abbott promised.

“He won’t speak its name – but WorkChoices is on its way back under the Abbott Government.” www.mua.org.au

COUNCIL

UNIONS DESCRIBE ABBOTT INDUSTRY PLAN ‘TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE’

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nions have savaged Tony Abbott’s industry statement, which did little to address the cuts announced in the May Budget, did nothing to save the manufacturing sector and allowed greater use of 457 visas with unemployment at a 12-year high.

Abbott’s agenda set out a series of socalled ambitions that Australia “must pursue to ensure job creation and higher living standards”.

First was a lower cost, business-friendly environment with less regulation, lower taxes and more competitive markets.

There was also mention of a more skilled labour force, better economic infrastructure and industry policy that fosters innovation and entrepreneurship.

“This is simply code for union-busting and cutting wages and conditions,” MUA National Secretary Paddy Crumlin said. “The Abbott Government is engaged in social engineering by trying to kill of manufacturing, for no other reason that it is unionised.

“What the Abbott Government wants is a manufacturing industry with guest labour and weak unions.”

MUA Deputy National Secretary Mick Doleman said unions were concerned about the increasing use of exploitive employment visas, such as 457s and Maritime Crew Visas, under the Abbott Government.

“We’re also worried about the development of training opportunities for rural, regional and Indigenous workers,” Doleman said.

“The announcement of a little over $200 million for the Vocational Education and Training sector is dwarfed by the $1 billion they cut from skills and innovation in the Federal Budget just five short months ago.”

Addressing the MUA National Council, Opposition Immigration and Border Protection spokesman Richard Marles said unions and Labor have a great campaigning opportunity.

“Out in the community, student visas and 457s are considered to be a problem - we can get on the front foot,” he said.

Marles criticised the Abbott Government for reducing the English language requirements for workers employed under the 457 skilled visa program.

“The Abbott Government has downgraded the current English language requirements , without providing a www.mua.org.au

single example of an employer that has experienced a labour shortage because of the current requirements,” he said.

“Communication is a vital part of any workplace, and reducing the English language requirement risks reducing workplace safety, as well as leaving overseas workers at risk of being exploited by dodgy employers.

“Rather than undermine Australian jobs by loosening the rules surrounding the 457 skilled visa program, the Abbott Government should focus on coming up with a jobs plan that helps Australian workers.

“At a time when Australia is facing its highest unemployment rate in a decade, this is another example of the Abbott Government failing to stand up for Australian jobs.

“The role of the 457 skilled visa program is to provide a capacity to meet specific skills shortages to support economic growth.

It should not to be a short cut to replace Australian jobs.”

ACTU President Ged Kearney also questioned the changes to the flawed 457 visa program that has been shown to be poorly targeted and open to rorting.

“With unemployment at a 12 year high, it is mind boggling that the Government is making it easier for employers to bring in foreign workers,” Kearney said.

Unions have always maintained that employers must show they have tested the labour market locally before looking for workers overseas, while employers who recruit workers on 457 visas must also invest in training local workers as well.

Kearney said lowering English standards for 457 visa holders and freezing minimum pay rates for two years will see foreign workers more easily exploited and increase the risk of injuries and deaths at work.

“If workers can’t read safety standards and procedures then their lives and their colleague’s lives are being put at risk,” Kearney said.

ACTU president Ged Kearney with CFMEU National Secretary Michael O’Connor

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COUNCIL Australian Unions have renewed their call for a Senate Inquiry into the 457 visa program, to ensure it is a transparent and regulated system that puts local jobs and training first.

“If this is all they have, it would be more credible to say they are not having an in industry policy at all,” Kearney said.

CFMEU National Secretary Michael O’Connor said the Abbott Government’s announcement of reforms to the 457 Visa program has ignored serious flaws with the program.

“The Government’s announcement that it will lower the English language requirements for workers on 457 Visas is a dangerous mistake,” he said.

Only one work-related death of a 457 Visa worker has been recorded since the former Government introduced the current 457 Visa minimum English language standards in September 2009.

But when English language standards were lower, 11 workers on 457 visas lost their lives in work-related incidents in just 3 years. All except one were from countries where English is not the first language.

The combination of poor English language skills, the dependency of 457 visa workers on their employer and poor enforcement of 457 regulations is a lethal one.

The Government said it is “maintaining strong safeguards against abuse”; but O’Connor said this shows it is in denial about the widespread rorts in the 457 Visa program.

A recent audit by the Fair Work Ombudsman found breaches of visa conditions in 40 per cent of the 1,800 cases it investigated. This included underpayment of wages, and workers not doing the jobs for which they got their visas.

The CFMEU raised serious allegations of abuse of 457 visa workers at Gina Rinehart’s Roy Hill project with the Government in March this year.

“We’ve heard nothing meaningful from them in the eight months since,” said O’Connor. “This is a system riddled with rorts that the Government refuses to acknowledge, let alone do anything about.”

The Government has also claimed its 457 Visa program will ensure that foreign workers supplement, rather than substitute, Australia workers.

“Employers aren’t legally required to advertise for locals first under most 457 Visa occupations,” noted O’Connor. “If the Government was genuine about giving local workers first choice on jobs, it would change the law. We aren’t holding our breath.”

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said the so-called competitiveness agenda from the Abbott Government is simply a package of reheated Labor reforms and re-announcements.

“With no funding and little by way of new policy, it is clear the Government’s real agenda is scrounging savings – not investing for growth,” he said.

“The Government’s approach to building competitiveness is fundamentally dishonest: it has no credibility, coming on the back of $9 billion in cuts to higher education, science, research, innovation and industry programs.

“The five Industry Growth Centres announced as part of the competitiveness agenda are a poor imitation of Labor’s $500 million Innovation Precincts,” Shorten said.

The Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU) said the package does nothing to repair the damage already done to Australian industry by the Abbott

Sydney Branch officials Paul Keating and Paul McAleer

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Government.

“It’s like being given $20 for a cab fare by a robber, after he’s taken your wallet, phone and car,” AMWU National Secretary Paul Bastian said.

Since coming to power, the Abbott Government has announced the abolition of Commercialisation Australia, axed Enterprise Connect, slashed 10 Industry Innovation Precincts and cut a $350 million venture capital fund.

“The Prime Minister failed to secure the future of our automotive industry. He is considering offshoring naval shipbuilding, and has made deep cuts to the CSIRO,” said Bastian.

“The announcement is nothing more than a con, designed to make it appear the government is doing something about getting industry more competitive and growing jobs.

“In reality, it’s a small step forward after some huge steps back and falls massively short of what’s needed,” he said.

The Government’s Budget outlines $970 million of cuts to former Labor policies designed to improve research and industry collaboration. These programs were delivered after collaboration with industry and unions.

Deputy Greens Leader and Industry spokesperson Adam Bandt said Tony Abbott’s new industry policy identifies some winners, but backs many losers, ignores ‘white collar’, ‘pink collar’ and ‘green collar’ industries and leaves science woefully underfunded.

“You can’t put science at the centre of industry policy, while cutting science spending to a 30-year low,” said Bandt.

“Here’s a question for the new ‘innovative mathematics resources’ funded by the Government’s announcement: if you cut $111 million from CSIRO, but then only put $12 million back into science, where does the country end up?

“We need to lift our science spending by $2-3 billion to match our trading partners, something the Prime Minister clearly hasn’t grasped.

“For a Prime Minister who says he doesn’t want to ‘pick winners’, he’s happy to back quite a few losers.

“The Greens strongly support playing to our strengths and our competitive advantages. But for this to work they must be real winners, like medical technology and advanced manufacturing, not just Liberal Party backers from the resources sector.

“Glaringly absent is any commitment to renewable energy, tourism, education, aged care or professional services outside of the resources sector, all of which offer huge potential for Australia this century.” www.mua.org.au

COUNCIL

DEPUTY NATIONAL SECRETARY MICK DOLEMAN TO SHIP OUT NEXT YEAR

Deputy National Secretary Mick Doleman will leave the MUA

M

UA Deputy National Secretary, White Ribbon Ambassador of the year, longest serving Victorian Trades Hall Council President, shipwreck survivor, stalwart and mentor to many Mick Doleman announced at the National Council that he will not contest the MUA elections next year.

Mick, 59, has been a member of the Maritime Union of Australia for 43 years. He went to work at sea at the tender age of 16, although his first time aboard a ship was years earlier when he joined his seafaring father as a stowaway, or ringbolt as it’s known in the industry.

He started his career aboard a Shell Tanker called the Solen as a relieving deckboy.

“It was the first time I had a single cabin on my own, with my own shower and not have to share everything with my three brothers,” Mick recalled.

“It was industry employment in those days and you applied at a Shipping Master’s www.mua.org.au

office and put a form in. And then you had an interview at some stage down the track.

I had an interview with the ship owner’s representative, the Shipping Master [a government body] and the union.

“Roger Wilson was the Assistant Branch Secretary of the Seamen’s Union and I got selected. It’s the only interview I have ever done in my life for a job.”

Early in his seafaring career Mick became an Australian celebrity, having survived the Blythe Star disaster after the ship sank off the coast of Tasmania when he was only 18.

He subsequently spent years on dozens of ships that traded along Australia’s coast and internationally, making his way up from deckboy to bucko (ordinary seaman), to able seaman. Eventually he became bosun on the Seaway Melbourne before leaving the seafaring lifestyle to take up office at the Seamen’s Union of Australia Victorian Branch.

Mick paid his respects to some of the staunch comrades that had taken him

under their wing, helping shape the leader he is now.

“When I went to sea there was a very, very strong delegate structure. Very disciplined crews, delegates and bosuns,” he said.

“I followed the delegates around and I’ve always had an interest in politics, unionism and solidarity.

Doleman used to watch some of the union’s greatest men aboard the ships with awe.

“They were great men, who were just seafarers but worldly in their approach to life,” Mick said. “They were well educated by any standard and I thought to myself, if there is anyone I want to be like when I grow up, I want to be like these people. People who were tough, knowledgeable and respected.”

In 1984 Mick was elected as Assistant Victorian Branch Secretary of the Seamen’s Union of Australia.

“There was a vacant position and I had done a hell of a lot of voluntary work for the union when Bert Nolan, a man who I held in the highest regard, was the Secretary,” Mick said. “I was encouraged by Pat Geraghty, who was the then General Secretary of the Seamen’s Union, on the basis he believed I had a contribution to make.

“I was never really interested in becoming a union official, I loved going to sea too much. But Pat and Bert’s encouragement made the difference.”

Three years later Doleman headed the branch and became the longest serving Victorian Trades Hall President.

In 1993 Mick became an integral part of the amalgamation, sitting down to nut out the new union rules with current National Secretary Paddy Crumlin, and other former National Officials John Coombs and Jimmy Tannock, Pat Geraghty and John Ryan from Ryan Carlisle Thomas Lawyers.

“The amalgamation was a big thing, there’s no doubt about that. It was important we got the rules right and it wasn’t easy to do for either of the parties,” Mick said.

“We were both moving away from strong traditional practices and rules that needed to change. And I take my hat off to all of those, including myself, who had to be open minded about what the new union would look like.

Other achievements Mick notched up in his time in Melbourne included uniting the splits that were taking place in the Victorian Branch. He also paved the way for the

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COUNCIL WA Branch officials Christy Cain and Adrian Evans

current Tasmanian branch, which had not existed previously.

The 1997 National Council agreed to Mick moving into the National Office, first as National Organiser. The following year he was elected Assistant National Secretary alongside John Coombs as National Secretary, Paddy Crumlin as Deputy National Secretary and Jimmy Tannock as Assistant.

“I was reluctant to come to Sydney because my wife wanted to buy a new house,” Mick said. “But I was spoken to by John Coombs, who convinced me I was needed and that I could be of some use to the National Office.”

Doleman said it was a difficult decision to make, with his daughter in the middle of finishing high school studies and his son

wishing to remain in Victoria.

“We sort of paid a bit of a price for that, because a lot of our friends and close family are still in Melbourne,” he said. “And what we miss the most is not being able to just pick up the phone and say come over for tea.

“That’s one of the real downsides. The other big downside is that I don’t get to see Collingwood play all that often.”

Not long into his National Office tenure, Doleman was faced with the infamous 1998 Patrick’s waterfront dispute. He still maintains a leadership position in negotiating the Patrick’s terminal EBA for the union.

Another campaign Mick will be long remembered for, inside and outside the union movement, was his dedication to eradicating violence against women.

ASU’s Sally McManus

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In the 1990s Mick, spurred on by the HMAS Swan scandal - whereby widespread harassment was uncovered on a Royal Navy ship – decided to investigate whether similar incidents were occurring in the Merchant Navy.

He enlisted the help of Victorian Trades Hall Council’s then women’s officer Martina Nightingale to secure funding to begin a study to investigate whether women were being harassed at work. The findings of the study were used to develop the first industry policy.

“When we went in and started to look at some of the problems, we realised it wasn’t on the surface. Women suffered in silence and the men behaved badly with no accountability for their actions,” Mick said. “We had a number of seminars, we had training for contact officers, we drew up procedure manuals and companies rallied around it.

“It was a big shift in position for us. I almost reconcile it now with our approach to harassment and bullying.”

Later Mick became engaged with White Ribbon through former Women’s Liaison Officer Sue Virago and current Women’s Liaison Officer Mich-Elle Myers.

“I really liked their message. I liked that it was a men-led campaign. It recognised that men were the problem, not women, and there were some interesting people who were prepared to articulate that argument.”

To date, Mick has spread the word of White Ribbon throughout the MUA and beyond, to other unions domestically and internationally.

Now every male employee and every male official is a White Ribbon Ambassador.

In 2012 Mick was recognised for his stellar effort and was crowned White Ribbon Ambassador of the Year. He joked

Victorian Branch Secretary Kevin Bracken asks a question from the floor

www.mua.org.au

COUNCIL that he must’ve been unbeatable as the organisation has not handed that accolade to anyone else subsequently.

In reality the organisation has changed format, but the fact remains Mick Doleman has officially been White Ribbon Ambassador of the year for at least two years running. Upon winning the award, he said, it was a bit like Miss America.

When asked what his answer to a pageanttype question about what thing he desired most in the world would be, he responded saying: “What I want in the world, is socialism.

I want the wealth of the world redistributed.

“I can’t believe the wealth that exists in such few hands, while people starve, while the environment is being destroyed, while kids are uneducated, while there are illnesses and diseases that could be cured.

“The world is becoming less tolerant, less prepared to share, less prepared to help.”

One way Mick believes the MUA can help stem the tide shifting to the right is through internationalism.

“We’re one of the wealthiest countries in our region, putting aside China, and we can play a significant role, particularly in the Pacific, where they’ve got massive unemployment,” he said. “They’ve cut down all the trees they can cut down, they’ve sold off their fishing rights to China and Taiwan.

“Tourism is on the wane because they don’t have the capital to refurbish a tiring and ageing tourist industry.”

Australia could use its position to become more open with its neighbours, he said, which would be mutually beneficial.

Mick is also enthusiastic about the Maritime International Federation (formerly known as the Regional Maritime Federation).

“Our union and MUNZ (Maritime Union of New Zealand), in comparison to our brother and sister unions in the region, are very well heeled,” he said. “But when you go to Timor Leste, Papua New Guinea and to a lesser degree Indonesia, they aren’t.

“They’re a different society and have different practices on how things work.

We think we can bring a whole raft of resources, not just financial resources, but ideas, knowledge and camaraderie and stand together.”

Mick intends to become the co-ordinator of the new Maritime International Federation, which will begin in July next year and he will remain on the board as chair of the Maritime Mining & Power Credit Union.

At National Council MUA National Secretary Paddy Crumlin paid tribute to Mick’s tenure, describing him as a giant of the trade union movement.

Members of National Council all described Mick as a great friend, comrade and mentor. Accordingly, he was given a www.mua.org.au

Women and Youth representatives – Maryanne Walker and Louise Ryall – listen intently at Council

standing ovation.

“I’m very humbled and do appreciate the comments and accolades - they mean a lot to me,” Mick said. “I’m leaving, but the Union will go on – it’s up to you that it does.

“But I’m not going until July and I’ll always be around. The veterans’ motto is: Retired from the job but not the struggle –

TWU National Secretary Tony Sheldon spoke about targeting the beneficial owners like Coles and Woolworths rather than the actual trucking companies

and that seems appropriate. It’s not over yet, but I do appreciate those very, very kind words.”

ACTU President Ged Kearney described Mick as always helpful and kind. “There’s no-one I’ve ever heard say a bad thing about you,” she said.

“The entire trade union movement thanks you.”

ITF Regional Campaigns and Projects coordinator Shannon O’Keeffe and Rob Johnston from the UK union Community

A LOOK AT ALANG

A

n additional international guest, Rob Johnston joined a panel with ITF Regional Campaigns coordinator Shannon O’Keeffe and TWU National Secretary Tony Sheldon to discuss international opportunities.

Johnston used to work for IndustriALL and now works at a UK-based union called Community.

He recalled a campaign he worked on in Alang in India, where ship-breaking is one of the major industries.

Prior to the organising effort, Alang employed 65,000 people and was controlled by dodgy contractors and mafia.

Children were utilised to strip the asbestos out of the ships.

“Men worked 16 hours a day for less than a $1 a day,” he said. “If you died on

the job, you were chucked into the sea.”

After a concerted on-the-ground effort, Johnston and his team were able to form a union and employ five local organisers.

He said one of the organisers was brutally beaten in his fist week; however because of collective will and strong organising models, the union has grown to 19,500 members, child labour is no longer used and forced prostitution was stopped.

A new compensation system was put in place for workers killed at work and the health and safety standards saw a massive improvement.

Not quite the standards the western world is accustomed to, he said, but an improvement nonetheless.

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EVENT

National Secretary Paddy Crumlin talks about how the Royal Commission is a waste of time and money at a doorstop on the day of the MUA’s appearance

ROYAL COMMISSION INTO TRADE UNIONS DELIVERS ‘NO BANG FOR ITS BUCK’

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he Maritime Union of Australia has been cleared of engaging in any illegal or unlawful conduct in submissions by Jeremy Stoljar SC, the Counsel Assisting the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption.

MUA National Secretary Paddy Crumlin, MUA WA Branch Secretary Christy Cain and Maritime Employees Training (METL) chief executive Simon Earle all provided written statements to the commission, with Cain called as a witness on September 29.

The Royal Commission heard that the MUA makes no apology for negotiating hard to ensure companies meet their obligations to train Australian workers.

Evidence from industry noted that payments to the MUA for training were, in fact, used to train Australian workers through METL. METL is a Registered Training Organisation with an independent Board consisting of both union and industry representatives.

As a part of Enterprise Bargaining Agreement negotiations with employers, employees agreed to contribute part of their wages to METL. Under separate arrangements, employers also contributed to the organisation.

The royal commission heard that four companies - Saipem, SapuraKencana, Dredging International and Van Oord - made combined payments of around $3.2 million.

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In his submission, Stoljar alleges these payments “were made to secure industrial peace from, or to keep favour with, the MUA”.

However, he added: “The submissions do not raise any concern with the financial management of METL. There is no suggestion that METL is a slush fund for the MUA.” Stoljar made no submission that the evidence before the Commission in relation to the MUA and its officials demonstrated any offence or breach of any law.

Stoljar said during the September hearing that METL had been set up “because there appeared to be a lack of planning for training in the maritime industry and there was a need for a coordinated approach to support growth in the industry, particularly in the oil and gas sector”.

He noted that training for an integrated ratings ticket is cost and labour intensive, taking about 18 months and $77,000 per trainee to qualify, and that the union had set up the fund to build up domestic labour supply to meet the anticipated demands of future projects.

It is important to note that these submissions are not the findings of a court, nor the findings of the royal commission.

Royal Commissioner Dyson Heydon QC will hand down his interim report on December 15 - and the timeframe overall has been extended to December 2015.

The extension will cost an additional

$8 million, bringing the total cost of the commission to $61 million.

MUA National Secretary Paddy Crumlin said that while the MUA was prepared to participate in hearings, it stridently disagreed with the politics driving the inquiry.

Crumlin said the royal commission is draining $61 million from the public purse and that taxpayers’ money could be better spent elsewhere.

“Prime Minister Tony Abbott is only interested in pursuing partisan politics through secondary processes,” Crumlin said.

“The MUA is fully audited by independent external auditors and operates with full transparency.”

Crumlin said there are employers who still believe it is in their interest, and the national interest, to train local workers.

“I commend the work of companies such as Dredging International and Van Oord who take pride in training local workers in Australia, as they do elsewhere with ITF affiliates internationally,” Crumlin said.

Crumlin added there were no allegations or findings of unlawful acts by the MUA and that no-one should be surprised that a union would look to ensure training was provided to the next generation of workers.

“The Abbott Government is being actively supported by the Australian Mines and Metals Association (AMMA) which not only wants to open the back door to sell out Australian jobs, but also water down training requirements,” he said.

“The Abbott Government and its mates at AMMA would prefer to open the back door to cheap foreign labor – whether it’s in coastal shipping or in the offshore oil and gas sector - rather than invest in our country’s youth and indigenous workers.”

Critics have been up in arms, not just about the royal commission and its terms of reference, but also the naked politics driving its extension.

Commissioner Heydon wrote to the Attorney-General last month detailing the commission’s work.

He said the letter was “not an application to extend the reporting date”.

The Abbott Government then extended the royal commission reporting date by 12 months.

The new deadline means the Government could release the report in 2016 - when the next federal election is set to be called.

ACTU assistant secretary Tim Lyons said that called into question the motivations behind the Government’s decision to extend.

“This is a political decision by the Attorney General and the Prime Minister to extend this out into further election seasons, when they have been told by the person they asked to www.mua.org.au

EVENT

An excerpt of MUA WA Branch Secretary Chisty Cain’s Witness Statement

do the job that it’s unnecessary,” Lyons said.

The ALP said Attorney-General George Brandis needs to justify the decision.

“This extension doesn’t change what this royal commission is - a desperate and shameless use of executive power for the Government’s own political advantage,” shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus said.

“It’s not clear from Commissioner Heydon’s letter that the royal commission requested an extension of time or additional resources.

“Senator Brandis needs to justify his decision to provide additional funding if the royal commission didn’t request it.”

Cain said AMMA’s Royal Commission into unions is designed to weaken public support for the union movement, providing cover for the Abbott Government’s attempts to reduce workplace conditions and bring in overseas workers.

“Unemployment is at a 12-year high. But rather than help Australian workers find decent employment, the Abbott Government is instead hell-bent on opening the back door to cheap foreign labour across the country,” Cain said.

“The truth is there are employers out there who still believe it is in their interest, and the national interest, to train Australians. The MUA looks forward to continuing to work with those companies.

“The training of Australian workers for the offshore industry is important to ensure that the industry has the skills it needs, without having to bring in foreign workers.

“The MUA will continue to fight for the right of Australians to work in their own country.”

ACTU Assistant Secretary Tim Lyons at the May Special National Council speaking out against the politics of the Royal Commission

EXTRACTS FROM WITNESS STATEMENTS AT THE ROYAL COMMISSION HEARING ON SEPTEMBER 29 “In general, there is a worldwide shortage of dredging crew with the right tickets.

Historically, this has been particularly the case in Australia. Van Oord regarded the creation of METL as a win-win situation for us and the industry generally.”

Marinus Meijers, Managing Director Van Oord Australia Pty Ltd “To my knowledge, METL is the only body that provides (support for the Integrated Rating course). For that reason, I consider that METL makes an important contribution to the level of training, skills and qualifications in the industry.

DIAU considers that it is important that it supports the training of workers within the maritime industry, including through the courses administered and or provided by METL that lead to an apprenticeship.

The training provided or facilitated by METL increases the number of maritime workers in the general market who have skills that DIAU requires and who may be available to DIAU when it requires additional personnel.”

Joris De Meulenaere, Human Resources Manager, Dredging International Australia Pty Ltd (DIAU) “I was satisfied with the METL as a training provider who had been designated by the MUA as being appropriate to receive the funds we had agreed to pay. This was particularly emphasised when I noticed that reputable industry members and

contractors were represented at that time on the Board of the organisation.

This suggested to me that there was appropriate governance and independence over METL’s activities.”

Guido Bressani, CEO SapuraKencana Australia Pty Ltd “As the new Managing Director of Van Oord, during the due diligence process my confidence grew that METL was not a slush fund because I was advised by other major operators that they supported METL by contributing to the fund for the purpose of training and education.

Since joining the Board, I have reviewed all of the financial reports and I have not seen anything that causes me any concern with the way METL is spending its money. I have not seen any inappropriate use of the money other than in accordance with METL’s allocation of the funds for training and education.”

Marinus Meijers, Managing Director Van Oord Australia Pty Ltd “I remember that around this time I had to explain to ENI that they could not withhold the second training payment, because it was not dependent on industrial relations issues on the Blacktip Project. I explained that it was a commitment to train Australian maritime workers to address the skills shortage in the industry.”

Fabio Di Giorgi, Saipem Project Manager, ENI Blacktip Project

For more on the AMMA see p15 www.mua.org.au

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POLITICS Junior Minister Michaelia Cash used a legislative instrument to run roughshod over the Senate and the democratic process (Photo: Newspix)

BATTLELINES DRAWN IN FIGHT TO DEFEND OFFSHORE JOBS

T

he Abbott Government is intent on undermining the union movement and local employment through the use of cheap, foreign labour.

Not long after the mainstream press uncovered widespread rorting of the 457 visa program, the Government announced it would actually loosen a lot of the existing controls like the English language testing.

Further to this, Assistant Immigration Minister Michaelia Cash announced the Government would be setting up Designated Area Migration Agreements, to be rolled out first in Darwin. The intention, Cash said, was to make it easier for business to fill vacancies by recruiting foreign workers without having to go through many of the usual protocols.

Not happy with both of these big business-driven schemes, Cash set her

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sights straight on the MUA - by quietly pushing through a piece of legislation which would allow foreign labour work in the offshore industry, without the already existing, minimal checks and balances of a 457 in the form of Maritime Crew Visas (MCVs).

National Secretary Paddy Crumlin said as most members would know MCVs are intended for visiting vessels that ply the international trade, not to be used as a tool to undercut the wages and conditions in the offshore sector.

“As soon as we caught wind of this, the MUA embarked on a wide-reaching communications campaign to stop Cash in her tracks,” Crumlin said.

On the back of this the MUA, joined by the Australian Maritime Officers Union, went to Canberra and spoke to politicians

from Labor, the Greens, the Palmer United Party, the Motoring Enthusiasts Party and now independent John Madigan about the situation - and each party pledged their support.

“We were successful in getting a disallowance motion through the Senate, but the celebrations didn’t last long as Cash used an obscure ‘legislative instrument’ to undo the disallowance motion that was passed,” Crumlin said.

“In a move that not only contravened the will of the Senate, but also undermined democracy, with the swipe of a pen Cash was able to push through her agenda unquestioned.”

The MUA and AMOU decided to take the Government to the Federal Court over the ‘legislative instrument’.

Unfortunately Justice Robert Buchanan www.mua.org.au

POLITICS “In a move that not only contravened the will of the Senate, but also undermined democracy, with the swipe of a pen Cash was able to push through her agenda unquestioned.”

- Paddy Crumlin, National Secretary did not find in the unions’ favour. However, preliminary legal advice shows that there are strong grounds for appeal.

In a 28-page judgment, the judge said the argument put by the unions “is a powerful one. At one level it seems almost instinctively correct.” But, he ruled in the Government’s favour as a matter of law, finding provisions of the Migration Amendment (Offshore Resources Activity) Act did not state any limitation on the power of the minister. He said the provisions appeared to give the minister “unfettered discretion to adjust its content or operation’’.

The MUA will be appealing the decision.

Additionally the legal team is busy drafting alternate legislation for MPs and Senators to consider.

In September the WA branch, backed by supporters in the CFMEU and AMWU, kept the pressure on by hosting a rally outside the AMMA Skilled Migration conference in Perth, at which Michaelia Cash was speaking.

At the protest WA Branch Secretary Christy Cain led the charge. “The job shortage is a myth,” Cain said. “There are more than 500 seafarers with the right qualifications and certificates raring to go, and that’s only taking into account the people we look after.

“Add to that plumbers, welders, technicians, electricians, truckies, train drivers and we’re talking thousands of people - thousands who will have to go through the degrading process of fruitlessly applying for 40 jobs a month that aren’t there because Michaelia Cash gave that job to someone else.

“As for the hundreds of thousands of under-30s who will be faced with six months without any income and forced labour, in the form of work-for-the-dole for the other six months, you really have to wonder what is this Government is on about.”

To support the MUA’s campaign against the use of social dumping, sign the union’s petition, found at: https:// www.change.org/p/ petition-to-secureaustralian-maritime-jobs

www.mua.org.au

AMMA OFFENDS AN ENTIRE NATION Text of Letter from Norwegian Seafarers' Union (NSU) to AMMA after they inappropriately used an image of Paddy Crumlin in one of their publications

Reference is made to the enclosed picture of the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) President Paddy Crumlin which has been used by the Australian Mines and Metals Association (AMMA).

The picture was taken by and on assignment of the Norwegian Seafarers' Union (NSU) and the Norwegian Maritime Officers Association (NMOA) for our joint Union Magazine "Maritim Logg". Therefore the picture used by AMMA is the property of the NSU/NMOA in accordance with the copyright rules and regulations in Norway.

The AMMA used the picture without prior consent from NSU/NMOA and therefore is in breach of the copyright laws in Norway. We will therefore consider legal actions/sanctions. Copyright laws are common in most countries and it would be logical to presume that similar regulations apply and are known in Australia. It is therefore surprising that an association such as AMMA that boast of over 90 year existence as a national employer group shows little or no respect for laws that are more or less global.

However the legal aspect of AMMA's use of the picture is a minor issue compared to the complete lack of respect for the trade union movement.

The picture used was taken during Mr. Crumlin's May Day 2012 address to Norwegian workers in Oslo, Norway. That May Day was the year after the massacre of 77 people in Norway the 22. July 2011 by a gunman/ terrorist who brutally murdered several members of the youth division of the Norwegian Labour Party for their political beliefs and values.

Among the dead were personal friends of the sitting Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg from the Norwegian Labour Party.

Mr. Crumlin's attendance was to honour those 77 people and show solidarity in the aftermath of such a horrific and meaningless happening.

That honour is in harsh contrast to AMMA's disrespectful and malignant usage of the picture which is a disgrace and an insult to those people who lost their lives and their families, to the Norwegian Labour Party, to the Government, to Norwegian Trade Unions and their members and to all workers globally. The AMMA should be ashamed.

The picture is a symbol of international solidarity which was delivered with compassion and unity to us through Paddy Crumlin and NOT for the entertainment of AMMA or any other organisation.

On behalf of our members and trade unions in general we demand an official apology from AMMA for the selfish use of the picture for propaganda purposes in the attempt to discredit and smear the reputation of the trade union movement.

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CAMPAIGN

MUA MEETS UNITED STEELWORKERS CHEVRON COUNCIL

The campaign against Chevron continues to ramp-up, as the MUA joins forces with more international unions also opposed to the global energy giant’s corporate behaviour.

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he MUA is working closely with the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), as part of a global campaign to build awareness over delays and cost overruns on Chevron’s Gorgon project which was originally costed at US$37 billion but has now blown out to US$54 billion.

Local company management and business lobby groups have unfairly blamed the MUA for problems on the Gorgon project, as the union seeks to negotiate a new Enterprise Bargaining Agreement for maritime workers working in the offshore oil and gas sector.

MUA WA Branch Assistant Secretary Will Tracey travelled to Pittsburgh in the United States to attend the United Steelworkers Oil Bargaining Conference in the last week of October.

Most of the week was spent with the United Steelworkers Chevron Council,

which is made up of the various leaders of the Locals which cover the entire Chevron operations in North America.

Tracey addressed the Chevron Council on the current legal prosecution by Chevron of the MUA and 15 Rank and File members for $22 million in damages.

The Chevron Council was horrified and disgusted by the presentation, especially the detail of how Chevron has been conducting itself in Australian operations.

Most of it was no surprise though, given the various experiences in the North American operations. Nonetheless attendees condemned the actions of Chevron and agreed that Chevron’s behaviour needed to be highlighted across Chevron’s North American operations.

“The Chevron Council moved motions of support for our campaign,” Tracey said.

“We have agreed to work closely, given

that they are currently about to commence negotiations for a new agreement with Chevron and the broader oil and gas industry, while we are well into our negotiations.

“In fact, they have amended some of their Chevron-specific claims on the basis of the MUA report. And we will develop and explore the strengthening of our relationship, especially because across Chevron’s operations globally, Australia and North America stand out with their high levels of union density.”

After various interactions over the week, the Chevron Council and broader Oil and Gas Bargaining Conference agreed that the only way to make gains during this next round of negotiations was to prepare for and take - industrial action in support of their claims.

The Australian experience helped

WA Branch Assistant Secretary Will Tracey with the USWA Chevron Council Executive on the left and the full Council on the right

18

www.mua.org.au

CAMPAIGN

confirm this course of action as necessary, particularly after Tracey spoke in detail of the impact on Chevron of the recent 5-day strike at the Mermaid Supply Base.

As Vice President Beavers declared as the conference closed: “We are looking for a fight this time around.”

This will be the first industrial action in oil bargaining since the early 1980s - and as a consequence a formal strike committee has been set up and the group discussed the raising of levies to cover workers and keep the guys out for whatever time was deemed necessary.

“We have agreed to work together in the approach to this company and help each other where ever we can when in dispute,” Tracey said.

“It was a great week. The genuine approach of the United Steelworkers - at both the international and Local level - to international solidarity, where we have a common enemy, is second to none.

“We are also exploring the setting up of a formal global Chevron alliance to approach this company in the only way we can, if we are to win – globally.

“The Chevron Council has indicated that it is excited to be kept informed of what is happening in Australia - and in particular the much reported problems with the Gorgon Project.”

At the conclusion of the conference the United Steelworkers Chevron Council put forward and unanimously approved the following motion of support: This meeting of the USWA Chevron Council commends Brother Will Tracey for his comprehensive report on the current dispute that the Maritime Union of Australia is involved in with Chevron. This meeting of the USWA Chevron Council pledges full support and solidarity for our Brothers and Sisters from the Maritime Union of Australia in the ongoing dispute with Chevron and condemns Chevron’s actions.

“It was a great week. The genuine approach of the United Steelworkers to international solidarity, where we have a common enemy, is second to none.

- Will Tracey, MUA WA Branch Assistant Secretary

www.mua.org.au

CHEVRON QUICK FACTS  The Gorgon project is the single largest foreign resource project in Australia. F or Chevron it is one of the largest LNG projects ever.  At present, it is the company’s single largest upstream project and could add somewhere between US$40-60 billion a year in revenue. C hevron is releasing information that first gas will be on target for the middle of 2015.  I n each of the past two Decembers, Chevron has released new information about Gorgon - increasing the projected cost of the project and delaying the timing of first gas delivery. O riginally costed at US$37 billion, the budget is now running at US$54 billion. O riginally scheduled to have ‘first gas’ in 2014, there are growing concerns about delay, with 2015 the most optimistic start-up date. (Shell, one of the project’s joint venture partners, believes the date could be at least 2016 and as late as 2018.)

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CAMPAIGN EXAMPLES OF MINISTER TRUSS MISLEADING THE AUSTRALIAN PEOPLE

1 Deputy PM Warren Truss uses dodgy information to back his spurious arguments.

TRUSS CAUGHT TELLING ‘PORK PIES’ ON SHIPPING REFORM

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he Federal Coalition Government has been busy trying to unpick the revitalisation of Australia’s shipping, put through the Parliament by the previous Labor Government.

Transport Minister Warren Truss was caught out misleading the Australian public in mid-September by using data from a flawed report.

Fresh on the heels of killing off Australia’s submarine industry and car industry, Truss signaled an end to cabotage.

The MUA is highly concerned that Minister Truss in his speech to Shipping Australia has politicised the data from the Australian Sea Freight 2012-13 report.

MUA National Secretary Paddy Crumlin pointed out that cabotage is not industry assistance, in that no taxpayer funds are directed to the Australian shipping industry and that the industry cannot be allowed to fail.

This could directly impact the jobs of around 1,500 seafarers in the blue water sector, and a further 500 in towage and other industries that service the blue water fleet.

Hence, in total around 2,000 direct jobs and up to 8,000 associated jobs are on the chopping block. Many of those are in northwest Tasmania.

“Australia needs a viable, vibrant shipping industry which employs Australian workers and the Abbott Government needs to give the laws passed in 2012 time to work,” Crumlin said.

“Australia is the fourth largest user of ships in the world. The industry employs thousands of Australians and cannot be allowed to fail.

“What we saw from Minister Truss leads us towards an act of political stupidity, which

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would damage the national interest and place another key Australian industry on the scrap-heap.

“Shipping is essential to national security and we cannot allow essential skills to be placed in the hands of non-Australian interests.

“Australian shipping should enjoy bipartisan political support, as it has done in the past. I urge the Abbott Government to keep a regulatory framework that supports Australian ships.

“Over the life of the Howard Government, the number of Australian-flagged vessels plummeted from 55 to 21 and the 2012 changes were desperately needed.”

Crumlin noted the 2012 changes to the Navigation Act and introduction of the Coastal Trading Act were the biggest maritime reform since the passing of the Navigation Act 100 years ago.

“The reforms have the potential to create employment, sustain business opportunities and productivity and build the national interest through an industry that is critical to the quality of Australia’s economy, environment and way of life,” Crumlin said.

“We need to maintain a regulatory framework that provides an access regime built on the principle of fair competition, which provides for both Australian ships and foreign ships to meet the coastal freight needs of shippers.

“What we don’t want to see is more Flag Of Convenience (FOC) ships, with their poor standards and exploited crews, take over our ports and displace Australian vessels.

“A revitalised Australian shipping industry will enable us to protect our environment from the risks posed by FOC ships, like the ones that have damaged our Great Barrier Reef.”

From Minister Truss’ speech to Shipping Australia on 18 September 2014 “Under Labor’s flawed, bureaucratic and protectionist tiered licensing system, there were almost 1,000 fewer coastal voyages and almost 2 million fewer tonnes of freight moved by foreign flagged temporary licensed vessels in its first year of operation.”

This is incorrect because there were 776 voyages in 2011-12 that did not carry any cargo. The number of vessels which did not carry any cargo was not included for 2012-13. This reduces the difference between the two years to 118.

Also, the numbers do not include the permit voyages that were carried out during the transition period, where permits were given under both systems. In effect, voyages during the first four months under the existing system are not counted.

In addition, the MUA has copies of applications for both single voyage and continuing voyage permits for the period 1/7/2012-31/10/2012 which are not included in the report.

In other words, Minister Truss is deliberately fudging the numbers to prove a political point. It is highly likely the number of voyages actually increased after the legislation was introduced.

2

From Minister Truss’ opinion piece in The Australian newspaper on 18 September 2014 “It does not help our national cause when coastal shipping is bound by regulations where a ship has to wait idle in port for a day before loading can begin.”

No such regulation exists.

3

From Minister Truss’ opinion piece in The Australian newspaper on 18 September 2014 “Meanwhile, our trading fleet continued its downward trend, with the number of major Australian-registered ships with coastal licences declining from 30 in 2006-07 to just 13 by 2012-13.

The number of major vessels (defined as over 2,000 tonnes) is currently 16, indicating that the Coastal Trading Act is beginning to work. The number of ships licensed under the Coastal Trading Act has increased by 11 to 61 since the 2012 changes.

www.mua.org.au

CAMPAIGN

Deputy National Secretary Mick Doleman and the AMOU’s Dan Pearson met with Senator Glenn Sterle in Canberra to discuss the Seafarer’s Tax Offset

ABBOTT GOVT TARGETS SEAFARERS’ TAX OFFSET IN CRUEL 2014 BUDGET

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he MUA has been busy lobbying Federal Parliament over Coalition plans to repeal the Seafarers’ Tax Offset.

The Abbott Government announced in the 2014 Budget that it wants to scrap the offset, claiming it “has not achieved its policy intent. The savings from this measure will be redirected by the Government to help repair the Budget and fund other policy priorities.”

The Seafarer Tax Offset was introduced from 1 July 2012 on commencement of the Tax Laws Amendment (Shipping Reform) Act 2012, which was one element of a shipping reform legislative package introduced by the then Labor Government.

The Tax Laws Amendment (Shipping Reform) Act 2012 (Schedule 3 - Seafarer tax offset) amended the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 by providing for an eligible company to obtain a refundable tax offset for withholding payments made to Australian seafarers for overseas voyages if:  The voyage is made by a vessel for which the company, or another entity, has a certificate under the Shipping Reform (Tax Incentives) Act 2012; and  The company employs or engages the seafarer on such voyages for at least 91 days in the income year. Time off work for training is counted as part of the eligibility, which encourages the training of Australian seafarers.

The object of this provision is to stimulate opportunities for Australian seafarers to be employed or engaged on overseas voyages and to acquire maritime skills.

This tax incentive has been taken up by six Australian companies over 2012-13 and 2013-14 according to data on Notices issued under the Shipping Reform (Tax Incentives) Act 2012, as published by the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development.

The Government claims that the low level of claims or take-up for the Seafarer Tax Offset www.mua.org.au

indicates that it has not achieved its policy intent and has not been an effective stimulant for the employment of Australian seafarers on overseas voyages.

This is incorrect, because the apparent low take up is simply a factor of the small number of eligible employers, due to the small number of Australian ships trading internationally.

“The Seafarer Tax Offset is important to those companies that have taken advantage of the measure to ensure the ongoing competitiveness of Australian ship operators in a global market, in circumstances where all other ship-owning countries also have such a measure in place,” MUA National Secretary Paddy Crumlin explained.

“All other seafaring nations provide such a tax incentive for employers of seafarers – it

vessels;  An exemption from royalty withholding tax for foreign owners of eligible vessels leased under a bareboat or demise charter to an Australian operator.

These three measures remain in place.

Labor’s Transport spokesman Anthony Albanese, the minister who put the Coastal Trading Act package together in the Rudd/ Gillard Government, said in Parliament that the Government’s claim that the abolition of the seafarers’ tax offset would reduce costs of business is false.

“This offset is actually a rebate for business.

This is a tax offset, designed to level the playing field between the Australian shipping industry and the foreign shipping industry,” Albanese said.

“The bill is the latest manifestation of this Government’s ideologically-driven campaign to take on anything to do with the former Government’s shipping reform” - Anthony Albanese is largely a tax-free industry in international terms.

“This taxation measure was one of an integrated package of taxation measures which accompanied the coastal ship licensing system and establishment of an Australian International Shipping Register, that together made up the shipping reform package.

“It helps stimulate the training of Australian seafarers, which remains an important outcome given that Australia is such a major shipping nation.”

The other three taxation measures are:  An income tax exemption (ITE) for operators of Australian-registered eligible vessels on qualifying shipping income;  Accelerated Depreciation and rollover relief for owners of Australian-registered eligible

“The bill is the latest manifestation of this Government’s ideologically-driven campaign to take on anything to do with the former Government’s shipping reform. The extraordinary thing is that this is a government which is out there talking about costs to the Australian shipping industry, but which is now proposing to gain savings by taking a rebate away from businesses here in Australia.

“There has been no consideration of the costs against the benefits of this proposition.

Its lack of balanced consideration means that it opposes any of the reforms that were done as part of reforming and revitalising the Australian maritime sector during the last term of parliament — even though these changes were formulated completely in consultation with Australian industry.”

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POLITICS

ABBOTT GOVERNMENT’S FIRST YEAR REPORT CARD On the first anniversary of the Abbott Government’s election, the ACTU’s Working Life Team asked 12 prominent union leaders for their assessment of how the Coalition had performed?

And how its policies had impacted on their members?

PADDY CRUMLIN National Secretary, Maritime Union of Australia “Despite a sales job of a ‘no surprises, no excuses’ government if elected, Tony Abbott in office is more ‘no regard for and no excuses to’ the Australian electorate on the turnaround on virtually every key policy his party stood for.

“Industrial relations has seen a virtual ideological jihad against trade unions and organised workers: penalty rates under attack; the dilution of job security for Australian workers through a program to open the jobs market to overseas workers regardless of availability of the national workforce; and the assisted demise of Australian manufacturing from cars to canned tomatoes.

“They give no excuses for a vision for Australia where we make nothing and still get overseas labour to soak up what remaining employment opportunities there are, because they are cheaper and potentially more compliant.

“Australians do get a bit of special attention though. They have to pay for their university education alone, and then look forward to less superannuation and pension entitlements and more expensive health care at the stump end of their lives. What a gang!”

DAVE NOONAN Assistant National Secretary, Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union “Tony Abbott’s slash and burn approach is deeply felt by workers in the industries covered by the CFMEU. Young people are hurting due to high unemployment, the record low number of apprenticeships, the cuts in training and support and the ease with which employers can continue to exploit overseas workers instead of giving young people a start.

“He wants everyone in our industries – where the work can be back-breaking – to work longer and retire with less.

“He has no plan for jobs. He hasn’t simply let

cut; a 19% cut to the CSIRO; a $120 million cut to the ABC; 165,000 public sector workers facing an extreme attack in bargaining; up to 60% of workers’ rights to be stripped from agreements for pay offers of zero to 1.1%; and 75 Commission of Audit ideas for outsourcing and cuts at large.

“There are just too many nasties to count.

“The numbers tell a story, but not the human cost: of what it’s like to lose your job, or to keep it but fear losing your rights; of a community seeing government services and support get cut.

“Tony Abbott has also given us numbers of hope: of 150,000 marching; of hundreds of community groups opposing his agenda; of 4000 joining the CPSU since the Budget; and of a movement that can and has to grow in voice, power and unity.”

Recently elected AWU National Secretary Scott McDine outlined how the Government is doing all it can to ruin job opportunities

manufacturing die; he has pushed it over the edge, hurting communities and the economy, in order to punish unions.

“He has ignored the needs of mining communities and backed big mining companies without exception.

“He has stood in our way when we strive to make our workplaces safer, by trying to tie us up in red tape and exorbitant fines – which will be exacerbated if he succeeds in reintroducing the ABCC. “Abbott’s Royal Commission is a political witch hunt aimed at smearing our union.

But the hearings have shown that we are passionate and effective in defending our members’ rights and safety on the job.

“And this is only one year in.”

NADINE FLOOD National Secretary, Community and Public Sector Union “365 days: 16,500 public service jobs to be

ANGELO GAVRIELATOS Federal President, Australian Education Union “The Abbott Government has chosen to spend its first year entrenching inequality in schools by abandoning needs-based Gonski funding agreements with the states.

“Schools will miss out on two-thirds of the extra funding that would have been provided under Gonski and all schools will get a cut in real terms from 2018.

“That means fewer teachers, less support for students and bigger gaps between rich and poor schools.

“The Abbott Government also broke its election promise to introduce extra funding for students with disabilities in 2015, and will effectively cut $100 million from disability education next year.”

LEE THOMAS Federal Secretary, Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation “For the past 30 years, Medicare has been the cornerstone of Australia’s system of universal healthcare.

22 www.mua.org.au

POLITICS Assistant National Secretary of C&G at the CFMEU Dave Noonan spoke about the Abbott Government at National Council

“But after only 12 months, the Abbott Government is hell-bent on destroying it.

“Proposed co-payments for GP visits and other basic health services will make it unaffordable for people to see their doctor, forcing them into already-overcrowded hospital emergency departments - or worse still, putting off treatment altogether.

“Tony Abbott’s pre-election promise of ‘no health cuts’ turned out to be a lie.

“The ANMF is campaigning against the Abbott Government’s budget through our Lies, Cuts and Broken Promises campaign.”

PAUL BASTIAN National Secretary, Australian Manufacturing Workers Union “In one year, the Coalition Government has attacked Australian manufacturing in an unprecedented way.

“As well as forcing the auto industry out the door – jeopardising the future of tens of thousands of workers — the Government has sought to undermine manufacturing across the country.

“It has failed to commit to shipbuilding, failed to commit to steel fabricators, and failed to support the industry at large.

“Manufacturing has always been the base of Australia’s economy – solid, skilled and a driver of research and innovation which spills across all sectors of the economy.

“Hitting manufacturing, as well as hitting innovation and research, will have long-term negative effects for Australian workers, for employment and for our economy at large.” www.mua.org.au

“Abbott has no plan for jobs. He hasn’t simply let manufacturing die; he has pushed it over the edge, hurting communities and the economy, in order to punish unions.

- Dave Noonan, Assistant National Secretary, CFMEU

DAVID SMITH National Secretary, Australian Services Union “Ordinary Australians won’t be celebrating this Federal Government’s first anniversary - and if the Liberal-National parliamentarians have any shame, they won’t be cracking out the champagne and cigars either.

“ASU members are facing the dire consequences of this Government’s decisions along with so many others. In local government, funding is being slashed with job losses and reductions in quality services to the community looming.

“In airlines, we’ve seen the Government try to undermine Australian content laws for Qantas and continuing to turn a blind eye to economydamaging offshoring occurring elsewhere.

“The Government’s so called ‘asset recycling’ Bill - to reward states and territories which privatise their assets - will do untold damage to our electricity sector, among others, and hit consumers with the inevitable increases that come with profit-based private companies taking over.

“The list keeps growing and on the eve of their anniversary, the Federal Government has

gifted workers a multi-billion dollar cut to their retirement savings, with the superannuation guarantee freeze and LISC cut.

“Sorry Mr Abbott, there was no honeymoon for you and certainly no ‘happy first anniversary’ cards from the ASU either.”

JEANNIE REA President, National Tertiary Education Union “Despite promises to the contrary before the election, the Abbott Government has outlined the most dramatic changes to the higher education sector in a generation.

“Funding has been slashed, fees will go up, private providers will receive public funding, and students will be charged at market interest rates on their debt.

“These changes will saddle graduates with mortgage-sized debts and create a twotier system that locks students from poorer backgrounds and women out of the highest quality education.

“Courses will be cut and campuses will close, leading to job losses and more casualisation with four-in-five new jobs in the sector already short-term or casual contracts.”

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POLITICS National Secretary Paddy Crumlin and TWU National Secretary Tony Sheldon at the recent National Council

TONY SHELDON National Secretary, Transport Workers’ Union “After only one year, the Federal Government is looking to put lives at risk by ‘reviewing’ Australia’s road safety watchdog – the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal.

“The Tribunal has powers to intervene when clients use economic pressure to force truck drivers and truck companies to act unsafely.

“Truck driving is Australia’s most dangerous job, with a workplace fatality rate 15 times higher than the national average. Yet major Liberal donor Coles has campaigned hard against the RSRT and some Government MPs have described the Tribunal as ‘red tape’.

“Our message to the Abbott Government is that road safety is not red tape, and the RSRT should be allowed to do its job in delivering safer roads.”

DAVID O’BYRNE National Secretary, United Voice “The past year has exposed the Abbott Government’s mean-spirited indifference to low and middle income earners and families.

Its persecution of helpless people is somehow monstrous, somehow pitiful.

“The 2014 Budget is striking for its relentless cuts to essential services and increased costs for those who can least afford them.

“The betrayal of cleaners who look after federal buildings, and clean the very offices of the Government that made this despicable decision, illustrates their vindictiveness. The

“Our message to the Abbott Government is that road safety is not red tape, and the RSRT should be allowed to do its job in delivering safer roads.”

- Tony Sheldon, National Secretary, TWU

dumping of the Commonwealth Cleaning Services Guidelines will see them lose 20% of their pay, on top of a dramatic reduction in working conditions and job security.

“These guidelines were established to protect cleaners in an industry with a long and well-documented history of underpayment, exploitation and unsafe work practices. Thanks to the Abbott Government, these hard-working cleaners now face the future with anxiety and uncertainty.

“So much for Tony Abbott’s pre-election claim that no worker will be worse off. But we have always fought. Together, we will face and defeat this radical Government, and together we will win.”

TIM KENNEDY National Secretary, National Union of Workers “After a year with Tony Abbott at the helm, inequality and insecurity have grown rapidly.

The only benefit in Abbott’s attack on everyone (except his own constituency – the 1%) is that people have pulled together and shown that we can resist extremism.

“What comes next is the creative and collaborative process of offering an alternative vision, something that the union movement can and needs to help build.

“With Abbott’s current attacks on the Fair Work Act, and other signals of tearing apart hard-won rights for working people, the attack on organised labour is only beginning.

“Nevertheless, organised and united, people power can win.”

SCOTT McDINE National Secretary, Australian Workers’ Union “The Abbott Government seems hell bent on winning the race to the bottom, by undermining Australian jobs and job security.

“Every aspect of the Coalition’s workplace policy – from loosening up provisions against the exploitation of workers on 457 visas, through to punishing the unemployed - seems aimed at undermining our social safety net.

“It’s incumbent on all of us to campaign for quality jobs with decent security, wages and conditions. We don’t want to leave Aussie kids without a future in a jobless wasteland.”

24 www.mua.org.au

CONFERENCE

FOCUS ON FUTURE OF WATERFRONT MAINTENANCE INDUSTRY

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ll attention was on one of the smallest industries that makes up the Maritime Union of Australia with a three-day conference held for delegates from the maintenance sector of the maritime industry.

Prone to employer attempts to outsource and de-unionise, members in maintenance are constantly faced with a challenging industrial environment.

Delegates from the four major ports from companies such as Kalmar, DP World and Ativo all gathered in Melbourne to participate in discussions and a mapping exercise.

Members from each workplace and employer gave a report on their relevant workplaces.

Some of the issues raised through the reports and general discussion included the increase of insecure and precarious employment, multiple contractors in the same workplace, safety problems, skills not keeping pace with qualifications and a general lack of union education culminated with an absence of historical knowledge.

Assistant National Secretary Warren Smith, who attended the conference, said the union was particularly pleased to have the participation of delegates from Kalmar in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, as those members had recently won a national Enterprise Bargaining Agreements.

“The members involved with the Kalmar agreement need to be congratulated for staying staunch in the face of huge opposition from the company that was obviously being pushed from behind the scenes by Patrick.

“Patrick and Kalmar have constantly and

Kalmar workers who engaged in protected industrial action earlier this year

consistently opposed the union being involved in maintenance and this agreement showed them that we will not be sidelined without a fight.

“Taking protected action is never an easy decision and the stress is increased ten-fold when you’re working on a small site.

“But the Kalmar comrades didn’t falter once and that’s what the MUA is all about – standing shoulder to shoulder to oppose the exploitative bosses.

The Kalmar EBA is a important achievement as Kalmar are a global company taking an increasing role in the development, maintenance and operations of automated container terminals in Australia and around the world.

Delegates developed a plan arising from the conference to maximise coverage across the stevedoring industry, maximise scope of EBAs, increase traineeships, increase the coordination among members, and to build union density and strength.

Deputy National Secretary Mick Doleman, also participated in the discussions.

“Maintenance work is changing to encompass more digital technologies and maintenance is becoming increasingly important in automated container terminals,” Doleman said.

“There is a huge potential to mitigate membership losses as traditional stevedoring roles disappear.

“The MUA is determined to meet this challenge head-on.”

Mapping undertaken at the conference found there were hundreds of unionised maintenance workers in Australian container terminals, with the largest number working DP World. The remainder were employed

by Ativo, by Kalmar, by Flinders Adelaide, and by Hutchison. Mapping of non-unionised maintenance subcontractors was also undertaken.

Maintenance Conference participants outside the Victoria Branch on Ireland Street in Melbourne

www.mua.org.au

25

FIGHTING FUND

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE MARITIME JOBS LEGAL FIGHTING FUND Statement from National Secretary Paddy Crumlin to all MUA members.

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s you would know, our Union is facing continuing and escalating attacks on a wide range of fronts. The Abbott Government is using its wide legal powers and significant resources to work with some shipping companies, stevedores and other employers to erode conditions of and protections for employment in the industry - including attacks on safety on the job and the circumventing of Australian maritime workers in shipping and the offshore.

We are increasingly required to go to Court to defend our collective interests and the individual targeting of members including delegates and activists. Legal costs are rapidly escalating. Many of the cases we are involved in require the use of barristers and senior counsel and in some cases substantial damages have been awarded against us.

For instance we are about to embark upon a landmark legal battle against the Federal Government in an effort to obtain a declaration from the Federal Court that Government Determination IMMI14/077 (that permits offshore labour working in the oil and gas industry in particular to no longer require an Australian visa) is invalid and contrary to law.

Were the Determination allowed to stand, it would create a situation whereby there would be a significant increase in the capacity of employers to hire seafarers from abroad and then put them to work working in the Australian Exclusive Economic Zone up to 200 Nautical Miles from shore, without the need for visas or the protection of Australian employment standards. The litigation is expected to be heard in one or a combination of the Federal Court, the Full Federal Court and the High Court of Australia.

H

i members. Just letting everyone know that the members on board have voted to donate 2,000.00 to support our appeal in the full bench of the federal court - if anyone is against this please get back to me ASAP. M V 11 Delo Wayne Hughes

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omrades. I am proud to report that I have just delivered a donation to the Fighting Fund of $12,000 from members on the Highland Navigator. We recognise the

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We are also preparing or are fully engaged in legal battles in a number of key areas including: Significant Restrictions on Right of Entry Permits, with MUA Officials being denied permits.

Continued delay by employers in the adoption of the life saving National Stevedoring Code of Practice and associated state and federal regulation.

Threats to existing Cabotage arrangements protecting seafarers caused by various and ongoing Government reviews.

Attacks to the Stevedoring Award with employer claims to increase wharfies hours of work and reduce penalty rates and other employment entitlements awarded to the stevedoring workers over decades of bargaining.

Our Union is also dealing with antiworker forces suing the union over the protection of safety and workplace rights for towage workers in Port Hedland and Henderson and there have been and continue to be a number of cases against the union and our members in stevedoring workplaces in NSW, Victoria and WA. In response to these wide ranging attacks, the Union has set up a fighting fund known as the Maritime Jobs Legal Fighting Fund, which has been established for the purpose of contesting strategic litigation when required in the event that a judgment from the Court or law from the Parliament is contrary to the labour, human and civil rights and interests of the MUA, its officers and its members.

The operation of the fund is consistent with the MUA’s obligations under the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act, and the MUA rules. The Maritime Jobs Legal Fighting Fund will be financed by a modest

seriousness of the pivotal time we currently find ourselves in, with the treasonous attacks on our industry from this government who are trying every trick in their book to reach their ideological end, with help from the likes of AMMA. Even if the pending court decision goes our way, comrades, it will not be the end of it. This fight will go on until we see an end to this rotten mob and restore our country back to the one we all love. So dig deep. We know their war chests are almost endless and we

increase in Membership dues ($104 per year or $4 per fortnight or $2 per week) effective 1 September 2014. G Grade and the Irregular Supplementary member’s will only pay $1 per week towards the fund.

The contributions will be recognised by a financiality sticker which will include reference to the Maritime Jobs Legal Fighting Fund. Crews and maritime workplaces are encouraged to also identify the Fighting Fund as a priority in the disbursement of their normal workplace donations and industrial and political funding.

Looking ahead, the Abbott Government intends to draw Maritime workers into the scope of the internationally notorious anti union Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) while the Government’s Royal Commission into Trade Unions has already demonstrated the great selectivity of its purpose in excluding any corrupt practices or activities of employers in its scope of investigation.

Finally, it has been reported at monthly meetings and workplaces (and also demonstrated by a number of sizeable donations from workplaces and members) that workplaces and members may still wish to make voluntary contributions to the fund and these contributions can be made by individuals or workplaces/rolling funds.

I trust you will appreciate the decision to increase Union dues to invest in the Maritime Jobs Legal Fighting Fund is both a necessary and appropriate step in our fight to defend and improve the employment terms and conditions for you and for all other Members of our great Union.

In Unity Paddy Crumlin MUA National Secretary

must be resourced for the good fight! If we are not saving our rolling funds for this . . . . . . what are we saving them for?

John Owen from the Highland Navigator

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orkers aboard Floating Production Storage Offloading (FPSO) vessel Ningaloo Vision have stumped up $6000 to fight the ongoing and future attacks by ideological warriors in Government and business.

www.mua.org.au

CAMPAIGNS

INDUSTRY WISES UP TO AUTOMATION Union and industry have found common cause in denouncing the practice of automation without consultation, reports Assistant National Secretary Warren Smith.

An example when Automation goes wrong. An unmanned straddle picks up a container loaded truck instead of just a container

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loyd’s List Daily Commercial News recently reported “Automation fails at DP World Brisbane”, proving that automating terminals without proper thought or process does not work.

The MUA has long criticised the callous and frenzied way automation has been introduced into Australia at all major terminals and now we’re not alone.

Here are some of my favourite excerpts from the LLDCN article: •O ne freight forwarder described DP World Brisbane as “rubbish”, while another said dealing with the stevedore was a “nightmare”.

• J ohn Lines, managing director of shipping line ANL, was reported as blaming the automated system for the awful service delivery at the terminal.

Automation in practice is showing that it is not the panacea for productivity in Australian ports, proven by the fact business is now running its own antiautomation campaign.

DP World was unfortunate to be singled www.mua.org.au

out in this instance, but it is not alone.

Patrick, Hutchison and the new Melbourne operator ICTSI are all embracing automated modes of operation, and not one of the companies that has already automated has demonstrated that its productivity across the berth is higher than its human-driven operations in other states.

Wharifes know that in these ports, when conventional operations are run sideby-side with automated operations, the conventional operation wins hands down every time.

The massive ‘productivity gains’ for stevedores are based on the fact that wharfies are being thrown on the scrapheap at the same time as service for shipping lines and land-based transport companies seem to be thrown on the same scrapheap.

At automated sites and at sites on the cusp of automation (Patrick & DP World Port Botany), we have a situation where morale is at an all time low and workers feel they are under constant surveillance - and

ssistant National Secretary Warren Smith is not A surprised customers have identified issues with automated terminals.

for what? Not for better customer satisfaction.

Our concern is that customers running from one stevedore to another will create massive instability - not just for the industry but for us working in it.

Are we going to be looking at a situation where we have to suffer cycles of redundancies and rehiring, inevitably causing a massive training burden on the companies that will undoubtedly hit their profit margins?

This is an opportune time to introduce a labour pool to stop this uncertainty that I am sure shareholders, customers and workers would all stand to benefit from.

This latest news has shown it is now foreseeable that the likes of Patrick and DP World will have to go cap-in-hand to their shareholders and explain how their massive capital expenditure projects could not be justified.

Maybe, one day, the management will sit back and reflect: “perhaps we should’ve listened to the MUA.” No automation without consultation.

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Credit: Bruce Colyer

SAFETY

SAFETY BULLETIN

SAFE ACCESS TO VESSELS Members are advised to comply with Marine Orders at all times when accessing vessels.

What you need to know The master needs to provide a safe means of access to the vessel. Safe means of access means a gangway or cargo ramp as defined in Schedule 9 of MO21. A safe means of access must be in place at all times when accessing the vessel.

Cellular container ships must have at least one safe means of access to the cargo space at all times: MO32 Schedule 2 section 6.

Other types of ships built after 1 Aug 1998 must have at least two safe means of access to the cargo space: MO32 schedule 2 section 7.

A personnel cradle may be used to access containers in some circumstances. For example, to access the top a container. See MO32 Schedule 2

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section 8. But this does not take away the requirement for the gangway to be in place at all times. Members should stay inside the cage, wear a harness.

Offence: accessing vessels in contravention of Marine Orders Members are reminded: it is an offence to access a vessel, or authorise another person to board or leave a vessel on foot, other than as prescribed in Marine Orders. See sections 17.1(d) and 23 of Marine Order 32 and section 67 of Marine Order 21.

Cranes and man cages: what do Marine Orders say?

Personnel cages must not be used to access a vessel before gangway is secure.

Putting personnel onto a vessel using mancages, before the gangway is secure, leaves workers without any form of safe access and egress from the vessel. It contravenes Marine Orders and is not a safe

practice. Under Marine Orders, safe means of access and egress must be in place at all times.

When can a personnel cage be used?

Under marine orders, it is permitted to use a personnel cradle (cage) to access containers in some instances – such as accessing the top of a container: see MO32 Schedule 2 section 8. Workers should remain in the cage and wear a harness. Note – this does not take away the requirement for the gangway to be in place at all times.

Additional rules for using man cages Schedule 3 of Marine Order 32 sets out many requirements if a crane is being used to lift a personnel cage.

A crane must not be used to lift a personnel cage unless it is fitted with: an effective ‘dead man’ control system that automatically stops crane operation in the event of the crane driver becoming

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www.mua.org.au

SAFETY

Assistant National Secretaries Warren Smith and Ian Bray are angry that two safety codes that had the potential to save lives have been tossed on the scrap heap

EMPLOYERS SAY PREVENTING INJURY & DEATH ‘TOO EXPENSIVE’

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incapacitated, otherwise a second driver must be stationed in or near the driving control cabin ready to take over the controls in an emergency; and motion-limiting devices, that automatically interrupt operating power and hold the crane and its load stationary in the event of failure of operating controls for hoisting, lowering, luffing or slewing; and a clearly identified emergency stop control, situated in a readily accessible position which, when activated, interrupts the operating power so that the hoisting, lowering, luffing and slewing machinery is held stationary.

Also, the crane must be demonstrated to be safe. Unless the crane has been in use for loading or unloading immediately prior to hoisting a personnel cradle, it is demonstrated to be safe for the purpose by hoisting a load at least equal to twice the designed gross operating mass of the cradle. Note: very few, if any, ship’s cranes will satisfy these rules.

See Marine Orders 32 and 21 for more information.

2 3 4

www.mua.org.au

he national safety regulator has shown it is at the behest of big business, after downgrading safety regulations that had the potential to save lives and prevent injury at work.

Safe Work Australia is moving a number of Codes of Practice - including stevedoring and diving - to guidance material, meaning employers will be under less scrutiny and therefore less compelled to provide a safe working environment.

The news comes after SWA gave in to the demands of multi-million dollar stevedoring and diving companies in a meeting with state regulators.

Maritime Union of Australia Assistant National Secretary Warren Smith said the union opposes the move and is calling on the SWA to reverse its decision.

“The regulator, driven by the antiworker Abbott Government’s agenda, does not operate best interests of the Australian community. Instead it is operating to increase the bottom line of greedy stevedoring companies, who would rather see people die than adopt safer working

“We don’t think it’s an outrageous demand that people go home in one piece and we will not be taking this latest decision lightly.”

- Warren Smith, MUA Assistant National Secretary

practices,” Smith said.

“If the draft code of practice had been adopted and adhered to at the Port of Melbourne, Anthony Attard would not have been killed that bleak day in May.” Anthony Attard was killed while loading a vessel at the port. “In fact all of the wharfies over the last decade would have gone home to their families had the employers had have taken the Code of Practice on board,” Smith said.

“Wharfies remain 14 times more likely to die on-the-job than the average Australian worker. But apparently this statistic doesn’t bother the management of stevedoring companies - Toll, Patrick, Qube and DP World - who have, one after another, lined up to put a knife into the Code.

“We don’t think it’s an outrageous demand that people go home in one piece and we will not be taking this latest decision lightly.”

MUA Assistant National Secretary Ian Bray said it was unbelievable that the regulators would consider softer regulation in the diving industry, in the wake of criminal charges being laid against Paspaley Pearling Company after Jarrod Hampton, 22, died on his second day at work two years ago.

“The current regulation doesn’t go far enough; even the Western Australia safety regulator identified this and now they’re doing a back-flip because vested interest groups have told them they can’t afford to clean up their act,” said Bray.

“Well I say that’s not acceptable. If you can’t afford to make sure your workers go home, you don’t deserve to be in business.”

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SAFETY

CHANGES TO OFFSHORE SUPPLY VESSEL REGULATION

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he Australian Maritime Safety Authority wants to change the safety regulation for offshore vessel to be based on company guideline in the North Sea, on a document called Guidelines for Offshore Marine Operations (GOMO).

And while the Maritime Union of Australia would normally welcome a safety code being implemented, the union identified a number of problems with the draft GOMO and outlined these issues in a submission to AMSA. Deputy National Secretary Mick Doleman said the union was never consulted on the code.

“The MUA has 4,500 members directly affected by GOMO but because these guidelines were developed by companies, they didn’t bother to consult the MUA, or any other union,” Doleman said.

“Arguably, the GOMO should have a lower status in Australia than other Australian safety Guides and Codes of Practice, as it has not been

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developed with the tri-partite consultations used in the drafting of other Australian Codes and Guidance.

“One of the major concerns is that GOMO would supersede, and be implemented independently to, current Australian health and safety laws.”

The union also said something that is used in one region, in this instance the North Sea, was not going to necessarily work in the Australian offshore.

“It is worrying that an Australian government agency such as AMSA is willing to wholly adopt safety guidelines developed in other jurisdictions, without the usual Australian consultation process, which in their draft form significantly omit and potentially undermine Australian law – particularly when Australian guidance developed under Australian law, in line with International Labor Organisation requirements, and developed with extensive industry consultation, is still in place,” Doleman said.

www.mua.org.au

SAFETY

MUA WELCOMES ACTION ON STENA CLYDE DEATHS

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wo years after two men were killed aboard Bass Strait drilling rig the Stena Clyde, the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) announced it had finished its investigations and the Victorian prosecutor would explore the case in the local courts.

MUA Deputy National Secretary Mick

Doleman has, in the past, expressed frustration about the speed at which the investigation had taken place.

“And while I’ll continue to reserve judgment, this is at least a step in the right direction,” Doleman said. “The case has been bungled since the very beginning, with unions being blocked from investigating the incident or being able to talk to workers.

Deputy National Secretary Mick Doleman hoped the prosecution would produce answers on the Stena Clyde disaster

“Earlier this year, I was in the UK and went and saw Deborah Glennie, sister of Barry Denholm who along with Peter Meddens died on the drill floor. I was unable to give her any good news.

“Hopefully the next time I see her, I’ll be able to deliver some information that will allow her and the rest of Barry’s family some closure.”

Court proceedings continue.

PASPALEY CRIMINAL CHARGES SHINE LIGHT ON ENTIRE INDUSTRY

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he Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) is calling for better regulation of the pearl diving industry after Paspaley Pearling Company was recently issued with criminal charges over the death of pearl diver Jarrod Hampton off the Kimberley coast of Western Australia in 2012.

WorkSafe charged Paspaley with failing to provide and maintain a safe working environment for its employees, following the death of Hampton, 22, on just his second day of work as a drift diver.

Paspaley Pearls now faces a maximum penalty of $200,000 in an industry that brings in more than $100 million a year for the family-owned company.

MUA Assistant National Secretary Ian Bray said it was still unclear why Paspaley and other pearl diving companies are allowed to self-regulate, when the rest of the commercial diving sector - deep sea offshore, scientific and onshore – has proper www.mua.org.au

set rules on work standards and safety.

“All members of the MUA again pass on our heart-felt condolences to the Hampton family, who have been waiting several years for the outcome of this investigation,” Bray said.

“The WorkSafe investigation again highlights the lack of regulation in the pearl diving industry, and we don’t understand why the company has been able to get away with this for so long.

“Jarrod Hampton’s death could have been avoided with appropriate training mechanisms set down by regulation; but the pearling industry has no rules attached, because they are allowed to self-regulate.

“Quite clearly self-regulation does not work. There have been other deaths and plenty of instances of injury caused by poor safety standards and work practices.

“It is part of the cowboy culture of pearl diving – one which the company appears to embrace.

Jarrod Hampton was only 22 when he was killed working for Paspaley

“There needs to be an inquiry into why the pearling industry has been allowed to self-regulate, and the government and its agencies should bring them into line with everyone else.

“The MUA also questions why this investigation has taken so long, particularly as other young, inexperienced pearl divers were potentially being put at risk in the meantime.”

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RALLY

MUA members and supporters at the Occupy Toll rally

NO MORE DEATH TOLL

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anagement at Toll did not know what hit them when 150 emotional MUA members occupied their Sydney offices at Homebush in June.

Led by Assistant National Secretary Warren Smith, slogans such as "No more death Toll", "no more deaths on the waterfront", "safety must be law, you're killing us no more" and "safety before profit" were relayed over loudspeaker throughout the company's building.

Members made the trip to Toll's offices to protest at the company's role in trying to block the National Stevedoring Code

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of Practice just one week after a member Anthony Attard, on the Toll site in Melbourne, was tragically killed at work.

None of the staff at Toll seemed to know about Anthony's death. They acted put-out at being mildly inconvenienced at their workplace. Somewhat ironically, a lot of the company propaganda scattered around the offices showed the company spruiking its safety policy.

As expected, management representatives would not face the protesters and hid in their offices, escaping confrontation through the back door and

calling the police to disperse the crowd.

A fortnight later the MUA met with Toll management to address both their behavioural approach to safety and some of the callous comments individual Toll management representatives made in relation into Anthony’s death.

The meeting was at times fairly robust and covered considerable ground. It was clear from the outset there was a fundamental philosophical difference between Toll and the MUA around safety, although some headway was reached on changing some of their safety practices. www.mua.org.au

PARTNERSHIP

BIG HART FORMS FIRM FRIENDSHIP WITH MUA The Blue Angel project is exploring stories of the sea and joining the global push for fair shipping.

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ward winning arts and social justice company Big hART has launched the Blue Angel project, bringing stories of the sea and the waterside to everyday Australians and the rest of the world.

It is a quest to celebrate and acknowledge the incredible men and women of the Maritime industry both past and present, from foreign shores and our very own. These are stories of ordinary people whose lives are some of the most extraordinary - filled with tales of adventure, solidarity, danger, love, loneliness, laughter, sex, death and the urgency of contemporary experiences of exploitation.

Every night there is a city of workers

afloat on our oceans, delivering consumer goods along a liquid highway to our doors.

Yet most people know nothing of them, their epic stories almost unknown. Blue Angel tells these stories.

Big hART’s Blue Angel project will work with young and old to weave these important experiences into a groundbreaking theatre work BLUE ANGEL, touring nationally and internationally from 2015.

Just as the seafarers' spirit is 'internationalist', so too is the voyage of the Blue Angel project - a significant international work, created in partnership with seafarers from key port cities around the globe. Blue Angel brings these international stories under one narrative

flag to show the similarities of the human experience wherever the liquid highway takes us.

Blue Angel is always looking to engage with workers of the sea. We are particularly keen to find those who will share their stories as female seafarers, international seafarers, and wives and families.

We are always searching out ephemera and for those with skills in marine crafts or creative hobbies.

For more information on the project, or to share your story and skills with us contact: Creative Producer Cecily Hardy Ph: +61 (0)457 150 931 Email: cecily@bighart.org

“Out in the blue, without your mates, y’ dead” Joe Miller, Retired Australian seafarer, 101 years old.

www.mua.org.au

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CONFERENCE

SAFETY MUST BE MANDATORY, SAFETY MUST BE LAW The mood at this year’s Bulk & General Conference was understandably sober, with members from around the country convening in Sydney, just one month after the death of Melbourne delegate Anthony Attard.

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he Bulk & General Conference took place over two days at the NSW Teachers’ Federation, with attendees represented from most B&G ports around the country.

When Anthony Attard’s comrade and colleague Warren Nugent took the microphone and delivered his heart wrenching account of the tragic day, silence descended upon the conference room.

But instead of succumbing to his visible grief, Warren stayed unbelievably strong, offering advice and ideas for the union going forward in an effort to ensure others do not have to go through something similar in the future.

Warren admitted being angry at the company, particularly for the callous way with which it dealt with Anthony’s death; but he also insisted the fault lay with everyone, and not just the company.

He said every time a worker succumbed to greed driven by the employer, they cut a corner; until eventually the corner inevitably became a bend and until that bend was eroded to become “a straight line to a death”.

The onus was on workers, he said, not to cut corners, not to turn the other way and to make sure the workplace was safe.

National Secretary Paddy Crumlin opened the conference saying one of the major hurdles to overcome to deliver safety on the job is to have consistency throughout all ports - which, because of different state regulators, was not occurring.

“We have to challenge the regulators,” Crumlin said. “At the moment we’re caught up in the jurisprudence of government.”

One of the ways Crumlin suggested this could be done was to lobby the Labor Party to ensure the next time it formed government, forming safety policy would be a party priority.

(Left) National Safety and Education Officer Matt Goodwin answers a question from the floor (Right) Assistant National Secretary Warren Smith delivers his speech

MUA Member Warren Nugent speaking about his colleague and mate Anthony Attard

34 www.mua.org.au

CONFERENCE However he was clear that the rank-and-file, as the most important part of the union, had to take the lead in safety campaigning and changing the status quo.

“We need to set the emotion aside.

We are the arbiters of our outcomes,” Crumlin emphasised.

“It’s harder for unions than ever before.

In this country we’re at a low policy ebb, with a range of blatantly anti-worker policies rolling out of Canberra designed to fragment industrial consensus and functionality in the workplace, with scant regard for the human cost.

“Safety on the waterfront is one area of new policy vandalism. The timing is particularly poignant and tragic given the recent death of Anthony Attard on the Melbourne wharves.

“Stick to your union. If you stick to your union, we will get better safety practices because it is proper, logical and is the real key to long term productivity.”

Crumlin said employers had a special responsibility to continue to work with the union to form a cohesive national safety standard in this critically dangerous industry and not be distracted by the short-term political or industrial opportunism presented to them by the current Federal Government.

After a handful of questions from the floor, Assistant National Secretary Warren Smith took the podium.

Smith issued a warning, saying workers had to be ready for an attack from the companies, backed by the aggressive, neo-conservative government “We’ve seen work intensification,” he said. “On top of that we’re doing it with less labour. So the job is sped up, with less people.

“They’re coming at us. So we now have to develop the plan going forward and how we’re going to stop that.

“It’s this conference that’s going to set the agenda, consisting of your ideas, from your stories on the job. Your losses on the job.”

Smith reiterated the fact that wharfies were 14 times more likely to die on-thejob than an average Australian worker and there were no signs that this statistic was decreasing in the wake of Anthony Attard’s death.

“We need to be heard,” Smith said.

“We need to mobilise in the community, on the front doors and in the lobbies of the people that don’t care about the lives of the workers, the lives of our families.

“Safety needs to mandatory and safety needs to be law.” www.mua.org.au

All of the delegates outside the Teachers’ Federation

Addressing safety collectively

A working group prepares solutions to safety issues

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CONFERENCE

STRUGGLES & CHALLENGES DISCUSSED AT TUGBOAT CONFERENCE

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ore than 35 tugboat workers from around the country made the trek to the MUA’s specialised training facility at St Georges Basin to kick-off the 2014 Towage Conference.

Joining the Australian contingent was a special guest from Seattle : America’s Inland Boatmen’s Union President Alan Cote.

Cote gave delegates a more international perspective on the issues the towage sector faces in North America.

It was clear that workers in the USA towage industry face similar struggles to tugboat workers in Australia, he said.

Assistant National Secretary Ian Bray led proceedings and discussion on the current status of the industry in an Australian context.

“Towage is such a complex industry, in that its long term viability and growth is dependent on a number of external factors,” Bray said.

“Competition is one example. For instance Newcastle had utilised one operator for a long time and then a second company – PB Towage – entered the market.

“The amount of work stayed the same, but where we had one group of members to organise, now we have two, which creates a

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different set of challenges and opportunities.”

Another concern, he said, was regenerating activism and organising, particularly on threemen tugs.

As part of the conference a mapping exercise was undertaken.

Bray identified the issue of non-union operators working out of some ports.

“Do we engage, and how do we engage?” he asked. “For example, NT Maritime just showed up one day and Rio Tinto used it.”

He also identified some of the strengths of towage, particularly the industrial leverage they carry.

Sydney Branch Assistant Secretary Paul Garrett provided an in-depth analysis regarding the skills enhancement for towage rating.

Garrett said there were a lot of ‘grey areas’ for qualifications for deckhands on tug boats and noted there needed to be a more consistent approach.

“We see the dredging qualification the same as the towage qualifications,” he said.

“It’s up to us to do the work to push for the qualification and make it a uniform requirement across the industry.”

www.mua.org.au

CONFERENCE

Tugboat delegates took part in a fourday conference

www.mua.org.au

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CAMPAIGN

Organiser Daniel Falcone with some of the rank-and-file port authority workers

EBA AT ESPERANCE AFTER YEAR OF NEGOTIATIONS

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fter 12 months of challenging negotiations, the MUA was able to complete negotiations for an Enterprise Agreement for workers at the Port of Esperance.

The port has historically proven difficult to negotiate with, and the organisers on the ground who spearheaded the campaign, Jeff Cassar and Daniel Falcone, were under no illusions that this campaign would be no exception.

In Western Australia, all regional ports are sitting ‘in limbo’ - with uncertainties around the Liberal-led State Government’s slated mergers.

The already volatile circumstances were exacerbated by a notoriously anti-union port chief executive, who was not prepared to give an inch.

After only a few meetings, the port’s bargaining agent elected to circumvent the MUA and go straight to a vote - on a ridiculously unworkable document containing a miserly 2.5% initial wage increase, despite the fact the port has tripled in productivity and profits throughout the last few years.

WA Organiser Jeff Cassar said the members didn’t rush to embrace this offer.

At this point, the MUA could have taken legal action to challenge the port’s

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belligerent approach, but instead chose to let the members’ vote speak for itself. The Port’s offer was overwhelmingly rejected and genuine negotiations commenced for the first time.

“At the conclusion of a negotiating campaign that rode like a roller coaster (and included a Protected Action Ballot), the members have walked away with 4.25% per year, full back-payment, improved clauses relating to transmission of business,

would not exceed 2.5%, plus a legal challenge mid-negotiation related to our union’s coverage and then add to the mix the fact that lawyers and professional bargaining consultants advocated on behalf of the employer at every single meeting, it is a truly remarkable achievement.

“It is an absolute credit to Daniel Falcone who represented the membership, as well as the outstanding efforts of the rank-and-file themselves who remained solid throughout,

“It is an absolute credit to Daniel Falcone who represented the membership, as well as the outstanding efforts of the rank-and-file themselves who remained solid throughout, and in the end succeeded in achieving a fantastic result. ” - Jeff Cassar, WA Organiser consultation about change and dispute resolution, as well as the insertion of a delegate’s charter,” Cassar said.

“When you take into account that all this was achieved in the context of a State Government wage freeze, as well as amidst public guarantees by the CEO in the mainstream media that wage increases

and in the end succeeded in achieving a fantastic result without actually having to engage in any protected action at all.

“They could have buckled under the weight of everything the employer threw at them. But instead they persevered, and they’ll take home the biscuits as a result of their determination.” www.mua.org.au

CAMPAIGN

FLAG OF CONVENIENCE SHIP BANNED FROM AUST PORTS

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n August the Australian Maritime Safety Authority decided to ban the containership Vega Auriga from Australian ports for three months, for repeated breaches of seafarer welfare and ship maintenance.

The unprecedented move was welcomed by the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) and the Maritime Union.

The Liberian flagged Vega Auriga was a serial offender when it came to safety and seafarer welfare and had been detained at Australian ports three times since July last year, according to AMSA. ITF President and MUA National Secretary Paddy Crumlin said he hoped the move was an indication of how new AMSA chief executive Mick Kinley intended to lead the safety regulator.

“This is the first time the full force of the Maritime Labour Convention has been used in Australia and AMSA should be congratulated for taking this stand to protect the welfare of seafarers and for setting a good example for other countries to follow,” Crumlin said.

“AMSA has been very focused on implementation of the MLC and has worked with the entire maritime community in Australia - including the ITF and unions to ensure seafarers’ safety and wellbeing under the new convention.

“I think the Australian public would

be shocked to see the conditions many international seafarers are forced to endure.

“ITF inspectors have seen environments aboard these flag-of-convenience ships, which are freely plying the Australian international shipping trade, that are not fit for human habitation.

“Some international crews have had to live only off the fish they have caught themselves, while working 12-hour days, seven-days-a-week for months, sometimes years on end, away from their families for an unbelievably meagre wage.

“These are the kind of conditions we will see more frequently, if the Abbott Government is able to deregulate the coastal shipping trade.”

The Abbott Government has signaled its intention to unravel Cabotage and the Navigation Act 2012, which would allow FOC ships - vessels registered in countries with substandard rules and conditions for seafarers – where workers can be paid less than $2-per-hour.

ITF Australia coordinator Dean Summers said AMSA is to be congratulated for its stand against Vega ships.

“The ITF have been battling Vega around the world in trying to get crew’s wages paid on time,” Summers said.

“It is unfortunate that in 2014 crews are still being starved, underpaid and exploited. But

The Vega Auriga

if ship owners are allowed to register their ships wherever they want to save a couple of dollars, they are always going to be allowed to get away with this sort of behaviour.”

He said the third party operator Mediterranean Shipping Company, which is one of the world’s biggest shipping companies - needed to vet its chartered fleet more carefully to protect its name.

“The ITF had repeatedly warned MSC of these and other breaches. But the European-based fleet operator had refused to accept its responsibilities,” Summers added.

After being banned in Australia, the Vega sailed for New Zealand where it remained for at least three months.

Summers said should the Auriga return to Australia without having its problems fixed, he would urge AMSA to ban the ship from Australian ports indefinitely.

ITF Australia Coordinator Dean Summers

www.mua.org.au

39

NEGOTIATIONS

Members at the Town Hall meeting

RINGING ENDORSEMENT OF NEW SYDNEY FERRIES EBA

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embers from Sydney ferries turned out at Sydney Town Hall to overwhelmingly endorse their new Enterprise Bargaining Agreement with private contractor Harbour City Ferries, with 97% of the 245 attendees voting in favour.

The agreement comes after nearly a year of negotiations with the company, which were often hostile and saw industrial action in May and June. Among other outcomes, the union has secured a further two years of ‘no forced redundancies’ and seen modest increases to wages, while ensuring every worker continues to have both a job, as well as a career path, despite the changing transport environment.

One of the most significant achievements is the introduction of new consultative clauses, which commits the management to meaningfully engage with the union and its delegates regarding not only changes to the business, but the general running of the business. The EBA also introduced oral saliva swab testing for random drug testing.

Another significant win was the introduction of new domestic violence leave, which gives access to paid special leave for those who have suffered from domestic violence and need time away from the workplace.

Assistant Sydney Branch Secretary Paul Garrett said the members should be congratulated for remaining staunch

throughout the negotiating process.

“It’s not easy for delegates who have to face the very people who hold the key to their employment, while they demand better wages and conditions,” Garrett said.

“Fortunately the MUA delegates on the ferries are a strong bunch and they managed

to retain their composure throughout the process. This is the first operational EBA since privatisation and despite the aggressive slashand-burn approach that management originally had towards ferry workers’ wages and conditions, there has been no diminishment to those entitlements.”

Sydney Branch Assistant Secretary Paul Garrett at the podium

40 www.mua.org.au

www.mua.org.au

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CAMPAIGN

FIVE-DAY STRIKE IN SUPPORT OF MERMAID AGREEMENT Members at the Mermaid Marine Supply base in the Pilbara in north Western Australia remained staunch as they undertook Protected Industrial Action at Dampier in October. Organiser Kyle Mcginn was on the frontlines.

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fter almost a year of negotiations, the MUA was left with no option but to undertake protected industrial action at the Mermaid Marine Supply base.

Members at the Pilbara site entered into this agreement with the aim of locking away good conditions and job security, while the employer’s agenda was to strip away most of the conditions that were achieved in the last agreement.

Kyle Mcginn said workers at the supply base were operating under a ‘Hogan’s Heroes regime’, which only helped reinforce to them how important it was to achieve a good EA outcome.

“Following an impasse with the employer, which meant we could not progress any further with our claims, members voted unanimously for five days of Protected Action – 24 hour rolling stoppages - proving to the company that we meant business.”

Mcginn said.

“From the moment we set up the picket line on the first morning, it was evident that I was surrounded by staunch, passionate and

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working class people who were prepared to struggle shoulder-to-shoulder for the full five days.

“We were constantly on our feet, facing trucks attempting to cross the line.

“We had consistent numbers manning the line the entire five days. Members from all over the Pilbara came down to the picket, reinforcing the line in the Pilbara heat.”

Workers from Mermaid were joined by members from Qube and Patrick and various seafarers.

“The company flew in a number of rent-a-cop security guards, who attempted to intimidate, abuse and stand-over members,” - Kyle McGinn

“The company flew in a number of renta-cop security guards, who attempted to intimidate, abuse and stand-over members,” Mcginn said. “These goons were people with no respect for the struggle that was taking place.

“They had a decent crack at trying to intimidate workers on the picket line, as they escorted scab trucks through the line on more than one occasion. However, nothing the company threw at the members was enough to break them.

“On countless occasions we had to think on our feet and split up into multiple pickets, which ranged from just down the road to the other side of Karratha,” Mcginn said.

By day five, the company contacted the MUA to arrange a meeting to discuss progressing the EA in order to reach an outcome.

“The members proved that, in order to gain good and fair agreements, you have to struggle. The company does not just hand it to you on a platter,” Mcginn said. www.mua.org.au

CAMPAIGN

TUG OF WAR The campaign for a new Enterprise Bargaining Agreement on the tugs in Port Hedland has to go down as one that attracted more misinformed and unwarranted interference than any EBA in recent times. WA Branch Assistant Secretary Will Tracey reports.

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here to start? Firstly there was the over-inflated, misinformed ramblings from Nev Power of Fortescue Metals Group, who indicated that a 24-hour stoppage by tug workers in Port Hedland would result in the standing down of 10,000 workers and closure of mine sites in the Pilbara.

This is despite the fact that cyclones regularly shut down the port for well in excess of 24 hours and yet no job losses and no mine closures occur. Despite this, Power’s sabre rattling was reported widely as fact in the media.

We then had BHP echoing this sentiment and hinting that they too would see widespread worker stand-downs if industrial action went ahead. Despite the absence of any action from Port Hedland tug workers, BHP shortly thereafter then went on to announce massive redundancies across its Pilbara operations in any case.

The WA State Liberal Government joined the hysteria, stating that tug workers in Port Headland were holding the entire Australian economy to ransom, which was further amplified by various ministers of the Abbott Federal Government.

At one stage it appeared as though industrial action, in the form of a short stoppage by tug workers in Port Hedland,

www.mua.org.au

would grind the economy to a halt - bringing on the second great financial crisis. There was absolutely no basis or truth in any of the hysterics; but all of it was dutifully regurgitated by the right-wing reporters for Murdoch and the like.

The next reaction was breathtaking.

For the first time in recent memory, we saw a Federal Government change the current federal workplace legislation to intervene directly in an industrial dispute.

Unprecedented, and all designed to try and hamper the already restrictive democratic industrial rights of workers to campaign in favour of better working conditions against an employer who refused to negotiate in good faith.

Despite all this Teekay workers regrouped, reset their industrial strategy and continued to pursue a fair outcome with discipline and vigour.

The outcome: Teekay workers have become the first towage workers in Australia to get a month’s leave on top of their eventime roster. Through a disciplined industrial campaign and a principled decision to forgo an initial pay increase in favour of increased leave entitlements, they set a new standard for towage workers across the country.

Meetings in Port Hedland and Fremantle (for those on leave) unanimously endorsed

the EBA outcome and acknowledged the significance of it, given the adverse circumstances we encountered during the bargaining campaign.

What this campaign has shown is that employers and their representatives will campaign actively to undermine workers in pursuit of decent outcomes in EBA campaigns.

The anti-union Liberal WA State and Federal Governments will routinely support their mates, including changing laws on the run, while at the same time ignoring the wishes of the broader population where real action should be taken, such as in cleaning up the financial planning industry.

What cannot be ignored though, is that with a well thought out and thorough industrial strategy, factored in with discipline on the ground, workers can win against these challenging odds.

The MUA members in Port Hedland, and the Australian Maritime Officers Union members and officials who supported the campaign in unity, deserve to be congratulated for the win, especially when you consider it was against one of the biggest resource companies in the world and their vocal cheer squad in the right wing media and Government.

United we stand!

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CAMPAIGN

LNG JOBS FOR GLADSTONE? A community-driven campaign is well underway in the regional Queensland town of Gladstone to ensure the LNG tankers shipping gas from the end of this year will be crewed by Australian seafarers.

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ladstone will soon face an unemployment crisis when the construction phase of Curtis Island LNG production facilities dies down. Some statistics show that 4,000 local people will be out of a job in the central Queensland town that only boasts a population just over 30,000.

Preliminary research shows there is potential for 800 of those jobs to be offset by allowing local engineers, officers and ratings to crew the ships that will ply the trade between Gladstone and the gas markets in Asia.

Unsurprisingly this argument resonates with the local community and, as a result, the MUA has joined a Community Action Group, along with representatives from small business, the tourism industry, the local council, state and federal politicians and the local Aboriginal people, the Goreng Goreng.

The union has committed resources in terms of communications, research and organising to the campaign and man-on-theground, Queensland Branch organiser Jason Miners, has been driving the union’s agenda from the very beginning.

Miners said it was an easy task convincing the people of Gladstone to get on board.

“People are well aware that the bubble which has boosted house prices and boosted business is about to burst,” he said. “Securing shipping jobs will provide employment for more than 800 people for the long-term.

“But not only that. People in the town are excited about having Gladstone become a shipping hub, a one-stop-shipping-shop. On top of the 800 jobs directly employed, there’s a hope in the community that other ancillary businesses will pop-up in forwarding, in brokerage, in manning agencies, in chandlery. The opportunities are limitless.

“However, it’s not going to be an easy task. The shipping companies still need to be convinced that the benefits of utilising local labour outweigh the extra expense of Australian wages. And we think leveraging a diverse range of support is the best way to do this.”

Queensland Branch Secretary Mick Carr said he saw lots of potential in mitigating youth unemployment in the State.

“Queensland contains some of the worst youth unemployment rates in Australia,” Carr said. “Any chance to secure long-term jobs like those in shipping LNG should be a no-brainer.”

In October the MUA’s film unit made the trek to Gladstone to film a television advertisement that will air in the town shortly.

This advertisement complements a whole host of communication and research material compiled by the union.

Assistant National Secretary Warren Smith said that, should the Gladstone campaign be successful, the blueprint could used to extend into other gas-rich regions - such as Darwin, the Pilbara and even into the region

with similar gas booms taking place in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.

“This is a different way of doing things.

We have looked at the smaller picture and thought about how to do things on a local level and engaging the local community,” Smith said. “But it is all a part of the big picture: jobs, jobs, jobs.

“Without jobs, there is no MUA. We need to get more creative about retaining and creating maritime jobs; otherwise we won’t weather the future.”

On site at the railway for the soon-to-be aired advertisement

Jobs for Gladstone

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MUA Film Unit director Jamie McMechan with Gladstone Organiser Jason Miners filming member Phil Hansen, who became a farmer for a day

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CAMPAIGN

Assistant National Secretary Warren Smith talks about DP World strife at National Council

DP WORLD NEGOTIATIONS

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he United Arab Emirates-based stevedore DP World refuses to concede on the union’s main claims.

Morale has hit an all time low at the sites in Fremantle, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney as negotiations grind on and are marked by an unimpressive response time from DP World in dealing with the claims, process and responses to various union offers.

One only needs to look at what the customers have said publicly about automation at the Port of Brisbane to garner an understanding of the absolute disarray DP World is in.

Assistant National Secretary Warren Smith explained: “Getting an agreement with DP World was always going to be a hard task and negotiations have been nothing less than dramatic in a campaign marked with lockouts, unfair dismissal cases, protected action, redundancies and automation.

“Our campaign continues until we can get an agreement that is acceptable to take back to the members for endorsement. Our members deserve better than what is on offer from DP World and we will keep struggling for a better outcome.”

Back in July, without warning, DP World responded to a four-hour protected action strike by threatening to lock out its Fremantle workers indefinitely. An eleventh hour intervention at the highest level, involving National Secretary Paddy Crumlin and CEO of DP World Paul Scurrah, averted the lock out from happening.

The agreement is being undertaken in a period of significant change and there are many key issues to deal with.

Automation is the main issue thas the www.mua.org.au

potential to undermine job security if not handled correctly between the parties.

Rectifying the transfer of jobs to management in the Brisbane automation process is another key issue which must be fixed.

Smith said the madness of arbitrary change in the workplace by the employer was a big issue for workers, and the MUA was demanding appropriate consultation provisions to prevent wholesale, unnecessary and arbitrary changes by the employer.

The resolve of the wharfies to fix the DP World agreement was indicated by the fact all sites voted to take strike action.

“Workers in every terminal overwhelmingly voted to undertake action,” Smith said. “More than 90 per cent of workers voted in favour of work stoppages.”

All DP World sites have taken protected action in the campaign to secure a better workplace and a better industrial environment to work. Negotiations are ongoing.

Above: The morning shift at Port Botany on the day of action.

Below: Site meeting in the carpark at Fisherman Island on the Brisbane day of action

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HISTORY

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ‘BIG JIM’ HEALY Sydney Assistant Branch Secretary Joe Deakin revisits the past with this look back on the life of Waterside Workers’ Federation icon Jim Healy.

N

ow it’s true that we all proudly lay claim to ‘Big Jim’ being homegrown. But the fact is he was born in West Gorton in Manchester in England on 22 March 22 1898.

Jim Healy was the son of Dominic Healy, a labourer and strong Irish republican who had a massive influence on his son. Big Jim’s mother was Mary Ellen Healy (formerly Mary Schaill); she was educated at the parish school of St Francis of Assisi in the town of Gorton. After Mary completed school, she worked in a cotton mill.

Jim Healy was heavily influenced by his republican father - so much so that, at the tender age of eight years, he assisted the electoral canvassers for the local Labour Party. Throughout his teen years, Jim Healy developed a thinking that can only be described as ‘class-conscious’.

In 1915 he enlisted in the army, joining the Eighth Battalion, Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders. In 1918 Jim was wounded in action on the Western Front during the final year of World War One and was discharged from the army as medically unfit. After his discharge, he found it hard to secure a job locally in England; this forced him to seek work in Scotland.

His initial employment was as a platelayer with the tramways. At this time Jim met Elizabeth McGowan, a wool weaver. On 19 July 1919 Jim Healy and Elizabeth McGowan were married at St Cuthbert’s Catholic Church in Edinburgh.

In 1925 Elizabeth and Jim Healy immigrated to north Queensland with their three young sons John, Jim junior and Vince; daughter Patricia was subsequently born in Australia.

Big Jim found work in various jobs in the local area of Mackay, first as a fireman and a boilermaker at the Mackay power station.

In 1927 Jim Healy got a start on the wharves in Mackay and in 1928 he was elected to the local committee of management of the WWF. As well, he was elected WWF delegate to the Mackay branch of the Australian Labor Party. This humble beginning for Jim Healy was the launching pad for one of the greatest chapters in trade union history in this country; unbeknown to his fellow workers on the Mackay waterfront, a leader of outstanding qualities was about to be realised. The

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The portrait of the Big Man himself watches over National Council proceedings in the boardroom of National Office

following year Big Jim was appointed to the Trades and Labour Council at Mackay, and shortly after he began his first term as president of the WWF Mackay branch.

Jim Healy became more and more disillusioned with the Australian Labor Party, especially the Queensland Labor government’s inability to deal with the terrible

plight of the swelling numbers of unemployed workers suffering from capitalism’s so called ‘Great Depression’.

In 1934 Big Jim solidified his thinking, after going on a Union sponsored trip to the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). On his return, he and Ben Scott (a fellow traveller to the USSR) wrote a pamphlet called Red www.mua.org.au

HISTORY Cargo. It wasn’t too long after this that Jim Healy joined the Communist Party of Australia, where he remained staunch and loyal for the rest of his life.

Throughout the 1930s working conditions and wages for waterside workers were very poor. This was not helped by having rival unions on the Australian waterfront - the WWF and the Permanent and Casual Wharf Labourers Union of Australia (PCWLU) - plus an influx of non-union labour during the Depression didn’t help. Big Jim realised this divide was hurting the WWF and its members, proclaiming that something had to be done on a national level.

In early 1936 Jim Healy moved to Sydney where he immediately made an impact. In 1937 at the ‘All-Ports Conference’ he was elected General Secretary of the Waterside Workers Federation of Australia - quite a remarkable transition from a casual wharf labourer on the Mackay waterfront 10 years prior. In 1939 Healy moved the location of the National Office from Melbourne to Sydney; this enabled him to work more closely with the Sydney branch.

With the WWF having next to no money and few assets, Jim Healy slowly but surely started to put things in place for the union and its members. At the 1937 ‘All-Ports Conference’ he sought endorsement from the floor for a national union policy implementation program and for the introduction of a national union paper The Maritime Worker. Healy’s proposals were carried unanimously. With a national journal in circulation, supported by all branches, the union was able to communicate with the members more effectively, something the PCWLU was unable to do.

In the late 1930s and 1940, the Sydney branch of the WWF under Jim Healy’s Federal leadership organised public campaigns to support the Sydney wharfies’ principled stand to ban sending scrap metal to Japan, as well as supporting Port Kembla wharfies refusing to load pig iron on the vessel Dalfram - knowing that Imperial Japan was going to propel it back at us through the barrel of a gun. Disgracefully the Menzies conservative government was quite happy to allow the scrap metal and pig iron to be sent to Japan, with the full knowledge of the horrendous atrocities being committed against the Chinese people in Nanking. (Hence Bob Menzies earned his is infamous nickname ‘Pig Iron Bob’.)

As a member of the Stevedoring Industry Commission (1942-1949) Jim Healy was able to secure substantial pay rises for members - especially through the war years - in return encouraging members to support the war effort by maximising output. But the biggest achievement by far throughout this period was www.mua.org.au

the elimination of the brutal and inhumane ‘bull system’. Under Healy’s great leadership, supported by the branches around the coast, this terrible exploitation of labour was finally put to rest, replaced by a decent and fairer pickup system where men didn’t have to bow and scrap to the bosses for shifts.

Jim Healy once again showed his commitment to international solidarity by leading, along with EV Elliott, a movement to boycott Dutch ships trading to Indonesia from Australian ports in the period 19451949. The two leaders were tremendously effective in their support for Indonesian independence against the Dutch colonialists via bans on Dutch vessels carrying cargoes suspected of being used against the Independence movement.

In 1946 yet another milestone was achieved under Big Jim’s leadership: the absorption of the aforementioned PCWLU into the WWF. For so many years this reactionary anti-Union, anti-Communist

Jim Healy’s leadership is part and parcel of the very make up of this wonderful organisation we know as the Maritime Union of Australia. organisation had been a stumbling block to the advancement of the Federation; but by 1954-55 all Waterside Workers were covered by one single union, the WWF. In 1949 at the height of the big coal strike by the Miners Federation of Australia, Jim Healy was charged with contempt of court and sentenced to 12 months gaol for refusing to reveal the location of money withdrawn from the bank to assist the striking miners.

Big Jim was released five weeks into his sentence after a back down by his accusers.

Throughout this very uneasy time, the Cold War was at its height and the industrial groups (‘groupers’) on the waterfront were working feverously to destabilise the communist leadership of Healy and co, aided and abetted by the reactionary Menzies Federal Government. In 1950-51 Menzies moved legislation to have the Communist Party of Australia banned; again under Jim Healy’s leadership, with EV Elliott of the Seaman’s Union of Australia, the Miners Federation, the Iron Workers and many more progressive unions, the legislation was defeated at a referendum.

Menzies’ attack on the WWF, and Healy in particular, was relentless. He introduced to Federal Parliament the Stevedoring Industry Act in 1954; this established a committee of inquiry into the stevedoring industry aimed

at taking away any say the union might have in the distribution of labour. As a result of this attack by Menzies, the WWF walked off the job in protest and was fully supported by the ACTU. Big Jim appeared before a committee of inquiry, producing evidence that showed high stevedoring charges stemmed not from excessive labour costs, but rather through collusion between shipping companies to keep rates as high as possible.

But Menzies pressed on regardless, yet again introducing new legislation in 1956 in an attempt to weaken the WWF’s bargaining position. In 1957 Jim Healy was appointed to the ACTU executive representing transport unions, highlighting the great respect people had for the man’s ability.

Jim Healy’s leadership is part and parcel of the very make up of this wonderful organisation we know as the Maritime Union of Australia. He along with EV Elliott set the scene with a collaborated effort to better the lives of maritime workers in this country, as well as being heavily involved in the promotion of workers’ interests worldwide.

Jim Healy was an outstanding trade union leader. But above all else he was a communist of the highest calibre; he was respected by his enemies and sort after by trade union leaders the world over, because he held the Marxist-Leninist line throughout his political life.

Big Jim’s son Johnny Healy was a wharfie and a Sydney branch official of the WWF, Jimmy junior was a Sydney wharfie as well, and Vince went to sea as an AB. Patricia had no connection with the union, but was a staunch supporter. The only member of the Healy family still connected with the maritime union is Rex, Jimmy Healy junior’s son. All of Big Jim’s kids are no longer with us, so it’s nice to see that the militant Healy tradition carries on with Rex being a prominent seafarer delegate in the Maritime Union.

Jim Healy died on 13 July 1961 in Sydney’s St Vincent’s Hospital aged 63, closing a chapter in the remarkable life of a wonderful fighter for his union and his class. From being elected in 1937 as General Secretary of the WWF, right up until his untimely death in 1961, Jim Healy in a mere 24 years as leader transformed the Australian waterfront into a place where waterside workers enjoyed dignity, a decent standard of living, but above all else the will to fight for what’s right, which carries on to this very day.

Big Jim was taken away from us at far too young an age. But he will be forever remembered for being the man who cowrote the script - along with EV Elliott - for the MUA to follow. Members of the Maritime Union of Australia need to recognise the wonderful achievements of the man they called ‘Big Jim’ Healy.

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WOMEN

MUA WOMEN AWARDED FOR EXCELLENCE Two MUA women have won awards highlighting their strength and commitment to our union and industry.

EMMA MILLER AWARD Seafarer Ann Grey won the Emma Miller Award at the Queensland Council of Unions (QCU) awards night. Every year, Queensland Council of Unions pays homage to one of the most influential female figures in the Queensland labour movement.

Ann is on the QCU Women’s Council and the MUA National Women’s Committee and dedicates her leave time to organising meetings and events to support women in our industry.

She was guest speaker at Iron Boat Day in Newcastle this year, where she told of life at sea as a woman and encouraged others to join her in the industry.

Queensland Branch Secretary Mick Carr described Ann as “a thoughtful, persistent and rock solid MUA member”.

He went on to say: “Her commitment to the betterment of the collective is on display every day. She is a valued member of this Union and we are proud to have her.”

National Women’s Liaison Officer MichElle Myers added: “Ann is a champion for the women in our industry. She is intelligent, hardworking and kind. She is always ready to jump in and do something for our union”

The National Women’s Committee congratulated Ann on this wonderful achievement.

TRAINEE OF THE YEAR: WOMAN IN NONTRADITIONAL TRADE On the same night in Sydney, METL Trainee and MUA Member Kerryn McInnes won the award for Trainee of the Year for Woman in Non-Traditional Trade.

The prestigious NSW/ACT Group Training Awards were held on Friday 17 October 17 at the Shangri-La Hotel in Sydney.

The annual event celebrates excellence in apprenticeships, traineeships, group training and employment and is attended by dozens of trainees and apprentices, along with their host employers, GTOs, friends, families and partners.

Kerryn was up against trainees from Electrotechnology, Horticulture and Timber Merchandising and came out as the eventual winner of Woman in NonTraditional Trade.

Kerryn spent her on-the-job training with host employer ASP Ship Management on bulk carriers transporting iron ore between Gladstone and Weipa, as well as on the TT-Line Spirit

on Tasmania roll-on/roll-off vessels.

“This is amazing. I worked really hard, and it can be tough for a woman out there.

I think these awards are a great occasion - it’s really nice to get the recognition.”

Kerryn said of the award.

Simon Earle, CEO of METL, said: “This is a massive achievement and we are very proud of Kerryn. She is a great example for all women in the industry and will be a great asset to any employer.”

Kerryn McInnes upon winning her award

Ann Gray with picks up here award at the QCU awards night

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WOMEN

MUA members Ronella Silberry, Joy Reed, Natalie MacKenzie and Mich-Elle Myers with guest speaker Tracey Spicer

GENDER PAY GAP INCREASE REINFORCES NEED TO FIGHT

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omen, feminists and supporters turned out in droves for the inaugural Unions NSW Equal Pay dinner at Cockle Bay in Sydney to highlight the fact that the gap between men and women’s pay has actually increased.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the pay gap between what men and women earn over their lifetimes is 18.2 per cent, which is a 20-year high.

Five MUA women – National Women’s Liason Officer Mich-Elle Myers, Communications Officer Ashleigh Telford, DP World wharfie Ronella Silbery, Sydney Ferry workers Natalie MacKenzie and Joy Reed – all attended the evening in a form of protest of the disparity.

Two women from varying backgrounds spoke of their experiences in the workplace and talked about the extra hurdles women often faced - whether working in a male-dominated industry like the media, or in an undervalued, womendominated job like the childcare industry.

First up was young activist and twitter obsessed Marion Rakosi ,who harked back to her mother and aunt’s struggles as a way of explaining her own current standing.

Rakosi spoke about how the childcare sector was one of the lowest paid in the country, despite requiring qualifications on parity with most trades.

She said the fact that childcare had always www.mua.org.au

been seen as women’s work had played no small part in creating this circumstance.

Journalist and broadcaster Tracey Spicer followed Rakosi, and she did not hold back in telling what went on behind the scenes in Australia’s biggest newsrooms.

Spicer said that, as a blonde woman, she was never afforded the same amount of respect as her male counterparts. Her looks became a part of her and (mainly) male producers would not hesitate to suggest how to improve her appearance - with one going as far as to tell her to ‘stick her tits out’.

She also described how she was treated when she became pregnant and was expected not to return to work; and when she did, she returned to hostility.

As she explained, much of this sexism occurred in the 1980s and 1990s; however women had still not achieved anything close to equality in the media world, she said, pointing to the fact there are very few women in leadership positions, particularly in TV and radio.

Mich-Elle Myers said it was incredible that that no matter the industry, the treatment of women was almost the same across the board.

“It’s just cemented my resonance to fight against pay inequality until it’s no longer an issue,” Myers said. “With the current gap, women have to work an extra 67 days to earn the same amount as men.”

The record high gap is also expected to blow out by a further two per cent under the Government’s proposed changes to workplace laws.

ACTU President Ged Kearney said women face a particular risk of being exploited under Individual Flexible Arrangements (IFAs), which are a key part of the Abbott Government’s Fair Work Amendment Bill.

“These arrangements are individual contracts which let employers use women’s caring responsibilities against them, by forcing them to trade off penalty rates for the ability to pick up their child in time from childcare, for example.

“Now the Government wants to go even further, by making employees sign a statement that will mean they can’t get compensation if they’ve been underpaid as a result of trading off entitlements under an unfair agreement.

“Currently it’s the employer’s responsibility to make sure the employee is better off overall on an individual contract. But the Government is trying to change the law, so workers must sign a statement that puts the responsibility on them – not their employer.”

Kearney said the proposed changes to these individual agreements are very similar to the highly unpopular Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs) introduced under Workchoices.

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WOMEN

ACTU WOMEN’S CONFERENCE: OUR LIVES, OUR VOICE, OUR STRENGTH The MUA sent a delegation of rank-and-file women to attend a two-day ACTU Women’s Conference in Melbourne in August. This report was compiled by attendee and Fremantle tug worker Karen Wheatland.

T

he ACTU Women’s Conference was a marathon forum of ideas, campaign planning and networking, which gave the representatives of our national union movement and affiliates food-for-thought and rekindled the fire in their belly.

In the words of Emily’s List: “When women support women, women win”.

And that was precisely what occurred in Melbourne. A cloud of inspiration that formed from this congregation erupted into an articulation of ideas that were explored and developed throughout the conference and culminated in concrete plans of action by the conference end.

ACTU President Ged Kearney inspired us all to take charge and to continue to fight for our rights - taking the struggle to the next stage of effecting change at leadership level.

She emphasised the importance of women coming together to support each other, and the need for us to mainstream women’s issues into a world that is still so male-dominated.

Federal Parliamentarian Tania Plibersek spoke of how “union women need to work together” and emphasised “women’s rights at work, are human rights worth fighting for.” In regards to Tony Abbott, she stressed that “everything that he sets out to do is making things worse for women.”

The need for our women to become active leaders, speakers and catalysts of change is paramount. We need to enlist the support of our male counterparts in order to assist us to facilitate this change. We need strong and positive allies in our brothers, who will support us in our agenda, and not use women in powerful positions to pursue their own political interests.

The Maritime Union of Australia was represented exceptionally well by six women from four states: Erica Seipel NT, Christine Von Wootten NT, Mary Prout WA, Natalie Mackenzie NSW, Sarah Maguire QLD and myself.

We have come away with a firm understanding that we are united, strong and ready for the next stage, with a clear future vision and our strategies in place.

We have the knowledge and the networks to continue the fight for our rights, from the community level up and from the leadership down.

Nothing will stop us… We are strong…

We are invincible… We are woman…

“Doesn’t matter what you are calling yourself, as long as you are calling out for change.”

Yolande Beattie, Workplace Gender Equality Agency.

The MUA contingent at the ACTU Women’s Conference with ACTU’s Ged Kearney and the ASU’s Sally McManus

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WOMEN

PUSH FOR RIGHT TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE LEAVE

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nions are pushing to give millions of Australian workers the right to access domestic violence leave.

ACTU President Ged Kearney said paid domestic violence leave was designed to support victims of domestic violence and help them to keep their job.

“Having a job is critical if women are to leave a violent relationship. Domestic violence is not - and should not - be a private matter that is dealt with behind closed doors,” Kearney said.

The ACTU is making a claim to the Fair

Work Commission for ten days paid domestic violence leave for permanent staff and ten days unpaid leave for casuals to be included in all awards.

Kearney said one in three Australian women experience physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner.

The ACTU claim also includes the right to request a change in working arrangements, such as start and finish times.

“Stalking is one of the risk factors that can lead to a domestic violence victim being killed, and almost all women with violent partners

who stalk them also experience harassment at their workplace,” said Kearney. “Providing flexibility around working hours will help make the workplace safer for everyone.”

Over 1.6 million employees now have access to paid domestic violence leave in union-negotiated workplace agreements.

Kearney said extending this to all modern awards will provide a safety net for millions of workers.

The ACTU claim for domestic violence leave was lodged in the Fair Work Commission on October 28.

REVISITING AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: NATIONAL LABOR WOMEN’S CONFERENCE 2014 Three MUA Women attended the ALP Women’s Conference held in Canberra in August. Linda Morich (WA OHS Officer), Mary Prout (stevedore) and Ashleigh Telford (MUA National Communications Officer) joined 300 women to debate the issues important to women in the Labor Party.

A

lthough discussion over the three days at the ALP Women’s Conference was varied, the key focus of the conference was on affirmative action: On whether it was working and how it could be improved.

There was some frustration expressed about how it was difficult to change the ingrained male-dominated culture within sections of the party; however neither the delegates nor the speakers were defeatist about this issue, and all seemed optimistic about change.

The three MUA women split up for the parallel sessions, which had a range of topics including communications, domestic violence, climate change and refugees to name a few.

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Linda Morich, Ashleigh Telford and Mary Prout at the ALP Conference

Guest speakers ranged from ACTU president Ged Kearney to Deputy Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek, who spoke about some of the women’s issues she’d faced in her time in politics.

Plibersek delivered an anecdote about a single woman from her electorate who was able to educate herself and raise her children under tough circumstances.

She explained that those already tough circumstances would become impossible circumstances should the Abbott Government succeed in passing the bulk of its Budget measures.

Delegate Mary Prout said she had an amazing time, seeing many familiar faces.

“It was wonderful to have so much representation from the MUA, as it played

a key role in many resolutions being passed at the Plenary on the Sunday,” Prout said. “It was wonderful to see so many politicians attending, as it was a big morale booster for the women.”

Delegate Ashleigh Telford said it was heartening to hear that every last woman in the room was prepared to fight for not only gender equality, but equality in a broader sense.

“The ALP has a long way to go to reach true equality. After all women make up 50 per cent of the population and should therefore make up 50 per cent of the party room,” Telford said. “One way this can be achieved is by revisiting affirmative action and exploring options into how party nominees are chosen.”

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The Brisbane event was held at Greenbank RSL

EVENT

REMEMBERING THOSE LOST AT SEA

S

On September 3, branches from around the country commemorated merchant navy sailors killed at sea.

ignificant delegations of members past and present attended Merchant Navy Day ceremonies in Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Northern Territory.

National Secretary Paddy Crumlin said it was important to remember the history of the union.

“On days like Merchant Navy Day, we appreciate the sacrifices our forebears have made to ensure the union, and more generally the maritime industry, is in the position it is today and around the world,” Crumlin said.

In the Northern Territory, Branch Secretary Thomas Mayor led the charge of 50 members mixed with navy servicemen, port stakeholders and port representatives.

“We need to remember the horrendous cost of war.

We need to remember the efforts and sacrifice of our merchant seafarers,” Mayor said.

“In remembering and educating others about those sacrifices and the strategic importance our members had to the war efforts as merchant seafarers, we highlight the importance of Australian shipping and skilled seafarers for our island nation.

“The attack on the employment of Australian seafarers by the current Liberal Federal Government is exposed for its stupidity here today.”

In Brisbane an event was held at Greenbank RSL. There the Naval Ode was recited:

They have no grave but the cruel sea No flowers lay at their head A rusting hulk is their tombstone Afast on the ocean bed.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.

LEST WE FORGET

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EVENT

In South Australia more than 70 people turned out to the Port Adelaide event, which involved a marching band and wreath-laying ceremony.

Branch Secretary Jamie Newlyn said people often forget the huge numbers of merchant seafarer fatalities during times of war.

“The people who are responsible for keeping the world’s economy going are not often given more than a passing thought,” Newlyn said.

“This day serves as a reminder of how important a job seafaring is and has been, especially in war times.

“South Australia’s economy was enhanced by the small merchant fleet servicing the coast of SA and the Federal Government needs to remember this and to promote and support the current shipping legislation.

“It should not be advocating its demise on ideological grounds”.

Other speakers included State MP for Port Adelaide Susan Close and Port Adelaide Enfield Mayor Gary Johanson.

In Fremantle in Western Australia, the event was attended by a number of MUA current and retired members, as well as ITF inspector Keith McCorriston.

Merchant Navy Day celebration in Darwin with NT Branch Secretary Thomas Mayor on the far right

Big turn out in South Australia

On the west coast a handful of MUA Veterans turned out

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SA Branch Secretary Jamie Newlyn took the microphone to remind people of the importance of a vibrant Australian shipping industry

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EVENT

I

REMEMBERING THOSE WHO MADE THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE

t was World Maritime Day in October - the day designated by the United Nations to remember the service and sacrifice of seafarers.

To mark the occasion, a group of Sydney branch members, joined by guests from around Australia, made their annual pilgrimage across the Pyrmont Bridge to the Australian National Maritime Museum lead by the Memorial Jazz Band.

First up was Sydney Branch Assistant Secretary Paul Garrett, who took to the podium in front of the infamous ship’s anchors at the ANMM. “World Maritime Day was created by the United Nations, via the International Maritime Organisation, to celebrate the contribution the international maritime industry makes to the world economy, in carrying the overwhelming portion of world trade,” Garrett said.

“Today is the 24th occasion that working

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and retired MUA members, maritime veterans and the maritime community have celebrated World Maritime Day by marching with the Memorial Jazz Band across Pyrmont Bridge to these giant anchors.”

He then invited John King, Dane Barrenger, Sister Mary Leahy, Geoff Wall, Alan Tait, Joe Miller and Cecily Hardy to lay wreaths in the memory of Joe Dryburgh, Alan Oliver, EV Elliot and John Brennan, as well as a wreath for the Merchant Navy Association and another for ‘the culture of the sea’.

Following the formalities the group headed into the ANMM for a special screening of four stories from the Blue Angel Project.

BighART’s Cecily Hardy provided a run down of how the project was going.

Legend of the union, 102-year-old John Miller, gave an impromptu speech about his time walking The Hungry Mile and how tough times were for him and others during the

Depression. He also regaled the crowd with his tale of surviving two of the ships he worked being torpedoed during World War Two. Former Seamen’s Union National Secretary Pat Geraghty accepted a portrait of Bill Langlois, who was unable to attend the event.

Geraghty talked about the internationalist perspective of seafarers and about some of the world-changing campaigns embarked upon by the MUA’s predecessor, the SUA. He highlighted the union’s support for Indonesian seafarers in their quest for selfdetermination from the Dutch.

Assistant Sydney Branch Secretary Joe Deakin emphasized this year’s International Maritime Organisation theme of effective implementation of conventions.

“It’s the recognition that seafarers in 2014 are still getting mistreated, and to combat this the conventions need to be followed through,” Deakin said.

www.mua.org.au

EVENT He then directed his attention to Australian shipping, in particular the ongoing attacks being leveled at maritime regulations.

“I would implore the Australian Government to reconsider its position on the total dismantling of the Australian shipping package, presently in the Australian parliament,” he said. “I would ask them, on behalf of the people, that an Australian industry is nurtured and maintained.”

MUA National Secretary Paddy Crumlin wrapped up proceedings by noting World Maritime Day was a reminder that Australia’s merchant seafarers had paid a heavy price in times past. During World War Two, onein-seven merchant seafarers died protecting Australia and its interests.

Crumlin said this should not be forgotten at the present time, when on the same day Australia’s terror alert was raised, Minister for Infrastructure Warren Truss flagged his intention to deregulate shipping and kill off

Australian seafarers’ jobs in the Australian Coastal Trade.

“It is a great tragedy when they talk about this era of insecurity, the great terrorist threat where somebody is going to be beheaded in Martin Place. We’re all in a tiz, people can’t sleep at night and yet the Government wants to see off shipping - the industry that kept Australia secure during the second World War, secured the economy over a long period of time, was able to deliver fair and representative share of wealth during colonial times, that was able to offer jobs and control over our trade,” Crumlin said.

Crumlin added that the Australian National Line (ANL) - an Australian Government owned overseas and coastal shipping line that operated in Australia between 1956 and 1998 – was set up to protect local industries from overseas shipping lines, which had no obligation to protect Australia’s national interest.

“That’s why ANL was formed, because

“Today is the 24th occasion that working and retired MUA members, maritime veterans and the maritime community have celebrated World Maritime Day” - Paul Garrett, Sydney Branch Assistant Secretary

we didn’t want to be carved up by the big international shipping monopolies because we’re a trading nation, miles away from our markets,” he said. “But now, under the Abbott Government we’re stopping making cars and steel – we’re outsourcing all of our industries.

“We haven’t got a Sovereign Wealth Fund, as they do in Norway. For all of the wealth that we’ve got - iron ore, coal, hydro-carbons, minerals, gold - we’ve never had politicians with sufficient intelligence and character to go back to the electorate and say: Let’s build up our national wealth and build up our national interest through that.”

Crumlin said foreign interest exemptions still exist under the Trade Practices Act in Australia for container lines to set up monopolies, which makes Australian shipping even more important.

“If you have a foreign interest controlling your one way of getting foreign produce to your international markets, and they monopolise you as they still do, they can set process and squeeze out the competition,” he said.

“Then farmers, producers and manufacturers in Australia might not be able to compete because they are going to be screwed.”

Pictures from World Maritime Day including the march across the Pyrmont Bridge, the wreath laying ceremony and the formalities in the Australian National Maritime Museum

www.mua.org.au

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RANK & FILE

TUGBOAT WORKERS DIG DEEP FOR A STRANGER In July MUA delegates attending the 2014 Tugboat Conference raised more than $1,000 to help a threeyear-old boy.

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fter a busy first day at the fourday-long conference, the group consisting of towage members and MUA staff and officials headed to the local Cooee Hotel at St Georges Basin on the NSW south coast for a session.

At the pub the members were made aware of a tragic story of a young local lad Jake, who had been horrifically injured in a car crash earlier in the year.

Jake’s family were struggling to keep things together in the wake of the accident and were raising money to help get them through the hardship.

At the next day of the conference, young Jake’s plight was discussed and it was decided the group would raise money to present to a family friend of Jake at the Cooee Hotel that night.

Jake’s mum, who has had to quit her job to be at her son’s bedside, was extremely grateful that 30 strangers could be so generous.

(Left) Young Jake before the accident (Below) Tugboat delegates handover the cheque to the Cooee Hotel Landlady

To find out more about Jake and his family or to learn how to donate, go to the fundraising Facebook page found here: https://www.facebook.com/ groups/forjakessake.1J/

MUA MEMBERS RESCUE SEVEN STRANDED SEAFARERS Seven Indonesian seafarers caught a lucky break after being rescued by Norwegianflagged, Australian-crewed vessel the Far Sirius on a sunny day in September. They had spent more than 10 hours in the Java Sea, after their ship sank the night before.

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n the morning of Thursday 4 September, the Far Sirius was on her maiden voyage to Australia from Singapore.

The crew members on board the Farstad vessel were alerted by another ship that an upturned vessel had been spotted approximately 50 nautical miles northwest of the Indonesian Island of Madura.

While the Far Sirius made a bee line to the location, the crew readied the Fast Rescue Craft (FRC).

Shortly after they launched the lifeboat, after spotting a person floating on a piece of debris some way from the wreck.

FRC alongside the Far Sirius with rescued fisherman aboard

56 www.mua.org.au

RANK & FILE Skilled seafarer and MUA delegate Jimbo Williams, fellow skilled seafarer and MUA member Lincoln McDowall, along with engineer Daniel Thomas, searched the area to find a single person floating on a foam mat.

“We pulled him onboard and asked him how many people were on his boat?

He responded by holding up seven fingers,” Williams explained.

“The rescued crew had very little English, which made things difficult.

“We asked him if he knew where his ship mates were and he simply pointed in the direction he thought they might be.

“Searching the area, we finally came across six seafarers floating in the water clinging to life on some other foam mats.”

One of the men needed treatment for shock and hypothermia immediately aboard the rescue craft.

After communicating with the men as best they could, the Australian crew discerned the men had been in the water since approximately 11.30pm the night before, after being swamped by a wave.

“Upon getting them all onboard the Far Sirius, medical treatment, hydration and dry

clothes were followed by a serious feed put on by our caterers. Then a carton of cigarettes and some Singapore dollars brought great joy and a smile to their faces,” Williams said.

“All MUA crew and crew aboard did not hesitate to comfort and look after these very lucky seafarers for one minute.”

The captain of the sunken ship made contact with another vessel, aboard which were some of the men’s friends.

McDowall and Thomas, along with another MUA member Brendon Robb, used the FRC to transfer the men to the neighbouring vessel, adding a heap of blankets, food and water to the ship’s existing supplies.

“Upon leaving the vessel we were treated to cheers, thumbs up and a great deal of relief and happiness from all onboard the vessel,” Williams noted.

“It was very humbling and proud experience to say the least! To be part of a great team effort to have saved seven seafarers lives at sea.

“I know that moment of seeing the faces of those men in the water will stay for a life time.”.

FULL MUA CREW INVOLVED IN THE RESCUE EFFORT: • Lincoln McDowall • James Toutounji • Lucy Williams • Maurice Hodges • Brendon Robb • George Amad • Jimbo Williams

A rescued crewman with MUA member Lincoln McDowall

The rescued fisherman safely aboard the vessel with their newly acquired safety equipment

The FRC returns to the Far Sirius

The rescue in action

Returning the rescued crew to their mates aboard another fishing vessel

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RANK & FILE

RANK-AND-FILE RAISE $100,000 Clean-up was still underway at the Maroubra Sports Club in Sydney, two days after a 24-hour marathon fundraising event: Plebs, Pros and Personalities 4 Suicide Prevention Australia

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he rank-and-file wharfie event Plebs, Pros and Personalities 4 Suicide Prevention Australia was held on June 23, and in its second year managed to double last year’s efforts, with more than 2,500 people joining the runners on the seven treadmills throughout the 24 hours.

Patrick wharfie Aaron More along with his mate Ben Higgs were the main organisers of the hugely successful event that attracted wellknown celebrities, including television stars and football heroes.

Some MUA celebrities made an effort too, with well-known plebs such as Sydney Branch Secretaries – the three Pauls – hitting the rubber.

Paul McAleer was first up on the MUA treadmill in the opening run, managing to make the distance and not embarrassing himself, despite running at the same time as some of the fittest people in Australia.

Before undertaking the run, McAleer talked about Hunterlink Recovery Services and its availability to all MUA members who find themselves in strife.

Assistant Branch Secretary Paul Garrett had a bit of a false start, requiring some tips from rugby superstar Sonny Bill Williams, but made it to the end without major injury.

Both McAleer and Garrett took part again the next day, joined by Paul Keating, and National Office’s Mich-Elle Myers, Alex Madden and Bernie Farrelly.

Members from both terminals and a special group from Harbour City Ferries made it for a run.

But it was the effort of the rank-and-file members that should be truly commended.

Aaron More pointed out that the event

Organisers Aaron More and Ben Higgs (centre) deliver their speeches before the running gets underway

would not have gone ahead if it was not for the work of Adam Lee, Andrew Maguire and Steve Hays. “They went above and beyond,” More said.

Adam Lee managed to stay and work for the full 24 hours. And Andrew Maguire, with the aid of his wife Kristy, managed to put in a 100 per cent effort, including five 15-minute stints on the treadmill for no-shows.

“I am a little bit sore,” Maguire said. “But it was well worth it, to see it all come together.”

He put in a special word for his wife, saying she put in more kilometres than the runners in

The three Pauls (l-r) Garret, McAleer and Keating all had a go on the treadmillion

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organising prizes and sponsors.

Although the main aim of the occasion was to raise money for the charity Suicide Prevention Australia, another intention was to simply create awareness.

No stranger to suicide, having lost mates and colleagues to it, More said he wanted to encourage people to open up to each other about what was going on their heads.

“You can get over most things with the help of family and friends,” he said. “You’re not any less of a man if you open up about your problems.”

Organiser Adam Lee dressed up as Captain America to do his stint

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LETTERS

M

y wife and I were asked to be community ambassadors for the Mothers Day Classic fundraising event due to our story and because our family group helped raise $3700 for the cause last year.

Mother's Day Classic, which is the National Breast Cancer Foundation's major donor, will be held in 99 locations including every capital city - a great and meaningful way to start Mother's Day, Sunday May 11.

For the past 17 years proceeds from the Mother's Day Classic has supported NBCF research projects seeking better detection and prevention methods, treatment options and ways to improve the quality of life for the growing number of survivors.

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australian women (1% of breast cancer is in men), with about 40 new diagnoses each day.

Through research, supported by the $19.8

million funding to NBCF by Mother's Day Classic since the event began in 1998, the 5 year survival rate for breast cancer patients has grown to 89%.

But, with research, more can be done.

My Story: My mum (Eunice) was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer in October 2012. My partners mum (Karen) was diagnosed with Grade 3 Breast Cancer 5 months later (March 2013). Both Eunice and Karen with the support of our families participated in last year’s Mothers Day Classic in Ballarat despite undergoing treatment. We found out about the MDC event through our sister in law Jess Lawless who lost her mum, to breast cancer almost 10 years ago. “We were worried about how our mums would cope with the 6 km walk, but they pushed through it and even set the pace for some of the way. It was a tremendous achievement when they crossed the finish line together! After 8 years together, My partner Tegan and I got engaged in June 2013 and were married 10 weeks later

in September. We decided to fast track the wedding as we wanted nothing more than for our mums to be there. My mum was quite unwell on the day but with her strong will and determination she made sure she was there to see us walk down the aisle. Mum (Eunice) died 4 weeks later on the 11th of October 2013 after a tough battle. This year we will walk in her memory. Tegan's mum Karen finished chemotherapy and radiation on Melbourne cup day in November 2013. Karen is doing well but still requires ongoing check ups every 3 months. This year Karen will walk again as a survivor.

The Victorian Branch have donated $500.

DP World Melbourne management have agreed to match dollar for dollar any employee contribution so I've been beating the drums to get everyone donating. Hopefully we can make the company put their hand in their pocket for as large a donation as we can stretch.

Sam Hatfield

B

ernie, on behalf of the MODEC VENTURE 11 MUA membership and its EBA Delegates we would like to extend our many thanks and appreciation to you for all your guidance, effort and hard work in achieving a great result with our EBA. You where always there as a sounding board and offered great advice in a difficult and challenging political and economic environment.

As you know Bernie there is a lot more to this negotiation than can be said in these few lines but the fact that we stood together as a united front and remained focused on our goals was fundamental to our success and these outcomes.

Once again Bernie with thanks.

Yours, MODEC VENTURE 11 MUA Members

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VALE PETER LERPINIERE GOUGH WHITLAM The Maritime Union of Australia has paid its respects to Australia’s greatest reformer in remembering former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, who passed away aged 98 in early November.

Whitlam’s legacy of universal health care, free higher education, Aboriginal land rights, scrapping of the death penalty, withdrawal of troops from Vietnam and the ending of conscription, paved the way for a more equitable Australian society.

National Secretary Paddy Crumlin said despite Whitlam’s leadership being undermined after just three years, he would go down in history as one of Australia’s greatest leaders.

“Whitlam essentially became a martyr for progressive causes,” Crumlin said.

“He brought about policies which were revolutionary for the time - huge changes, of which many Australians are still reaping the benefits today.

“Unfortunately, in recent times, there has been a slide back as Australia hurls itself into a more neo-liberal era, whereby free higher education has already been wound back and further deregulation of the industry is on the table.

“Universal healthcare faces an uncertain future with the introduction of the co-payment.

“I urge Australians to not let Whitlam’s legacy be consigned to the history books: Defend the gains we made as a society as a result of Gough’s courage.”

Peter was born on 31 December 1941 at Hillingdon in England. He often reminded us that he had to wait a full year “for me birthday to come around”. In 1957 at the age of 16 he went to sea, serving on a number of ships.

It was during this time that Peter became Involved with the Seamen’s Reform Movement.

This had been set up to fight for better conditions for seafarers and for reform of the Union including shop stewards, committees on ships and the right to hold regular meetings of seamen.

Peter was extremely proud of the role he played in what was a very bitter dispute, not only with the ship owners but also NUS, who at that time were seen by many seafarers to be very bureaucratic and corrupt. Like many young seamen at this time, Peter became politically and trade union conscious - while dodging the coppers, sleeping rough and organising meetings outside the dock gates. Peter would later say these experiences defined him and prepared him for battles to come.

Peter paid off his last British ship in Sydney; he joined an auxiliary ketch the Falie shipping 200 tonnes of explosives up to Queensland.

There were no vacancies in the Seamen’s Union at that time; but when there was he

WALLY STUBBINGS Born: 10 March 1913 at Strahan in Tasmania Died: 6 July 2014 at Redlands in Queensland Wally Stubbings, Life Member of the Brisbane Labour History Association, passed away on 6 July aged 101. Wally was one of the last remaining labour activists who had links to the 1940s. Wally received his Life Membership because of his life-long involvement with the labour movement, both industrially and politically.

Wally was born in Strahan in Tasmania and toiled as a timber worker in his home town in the 1930s. He married his wife Ada, a fellow school friend, in1933 and had a son Col in 1934. During this time he became active in the Timber Workers Union, which began his long involvement with the union movement.

As well as working as a timber worker, he also worked as a waterside worker (wharfie) and this saw him transferring to Hobart in 1940 to work on the Hobart waterfront In 1944 Wally came to Brisbane to work as part of the war effort. After the war, Wally decided to come back to Brisbane to live, but first he had to go back to Hobart to establish his credentials in order to be able to transfer to Brisbane. He came back to Brisbane in 1946 and immediately joined the Waterside Workers Federation (WWF) and the Communist Party of Australia (CPA). He threw himself into activism

joined the Seamen’s Union on 4 December 1964. Peter described this as the best day’s work he ever did, because here was a Union that fought for its members, but its members also fought for each other and this was like winning Tatts.

In late August 1969 Peter was involved in a rescue at sea; he was a crew member on the MV Meringa. The crew had heard that the MV Noongah was missing believed sunk. They posted their own lookouts, and eventually one spotted someone in the water clinging to a painting stage. “So I threw some lifebuoys with smoke flares; in fact I threw two of them, then ran up to the bridge and told the skipper there were men in the water. The skipper replied: I can’t see them. And he asked: who threw them life buoys over? I said I did. He asked: well why did you do that? And I said: as a marker to know where they are. He then gave the order to slow the ship down.”

Peter continued to be active within the Union and outside, via the Anti-War movement, Vietnam Moratoriums, Peace Movement, and any activity the Union was involved in. Peter also lent his seafaring skills to the restoration of the tall ship Polly Woodside; he was particularly proud of this work and, in 1988, the Polly was awarded the World Ship Trust Medal for

in both these organisations.

As well as being involved in the CPA and the WWF, Wally and his wife Ada were involved in numerous other organisations. Wally was also one of the founding members of the Council for Advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and had a long involvement in fighting for Aboriginal rights. He worked with Sugar Ray Walker and his wife Kath Walker, who became famous for her poetry as well as being an aboriginal activist.

When Wally retired he took a trip in a kombi van around Australia. He started by going up the Queensland coast and stayed with wharfies at various ports all around Australia.

At the age of 60 Wally took up Veteran Athletics and attended a number of world championships in various parts of the world.

He competed in Sweden, West Germany, New Zealand, USA and Puerto Rico. At the age of 70, on the day Australia won the America’s Cup in 1983, Wally won the world championship 800 metres for his age group. He won many 400 and 800 metres events for his age. He was a Life Member of Queensland Veteran Athletics (now known as Queensland Masters Athletics). In his later years Wally was a member of a gym and kept his exercise routine until his overall health prevented him from continuing.

Wally was a prolific reader, which could be traced back to his childhood. A few months before he died he was reading Chomsky, Pilger,

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VALE supreme achievement in the preservation of Maritime History.

Peter had met Jenny, the love of his life; she was always supportive. “I was always off at demonstrations, but never a complaint from her,” her recalled. “We were a Union Family.

One May Day in Melbourne, Jenny and I were in the body of the march, and our girls Danielle and Melanie were roller-skating down the pavement dishing out pamphlets.”

Peter went down to the Oil and Gas fields in Bass Strait in the early days, where he and a few others helped organise a good award that was the precursor to the conditions enjoyed today.

Peter retired from the industry while on the Melbourne Tugs, and like many jobs he was the Delegate. He attended Tug Conferences, National and State Conferences, always willing to give to the Union and its Members.

Peter is survived by his wife Jenny, daughters Danielle and Melanie and son Jon; they can be proud of their father’s achievements and dedication to the working peoples of the world.

And Peter was so proud of his family, he loved you all so very much.

Peter Lerpinier: Union No 1910 31-12-1941 to 10-9-2014 Rest In Peace Comrade Alan Guihenneuc: Union No 4133

VINCE THOMAS

Dawkins and had asked his son to borrow fromthe library Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species for him to read again.

Wally’s wife Ada pre-deceased him and he is survived by his son Col and his wife Joan, his grandsons Carl and Jeff, seven great grandchildren and five great, great grandchildren.

Greg Mallory, President, Brisbane Labour History Association www.mua.org.au

St Bernard’s Church in Maroubra in eastern Sydney offered standing room only as hundreds of mourners turned out to farewell long-standing DP World member Vince Thomas.

Robert Schlide and Mick Carrion led the procession carrying the MUA flags.

Sydney Branch Secretary Paul McAleer paid his respects to Thomas, who passed away suddenly on ANZAC Day at the age of 46.

Thomas was a highly respected member at the DP World Port Botany site and will be remembered by all for his affability and power-lifting talents.

He had been an MUA member since 1998, beginning his career at the bulk and general terminal at White Bay. “It has come as a huge shock to everyone,” McAleer said. “Vince was a staunch, well-regarded comrade and on behalf of the MUA I would like to pass on my condolences to his family. His good nature will be missed.”

Thomas was known around the traps for his brute strength as a world-ranked power lifter.

At a US competition in Orlando in Florida last year, he competed with an Australian team squatting a personal best of 265kg,

followed by a world-class bench of 230kg, for a bronze medal, finishing with a deadlift of 250kg.

DP World member Justin Timmins said although he was known for his physical strength, Thomas would also be remembered as a gentleman.

“He never showed any type of aggression. He was a really solid guy,” Timmins said.

Thomas took part in the inaugural War On The Wharves in an exhibition match he won.

Recent War On The Wharves organiser and workmate Brad Dunn said extra money that was raised by the fighters recently – which would ordinarily be used to offset the costs for gym fees, training and registration - would be donated to the Thomas family to help them get through the hard times.

Workers at the DP World site have also given generously to the fund.

Dunn said they had already voted across three shifts and had approached management about having the site gym renamed as the Vince Thomas gym.

“Vince was a senior member held in very high esteem. I never heard anyone have a bad word to say about him,” Dunn said.

Thomas leaves behind his parents Geraldine and Grahame, his wife Debbie, brothers Peter and Kevin, and children Paris and Jackson.

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CAMPAIGN

BACKFLIP CREATES UNCERTAINTY FOR MUCKATY TRADITIONAL OWNERS

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ess than six months after celebrating the decision not to dump nuclear waste at Muckaty in central Australia, the Northern Land Council has reneged on its commitment.

After a long campaign by traditional owners, unions and progressive organisations across the country, the Northern Land Council abandoned its plans to offer land for a national radioactive waste dump at Muckaty, 120km north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory.

But in November the NLC proposed another site on Muckaty land to the Federal Liberal Government’s Minister for Industry Ian McFarlane, who has opened a tender process for the waste site.

Assistant National Secretary Ian Bray has spearheaded the MUA’s opposition to the radioactive waste dump and said he was outraged that the NLC would ignore the will of the traditional owners of the area.

“It was such a relief to hear that, after seven years of campaigning, the NLC and the Government had come to their senses and that Muckaty was the wrong site to dispose of radioactive waste,” Bray said.

“Now we’re pretty much back to square one. But don’t let that make you think we’re not going to continue our opposition to the dump.

“I retain optimism, as those involved in the campaign are staunch, strong and committed to having a say as to what happens on the land they own.”

For further info on radioactive waste issues see: www.beyondnuclearinitiative.com

UPON HEARING THE NEWS OF THE ‘WIN’ IN JUNE, ASSISTANT NATIONAL SECRETARY IAN BRAY DISPATCHED THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE TO TRADITIONAL OWNERS: Dear Muckaty Traditional Owners, On behalf of the Maritime Union of Australia I want to warmly congratulate you on your historic victory to protect your land from radioactive waste.

When the Commonwealth Government first announced plans to use Muckaty lands as a dump for nuclear waste, it was simply assumed by most that it was an inevitability - a done deal.

Yet your spirit, smarts and sheer tenacity have resulted in a great Australian victory for the underdog.

I know that Muckaty Traditional Owners - and many others who supported your cause - have travelled tirelessly across the country to build awareness and support.

I know that behind the scenes, many have worked diligently on organising continual letters, rallies, meetings, community conversations, trips to Tennant Creek, fundraising gigs and movie nights.

What a magnificent thing it is that all this effort has finally paid off handsomely.

MUA members are often required to move radioactive waste; so it is an issue that resonated strongly with our members from the start.

We are proud to have stood with you in your fight and we are overjoyed that you have been successful.

I am certain that the bonds we have forged during this long struggle will remain strong for many, many years to come.

Your great victory is an inspiration to all of us who fight for justice in the face of overwhelming power.

I hope you celebrate long and hard - you truly deserve it.

Yours sincerely, Ian Bray MUA Assistant National Secretary

MUA supports traditional owners in a rally opposing dumping nuclear waste at Muckaty

62 www.mua.org.au

BOOK LAUNCH

THE FIGHTS OF MY LIFE

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UA members past and present joined other union leaders and members of Parliament for the launch of a new book by Greg Combet in July titled The Fights of My Life.

Combet spoke of his days at the ACTU, where he was an integral part of the 1998 Waterfront Dispute, Ansett collapse, compensation for James Hardie asbestos victims and the highly successful ‘Your Rights At Work’ campaign in the lead-up to the 2007 Federal Election.

Combet then entered Federal Parliament as the ALP Member for Charlton from 2007-13.

He made special mention of former MUA National Secretary John Coombs, with whom he worked closely in the battle against Chris Corrigan and the Howard Federal Government.

“Where’s Peter Reith? Gone. Where’s Chris Corrigan? Gone. That’s what I used to say on the picket line: one day Howard will be gone and you will still remain - the MUA - and it’s true,” Combet declared at the launch.

“The MUA is still here, Paddy (Crumlin) is still here.

“That was a hard dispute and there’s no one I would rather stand with than John Coombs.

He’s a great man and a good friend.

“It was a big fight. We fought hard and we won.”

Combet had a message for those workers and families punished by the harsh policies on health, welfare and education of the Abbott Government.

Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke and former MUA National Secretary John Coombs were in attendance at the book launch

“Don’t stand there and complain! Get out and fight,” he declared.

Combet, a former Minister for Climate Change whose book was launched by former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, said history would judge the former Labor Federal Government kindly.

“When it comes to the carbon price - we were right, despite the populist crap from Tony Abbott. And let’s not forget that The Greens voted against it,” he said.

Combet also listed the republic, Australian flag, constitutional recognition for Indigenous Australians, voluntary euthanasia

and same sex marriage as issues that needed to be addressed.

He also said the ALP needed reform.

“We need to modernise the party. One million people are in affiliated unions and a majority of them vote Labor. They are normal people, not apparatchiks, not factional warlords,” he said.

“Give them a say. Democratise it. It won’t be able to be manipulated by any individual. We need to move to a widerbased, more democratic, closer to the people, Labor party and it will be an unstoppable force.”

Ex- National Secretary John Coombs, Greg Combet, Ex-SUA Secretary Pat Geraghty, Paddy Crumlin and ex-Sydney Branch Secretary Jim Donovan

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CAMPAIGN Assistant National Secretary Ian Bray with the chair of the MUA’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander committee upon winning the ACTU award

FAIR WORK COMMISSION DUMPS AMML AGREEMENT

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he Maritime Union of Australia has had a win for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers in having an agreement voided by the Fair Work Commission (FWC).

In October the full bench of the FWC upheld the MUA appeal and quashed the registered agreement. Given the full bench decision, Aboriginal Marine Manning Pty Ltd (AMML) withdrew its application for the agreement.

Assistant National Secretary Ian Bray said it was a good result for the union and for Aboriginal people, who deserve to be paid the same rates as their non-Aboriginal counterparts.

The agreement AMML tried to push through would have seen its employees paid less than a typical seafarer in dredging, towage and

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“Paying Aboriginal people less than the going rate only widens the gap between Aboriginal and nonAboriginal Australians” - Ian Bray, Assistant National Secretary offshore work. The agreement also contained far inferior general working conditions than a comparative union agreement.

“Paying Aboriginal people less than the going rate only widens the gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians,” Bray said.

The MUA has a long history of supporting Aboriginal people through social and industrial campaigns. The union has a strong Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander committee that helps form MUA policy and has won the Australian Council of Trade Unions’ Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander award two years in a row.

“We have a proud history of helping Australia’s first peoples and to see them cop a wage below what is expected in the industry is insulting to us and them,” Bray said.

Following the full bench decision, the MUA corresponded with the company to request further discussions on the agreement.

“Hopefully the MUA can sit down with AMML and work together on getting an equitable agreement for Aboriginal maritime workers,” Bray said. www.mua.org.au

RALLY SECTION

NEW TASMANIAN LIBERAL GOVERNMENT QUICK TO ATTACK WORKERS

Deputy National Secretary Mick Doleman tells people to fight the State Government at every opportunity

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asmanians have had to suffer a State Liberal Government for less than a year and already the community is angry at the direction the Will Hodgman Government is taking the Apple Isle.

In September people took to the streets in all of the regional centres, including the northwest’s Devonport where Deputy National Secretary Mick Doleman took the microphone.

Doleman said although he was no stranger to the tactics of Conservative parties, he truly was shocked at how cruel the current batch of Liberal politicians, State and Federal, were.

“Hodgman’s answer to high unemployment is to create more unemployment by going to the public sector with a hatchet,” he said.

“I think if we look at the UK and other European economies, it has been shown that the removal of rights under the guise of austerity it not the way to go.

“To add insult to injury, if you’re not happy with your lot, well tough, because you’ll soon not be allowed to go to the street if they get their spurious anti-protest bill through.”

Other speakers at the rally included local unionists: Tom Lynch (CPSU), Roz Madsen (AEU), Robbie Moore (HACSU), as well as Sharifa Zaliah Syed-Rohan, a Don College student.

In addition to the local issues, Doleman also spoke about the Federal Government’s attempts to dismantle hard-fought wages www.mua.org.au

and conditions in most sectors, including the maritime industry.

He pointed to the proposal to undermine labour market testing for 457 visas and the introduction of the Designated Area Migration Agreements.

He said the time had come to fight back and urged protesters “to get some skin in the game”.

“We have to fight on behalf of the most vulnerable workers and unemployed throughout this state and throughout the country,” he said.

The Liberal Hodgman Government has introduced a whole host of legislation aimed at undercutting the rights, wages and conditions of many Tasmanians, particularly those engaged in the public sector.

One Bill was tabled that leaves the setting of all wages and conditions (penalty rates, overtime, sick leave, holiday pay, etc) for every public sector employee entirely to the discretion of the Treasurer.

“The Treasurer by regulation, with the mere flick of a pen, will have the power to set the wages of any individual employee, any group of employees or the entire public sector, every year, year-on-year, forever,” Unions Tasmania President Roz Madsen said.

“This is the stuff of a Soviet State. We are going back to the days of centralised wage fixing, except with the Government, not an Independent Commission, the sole arbiter of people’s wages.

“This Bill will form the blueprint for

the Abbott Government’s overhaul of the Federal Workplace Relations system.

Everything about this smacks of Eric Abetz, thinly veiled as budget savings measures. It is a shameless attempt to drive a stake into the heart of every workplace right we take for granted in this country – bargaining for wages, penalty rates, allowances, overtime, sick leave, holiday pay, everything.”

Tasmanian Branch Secretary Jason Campbell said union members were particularly susceptible to attacks by conservative Governments.

“We’re seeing the attempted dismantling of universal healthcare and unfair meddling with superannuation which will affect all workers,” Campbell said.

“On top of that, unionised and working class people are facing a whole host of other assaults on wages, conditions and penalty rates.

“I’ve never encountered such a nasty, ideological-driven Government in my lifetime and I hope I won’t ever have to suffer another period like it.”

Campbell said the State was in a disarray, with local Governments trying to disallow protests, at the same time the Federal Government is taking away ingrained workplace conditions.

“It seems Hodgman and Abbott only want to take, take, take; but not from the miners, and not from high income earners, they only take from those who have the least to give,” Campbell summed up.

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RANK-AND-FILE

THIRTY YEARS OF ANNA STEWART MEMORIAL PROJECT National women’s committee member Krista Grace is also a participant in the Anna Stewart Memorial Project. As part of the project Krista spent a week shadowing the officials in the Victorian Branch

Anna Stewart: Anna Stewart Memorial Participants

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great deal has happened in thirty years and significant changes have occurred within the maritime industry since Anna Stewart filled rooms with her commitment to women’s rights and conditions in the workplace.

However it is true to say that female seafarers and stevedores still have a distance to travel before Anna Stewart’s vision of equality and opportunity, irrespective of gender, is achieved.

Anna Stewart initially worked as a journalist and became an active union official from 1974 to 1983. Over time, she readjusted the exposure of workplace inequity to which women were subjected.

Tragically, Anna died in 1983, aged 35.

The Anna Stewart Memorial Project is an

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‘affirmative action’ strategy aiming to assist rank-and-file women to become more active in the labour movement - and to encourage them to seek positions within it by placing participants within unions full-time for two weeks, to encourage and develop their awareness of the ways in which unions can work.

As a participant of the ASMP, I chose to spend my time with the MUA Victorian branch, shadowing some of our officials as they moved through the day-to-day challenges, events and successes. This I found to be enlightening, as our officials seem to be ‘on call’ from the moment they turn on their computers and phones to answer all questions from underpaid superannuation to workplace bulling and harassment.

Through the ASMP I have discovered that women form a critical voice and influence in the culture of a workplace. Within unions and at the workplace, women have the immediate capacity to identify workplace aspects and assist in accommodating changing demands through consultation and inclusion.

The maritime industry needs women who are motivated. We need to support other women and continue to nurture voice, opportunity and change. Hopefully within the next few years we may even see an elected female official in one of our branches.

In unity Krista Grace www.mua.org.au

BOOK

SWAN’S GOOD FIGHT Former Federal Treasurer and Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan has documented the six-year reign of Labor under two PMs.

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t the core of my new book The Good Fight: Six Years, Two Prime Ministers and staring down the Great Recession is a passionate defence of the fair go.

The Good Fight showcases the triumphs of Labor’s time in Government, such as fighting off the great recession, while also bluntly highlighting the lessons needed to be learnt.

Most importantly, The Good Fight looks ahead to the challenges which lie on the

dominant media organisation and with an increasing number of hyperpartisan wealthy individuals who are prepared to throw their money around, this is a recipe for political imbalance and political and social inequality.

The labour movement in Australia over 100 years has fought and won the right for a decent minimum wage and the right to collectively bargain and organise.

This has been the bedrock from which

Most importantly, The Good Fight looks ahead to the challenges which lie on the horizon for our movement challenges like stemming the growing tide of inequality, which I believe to be the central economic and political contest of our age. horizon for our movement - challenges like our movement has fought politically for stemming the growing tide of inequality, access to universal quality and affordable which I believe to be the central economic healthcare, quality education and a strong and political contest of our age. social safety net.

There’s no doubt our movement has so That’s what the good fight is all about. much to fight for at the moment.

And I look forward to fighting alongside the Right now we’re witnessing the MUA for many years to come.

Americanisation of the Right in this country: obsessed with defending the advantages of the wealthiest in our society at the expense of everyday working people.

Sticking up for them, and them alone, has become their primary cause. They have forgotten that they have a duty to help deliver a better life to every Australian - rich, poor and in-between.

But sadly it gets worse. I also argue in The Good Fight that we’re increasingly seeing in Australia those with great wealth, who are disconnected from the ordinary lives of working people, entering the political process trying to wield a big stick.

This is a small but growing group of wealthy and powerful – the oligarchs, if you like – who are throwing their weight around and seeking to have a disproportionate influence in our democracy.

In an economy such as Australia’s – dominated by half a dozen large miners, four big banks, two big The book by former Treasurer Wayne Swan is available retailers, one large Telco and one really for purchase now www.mua.org.au

SWAN RESPONDS TO MURDOCH CRITICISMS On October 28, Wayne Swan responded to Rupert Murdoch’s claims that Swan was a “class warrior” and that Quantitative Easing in the US was creating disparity. The following is Swan’s rebuttal: “In this country, when we talk about growing inequality and concentration of wealth, people like myself have been branded by Rupert Murdoch as class warriors for daring to speak up for ‘the fair go’ - for making sure people on average wages get affordable health and education, and have access to a decent industrial relations system that gives them a decent minimum wage and collective bargaining rights.

“So for Mr Murdoch to come forth and say the solution is to cut taxes for the super-rich, is more than I think this country can tolerate or should tolerate, as we are fed a diet of these policy responses from the puppets in the Abbott government who represent Mr Murdoch’s interests.

Yesterday in the parliament, the treasurer Mr Hockey repeated almost word-for-word some of the content of the speech that Mr Murdoch gave at the G20, talking about and blaming Easing for an increasing in the concentration of wealth.

“In fact Quantitative Easing has been the only policy in place globally to keep people in jobs and if there hadn’t been any Quantitative Easing we would have seen a profound global recession. So what we are really seeing here from the government, in terms of the advocacy for increased indirect taxes, and from Mr Murdoch and what we saw in the budget and the Audit Commission report are all of Murdoch’s prescriptions for Australia: lower wages, lower taxes and greater inequality.”

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TRAINING

2014 MARKS BIGGEST YEAR FOR UNION TRAINING

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National Education and Safety Officer Matt Goddwin

he year 2014 will go down in MUA history as one of the biggest years for training ever undertaken by the union. More than 30 courses were held, ranging from Delegates Level 1 and 2 courses, health and safety workshops, and a new political awareness training program.

The dedicated training facility at St Georges Basin in southern NSW has seen some intensive use this year, with a good chunk of the courses taking place at the picturesque coastal location.

National Education and Safety Officer Matt Goodwin planned and organised the majority of the sessions, together with a national team of MUA trainers in each branch.

MUA trainers are union delegates who have been specially trained to deliver union

courses for members.

“We have incredibly experienced and talented trainers within the union,” Goodwin said.

“The skills and expertise they bring to the training room is what makes the training a success. We focus on the real challenges that delegates and members face every day – how to organise on-the-job, how to fight for better safety and how to represent and protect members in the face of hostile employers.

“Work has begun on the 2015 program, which will be even bigger and better.”

Members can now register online for MUA courses. For more information about training in your area go to the training section of the MUA website: http://www.mua.org.au/training.

Alternatively, contact your local branch.

A group undertaking Delegates 2 training in Adelaide

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TRAINING Q: How do you make young people more interested and passionate about unionism?

A: The best way to get young people interested in their union is to involve them at all levels. You can’t make anybody do anything if they don’t want to. What you can do though is give people, in this case the youth of our union, a feeling of ownership. If the young comrades in this union are convinced that they are a part of the overall wellbeing of their union and its membership, you will get results. By that I mean give them a hand when it comes to creating and forging ideas. It doesn’t matter who it is in any walk of life, if people think they’re being treated like numbers they will act accordingly. There is no greater task in this union than to ensure that the youth, with the wonderful enthusiasm, is bottled up and preserved, allowed to mature, then cut loose on the employers.

Assistant Sydney Branch Secretary Joe Deakin

UNION STALWART AND ASSISTANT SYDNEY BRANCH SECRETARY JOE DEAKIN DID A Q&A ON THE IMPORTANCE OF UNION TRAINING FOR THIS YEAR’S TRAINING PROGRAM. Q: Why is training, conducted by the union, so important?

A: All forms of union training are essential if you want to have a developed rankand-file. There are, however many facets of trade union training. When new entrant members join a particular section of the maritime industry, the union is quick to ensure that an induction is immediately put in place on the job. By doing this, new members are given a clear understanding of what the Maritime Union is all about, by explaining to them about the many struggles we went through, and are still going through to this very day. New entrant inductions are vitally important because what they do is tell the story of the hardship faced by maritime workers from 1872 onwards. New entrant training and inductions must forever tell the story of political struggle, because simply talking up trade unionism is shallow and dangerous. Workers have to know that trade unionism and political awareness are inseparable; every new entrant maritime worker must gain the knowledge that class struggle is part and parcel of the struggle of trade unions. What must always follow such new entrant inductions is to encourage new members to attend the union school down at St Georges Basin.

Educating right from the very start is the key to building a strong movement.

www.mua.org.au

Q: What’s the Background of St Georges Basin Union School?

A: It was initiated by the Seaman’s Union of Australia under Pat Geraghty and Taffy Sweetensen’s leadership. Mind you, there was tremendous assistance given by Tas Bull of the Waterside Workers’ Federation in the building and commissioning of the School. I can’t tell you exactly when it was opened, but I can tell you that the original school classes were conducted by the National Officials themselves, including John Brennan, who was the National Presiding officer, as well as branch officials around the coast, along with political tutors Joyce and Ray Clarke. In the early days, the union schools were somewhat crude in preparation; we didn’t have all the mod cons of today, but they were wonderful times. Sitting in the classes listening to comrades like Geraghty, Brennan and Sweetensen was something else. They were political and trade union classes all in one. When it came time to ‘shower up’, after the day’s study, that’s when the education really kicked in - sitting around the camp fire after a barbecue dinner, listening to Taffy tell his stories was wonderful, because it was within this environment the members started to loosen up and have their say. At the School to this very day, the spirit of Geoff Swain still touches me.

Geoff was an outstanding comrade, a Merchant Seafarer from Melbourne who was tragically lost at sea on a yacht. In honour of this wonderful comrade, the room where the classes are held is called the ‘Geoff Swain’ tutorial classroom.

Q: What are the benefits of training and how does it encourage organising on the job?

A: When you have ruthless employers - as the maritime industry has - you will need to know your stuff when it comes to fighting back. In terms of unsafe practices being rolled out by the employers, and specifically the political attacks the workers will face while defending themselves against such unsafe acts, there must always be a willingness by the workers to stand up to the employer’s onslaught by organising in the workplace as a collective, not as individuals.

The employers will shout it from the rooftops about how safe we must all be, so long as it doesn’t stop them from making profits; this is where the politics on the job come into being. You can have all the tickets under the sun regarding safety on the job; but if you don’t have the political understanding or will to defend a safety position, then you are lost.

The encouragement of young workers must come from the understanding that they can stand up to the employers on any issue if they are politically aware of the class nature of their battle with the employers and always stand united.

A full house at St Georges Basin for Delegates 1

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INTERNATIONAL

ITF BACKS CALL FOR ‘WORLD ACTION’ ON GAZA

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he ITF (International Transport Workers’ Federation) is backing the call by the ITUC (International Trade Union Confederation) for immediate world action to secure a ceasefire and negotiated settlement in Gaza.

In a hard-hitting statement, the ITUC declared: “We also call on the international community to provide urgently needed humanitarian aid to Gaza, including food, water, medical aid and generators. However the only way for there to be a lasting peace and mutual understanding between the people of Israel and Palestine is for the occupation and blockade of the Palestinian territories to end.

“The ITUC therefore calls on all governments to help broker an immediate, negotiated cease-fire. Attacks on civilians are against international law and we support the UN call for accountability and justice. Therefore we call for an immediate ban of all transfers of weapons, directly or indirectly.

“But it cannot end there. The international community, not just the US and Egypt, must take immediate action to force the parties to the table and conclude a negotiated settlement that ends the occupation and instils in both sides confidence in security and mutual respect.”

ITF president Paddy Crumlin commented: “The situation in Gaza is horrendous; a human and avoidable tragedy. There is worldwide agreement that a ceasefire must happen immediately, and it must be followed by change to tackle head-on the longstanding causes behind the latest episode of this horrible conflict.”

Steve Cotton, ITF acting general secretary, added: “If the combatants won’t listen to reason, then we all have a duty to make them listen.

Trade unions are part of that worldwide push for an end to the bloodletting and a proper and just peace. We are also carrying out our humanitarian duty of supplying emergency aid to Gaza, and I encourage trade unionists everywhere to get involved in helping. One way they can do that today is by supporting the ITF Gaza relief fund (www.itfgazafund. org), which has already sent one shipment of medical supplies, with more to follow.”

First ITF Medical Aid Cargo Arrives In Gaza Meanwhile the International Transport Workers’ Federation reiterated its call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, as its first cargo of medical aid arrived in the war-torn region.

The supplies were delivered to UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) and

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the Jordan Hashemite Charity Organisation, whose support includes the running of a mobile hospital in Gaza.

The shipment included items identified by doctors working in Gaza as the most crucially needed – including wheelchairs and crutches, surgical gloves, and thousands of rolls of bandages, syringes, facemasks, gloves and dressings.

ITF President Paddy Crumlin said this was the first shipment of medical aid purchased and sent from the ITF office in Amman in Jordan, as part of an ongoing relief appeal.

“While the delivery of urgent medical supplies is welcomed, the ITF again calls for an immediate ceasefire before even more innocent civilians are killed,” Crumlin added.

“Another hospital in Gaza was hit in the past 24 hours and this is totally unacceptable to the international community.

“The ITF and unions around the world have been calling for action, in line with the UN Security Council resolution that called for ‘deescalation of the situation, restoration of calm, reinstitution of the November 2012 ceasefire and respect for international humanitarian law, including the protection of civilians’.”

ITF acting general secretary Steve Cotton said there needs to be renewed international pressure to achieve a long term solution, including the end of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and a negotiated settlement that respects the 1967 borders between Israel and a Palestinian state.

“It is time that the rights of the Palestinian people are fully recognised in line with UN resolutions,” Cotton said.

For more on how to get involved visit www. itfglobal.org/en/campaigns-solidarity/ campaigns/itf-gaza-fund/

ITF supplies being delivered on the ground to Gaza

ITF APPEAL FOR GAZA The ITF is launching an emergency humanitarian appeal for money to supply medical supplies and equipment to the people of Gaza. We have also condemned the civilian death toll caused by the Gaza air strikes. The ITF Amman Office is in communication with our affiliates and other organisations in Gaza and has begun coordinating preparations to dispatch emergency relief as soon as this becomes practically possible.

The ITF is calling on affiliates to support this urgent appeal. Donations should be made to the ITF Gaza Fund using the bank details below and marking donations with the reference GAZ-00001.

General Fund US Dollar Account Account No: 68619219 Sort Code: 40-05-15 Swift Code: MIDLGB22 IBAN No: GB98 MIDL 4005 1568 6192 19 Account Name: International Transport Workers Federation In AUSTRALIA you can donate via the MUA Maritime Mining and Power Credit Union BSB 802-884 ACCT 4626s1 or Commonwealth Bank BSB 062-006 ACCT 1001 0464 Please add your name and “GAZA” when depositing.

www.mua.org.au

INTERNATIONAL Phil Hansen at work on the tugs in Gladstone

Louise Ryall attended the recent National Council in Sydney

YOUTHS REPRESENT MUA AT NORWAY CONFERENCE

The Norwegian Seafarers’ Union held its 27th ordinary Congress in Trondheim in Norway in September. Two MUA Youth committee members – Louise Ryall from Sydney and Phil Hansen from Queensland -were selected to attend Jacqueline Smith’s final conference.

Excerpt From Phil Hansen’s Report The congress was opened by Jacqueline Smith, who has stepped down to become the new Maritime Coordinator for International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF).

Hansen said the trip was beneficial to learn about how other international unions conduct their business.

“It was interesting to hear that the struggles they face are very similar to ours: a right-wing government, ships being flagged out, multi-nationals proliferating in the offshore and a cruise ship industry that is trying to cut costs to boost profits,” he said.

“Through the four days we heard all regions and all maritime fields within the NSU speak about the wins and losses in their industry. There were youth committees, motions, debates and robust conversations on how the trade union movement can progress short-term and long-term.”

Hansen said the Norwegian union had a similar commitment to training and safety as a way to better equip members.

“The Norwegian Government has plans in the works to increase shipping by 25 per cent to decrease the cost of road maintenance and protect the environment,” he said. “It would be great if our government could adopt this idea.”

The NSU has one youth conference a year and would like to make that two; it also sent six youth delegates to the ITF Congress out of a total 35 delegates.

“The youth movement is gaining traction www.mua.org.au

with twice as many youth attending this year’s NSU congress,” Hansen noted.

One major difference, Hansen pointed out, was that one of the guest speakers was a member of the conservative government and another was the head of a major business.

“I found it very strange that there was someone from the right wing government and a company CEO speaking at the congress. But I guess better the devil you know than the devil you don’t,” he said.

Hansen also described Paddy Crumlin’s speech that was delivered on day three.

“You could have heard a pin drop. Paddy commands attention, as the MUA commands respect. The way he speaks and draws in a crowd and speaks so fluently about the ITF and the fight we have, can only be described as inspirational,” Hansen said.

“Coming home from this trip only makes me want to get more involved in the union. I want to create a career path within the union and to keep on fighting for workers’ rights in Australia and around the world.”

The MUA contingent got the NSU to swear the White Ribbon Oath.

Excerpt From Louise Ryall’s Report “Just like Australia, the NSU is facing a major struggle ahead of them,” Ryall said.

One of the major issues she identified, which also resonated in Australia, was the prolific use of Flag of Convenience (FOC) ships.

“Data from the Bureau of Statistics showed that a third of Norwegian shipping is Flag of Convenience,” she said.

The current membership of the NSU sits at 10,773. Officials and delegates go out to recruit members and win prizes for signing the most people.

“A good strategy they have is to initially approach people while at school doing their training and offer them free membership while studying, so they can see the benefits of the union and fees start once the individual begins receiving a wage,” Ryall said.

Phil Hansen and Ryall met with the Youth Committee of the NSU over several days. “it was great to meet all the youth at the congress and discuss the similarities between the current political environment in Norway and Australia,” Ryall said.

Ryall took particular interest in the union’s election process, noting how reserved the event was: “Democracy is alive in the NSU, albeit different from ours; less robust one would say. But it was a unique experience to see.”

Ryall said she had learned a lot from the experience and was grateful she was able to participate.

“The similarities between the struggles of the NSU and the MUA are incredible. Seeing the time and effort that has been put in by the NSU and the ITF has been amazing. They are a great Union and their solidarity with the MUA is a great thing,” she said.

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INTERNATIONAL

MUA CALLS FOR AUST RESOURCES COMPANY TO DROP LAW SUIT

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rade union officials are calling on all unionists, environmentalists and anyone with a social conscience to support the people of El Salvador in their sovereign right to dictate land use in their Central American country.

The nation is being sued in a World Bank tribunal by Canadian miner Pacific Rim (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Australian-based Oceana Gold), after the Government did not grant the company a mining permit.

Maritime Union of Australia Victoria Branch Secretary Kevin Bracken has been raising awareness on the campaign – Water Not Gold – after he visited El Salvador on a fact-finding mission last year.

Bracken said it was unconscionable and imperialistic that an Australian resources company would bully a developing nation into granting it a mining licence.

“The Salvadorian people have spoken and they have chosen clean water for their children over the short-term and limited benefits of a gold mine,” he said. “Oceana Gold should respect that choice and immediately drop the law suit.”

The Salvadorian Government is being sued under a little known Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) clause. Australia is also at risk under ISDS clauses that are written into the recently signed Korea Australia Free Trade Agreement and are likely to be included in the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA).

These agreements are negotiated in secret

Peak hour in Martin Place: Sydney Branch Assistant Secretary Joe Deakin spoke about the inherent unfairness of a company suing a developing nation.

and their contents cannot be disclosed until they have been signed off by the Trade Minister.

“They circumvent the democratic process in this country and are no more than a corporate takeover,” Bracken said.

MUA Sydney Branch Secretary Paul McAleer said the TPP and ISDS were something that all Australians should oppose, as it impinges on sovereignty.

“What if, one day, Australia decided to nationalise mining?” McAleer asked. “Surely we, as a nation, should have the ability to

make that choice. But then we risk getting sued into bankruptcy by some multi-billion dollar corporation.

“It just shows that under this capitalist system, corporations have more rights than governments - and even more worryingly, people.”

On September 5 simultaneous rallies were held at World Bank Headquarters in Sydney and at the Oceana Gold offices in Melbourne.

A rally is held on the final Friday of every month at Oceana Gold.

COALITION FOR GOOD JOBS HAS WIN IN PNG

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he Papua New Guinea Government back-flipped on its decision to privatise a slew of assets, in the wake of a successful campaign by three local unions, supported by the ITF. The unions – the Energy Workers Union, Maritime and Transport Workers Union and National Airline Employees Association – formed a coalition to keep some of the country’s biggest companies, including PNG Power, PNG Ports and Air Nuigini, in public hands.

At the time, ITF president Paddy Crumlin warned against the privatising of state assets, particularly if it was to the detriment of local employment.

“PNG Government-owned companies

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have provided stable, long-term employment with good conditions for many years,” Crumlin said. “It would be unacceptable if those jobs and conditions were undermined during a change in ownership.

“Workers should be the first and foremost consideration, not an afterthought.”

Shannon O’Keeffe, campaigns director from the ITF office in Sydney, flew to Port Moresby to attend the joint union meeting.

After the media picked up on the campaign, the Government approached the unions for a meeting and committed to not pursuing its privatisation campaign.

“It was amazing: one second the government is going to put thousands of jobs at risk and the next second local

unions are meeting with the Prime Minister himself, who assured the unions that he would not go ahead with his original plan if this was the case,” O’Keeffe said.

www.mua.org.au

INTERNATIONAL

CHARGES DROPPED AGAINST MEXICAN UNION LEADER

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he Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) has welcomed news that Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, President and General Secretary of the National Mine and Metal Workers Union, Los Mineros, has finally had all criminal charges against him dropped by a court in Mexico.

In a unanimous decision issued in open court on 28 August, the Fourth Collegiate Tribunal for Criminal Matters of the First Circuit in the Federal District ruled that the government’s criminal charge against Gómez, based on the dissolution of a union trust fund in 2005, was baseless and unconstitutional.

This is the eleventh time the Mexican government charged Gómez with the same offence and the eleventh time the appellate courts have ruled in his favour. The Mexican Attorney General’s office announced that it would respect the decision, which cannot be appealed.

Gómez, 70, is a hero to many in the global labor movement, having won workers big wage increases, and been a thorn in the side of one of Mexico’s most powerful mining firms and its allies in the former ruling conservative party.

TRADE UNION WINS IN AQABA DISPUTE

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he ITF (International Transport Workers’ Federation) announced that port workers at the Aqaba Container Terminals (ACT) facility in Jordan run by APM Terminals have gained a victory, following international protests against a police roundup of union members.

Workers represented by the ITF-affiliated General Union of Port Workers went on strike over contract changes and ACT management’s failure to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement, due since July.

Almost as soon as the strike began, police raided the site and arrested 150, including the union’s leaders.

Despite this, and the attempted preprepared use of strikebreakers, the union – buoyed by support from the ITF and its affiliated unions in the region and globally – maintained its strike. www.mua.org.au

Since leaving Mexico in 2006, shortly after authorities opened an investigation into him, Gomez has lived in Vancouver in Canada while continuing to run his union and clashing repeatedly with Mexico’s biggest mining company Grupo Mexico.

The Canadian government ignored requests for his extradition by both the Mexican government and Interpol.

MUA Deputy National Secretary Mick Doleman said all of the unions involved in the Mining and Maritime Initiative had long supported Napoleón and the Mexican miners in their dispute with Grupo Mexico.

Deputy National Secretary Mick Doleman and ACTU president Ged Kearney deliver a petition to the Mexican embassy after a 2012 Canberra rally of solidarity

It has now won its case, including: the company’s waiving all penalties imposed during the strike, in particular rescinding 23 sackings; and a renewed commitment from the Jordanian government to have its grievances addressed by the national labour court.

Paddy Crumlin, ITF president and chair of the ITF dockers’ section, commented: “Everything about this affair smacks of prepreparedness: sudden provocative contract changes, refusal to negotiate, then as soon as industrial action is taken in response, a sudden police raid and the arrival of strikebreakers.

“It looks a lot like an attempt to break the union. Well, the result has been the opposite – the union has won and has been made stronger. It’s being applauded by workforces outside the terminal for its stand and for its

“Having been forced into exile for eight long years, it is fantastic news that Napoleón’s trumped-up charges have finally been dismissed,” Doleman said.

“However the same enemies of the union are still there and are a force to be reckoned, with so Napoleón must stay vigilant.

“The Mexican Government needs to ensure the safety and security of Napoleón and his family.”

IndustriALL Global Union General Secretary Jyrki Raina also welcomed the decision.

“Despite pressure from anti-union companies, the Mexican courts have finally dropped the last criminal charge against Napoleón Gómez,” Raina said.

“It is time to start preparations for Napoleón’s return from his eight-year exile in Canada.

There is so much trade union work to be done in Mexico.

“This is a triumph for the relentless international trade union solidarity campaign, and we look forward to welcoming Gómez at our next Executive in December.”

Gómez’s lawyer Marco del Toro said his client would continue to lead Los Mineros and successfully bargain collective agreements, improving the working conditions of the union members.

“Napoleón is already preparing his return to Mexico,” Del Toro said.

strong friendships.”

Mahmoud Mansour, vice president of the General Union of Port Workers, commented: “This victory came not just from our members’ determination, but from the support of the ITF and its affiliates. Our workers never lost sight for a minute of how many colleagues were supporting us across this region and worldwide.”

Paddy Crumlin concluded: “This victory comes at the same time as another one in Bahrain, where Svitzer, which provides services to the terminal run by APMT, had planned to make 11 tugboat crew redundant. There, union action and solidarity, especially from trade unions in the Arab World, has again triumphed, with all 11 either getting their jobs back or choosing to take compensation and voluntary redundancy.”

Left: Sydney Branch Secretary Paul McAleer with Australian ITF Congress delegates and Aqaba port workers in Sofia. Right: Aqaba trade union leaders being arrested

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INTERNATIONAL

USW CONVENTION NEVADA USA: AUGUST 2014

Q

ueensland branch secretary and National President Mick Carr reports: It was with much anticipation that I was able to attend the United Steelworkers Convention held in Las Vegas in Nevada, the most Unionised City in the US from 11-14 August.

The mere size of the Convention was worthy of comment: over 2,500 accredited delegates were booked for attendance; and with a further walk-up number of just over 300 delegates, the auditorium was packed to capacity.

The scale of the conference - given 3000 members were in attendance - suggested there may be challenging moments in order and coordination. But nothing could be further from the fact: it was a precise, well planned and structured event that is a credit to the discipline and application of the formidable program which the USW is prosecuting.

A key speaker at the convention was USWI President Leo Gerard, who in any sense of the word is a fighting, leading innovator, confident in the determination of the USW membership to take forward a program aimed at organising, challenging and lifting working men and women to a place where they become the standard that others want - and will join in what is a well organised, resourced political and Industrial voice of workers in America and Canada.

But the influence of the USW does not constrain itself to those boundaries, and via alliance with UK Unions is part of Workers Uniting - which is an influential, informed and resourceful International presence of progressive Trade Unions.

This was the background and environment of this mighty Union, which takes no prisoners in terms of its political alliance or views in seeking to return the US to the once productive manufacturing power it was. It aims to see working people employed in productive and well paid jobs, instead of standing by while those who control the major capital of the United States continue to sell out manufacturing opportunities and the jobs and futures of millions Americans with it.

The 1% got plenty of attention throughout the conference - that is, the 1% who own and control more in private wealth than the US Government deficit. In fact they control $110 trillion in the US and are intent, through the Republican Tea partiers and Corporations, on attacking everything President Obama has tried to do. Many Corporations spend more

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on lobbying than they pay in tax.

It was sobering to hear Leo Gerard’s assessment of the difficulties faced by US workers - especially in the environment of dismantlement of US manufacturing and offshoring of much of the industry that was so much part of the securing the robust internal US economy, of which American households make up 70%. When people work the economy gets stronger.

The 3,000 delegates and guests for the Convention greeted the United Steelworkers International President Leo Gerard with a standing ovation. In his keynote speech at the MGM Grand, Gerard acknowledged the Union’s achievements in bargaining, trade enforcement and preserving jobs underpinning that the USW is a Union that works.

Gerard warned that the greed and avarice of the one percent who continue to seek to destroy collective bargaining, pauperise working people and promote the wealthy elite are not going away. In just a few months the US elections could see some of the most dangerous right wing anti-worker elements with majorities in both Chambers.

Gerard went on to say the only way is ”organizing and political action”, because the only way to change people’s minds about the value of unions is to share their vision for a better life and offer them a way to achieve it.

Gerard noted that, without activism at all levels, from brain-storming to getting out on the streets to new ideas about how to organise more effectively, we won’t stop the one percent from turning our children into pawns in a global board game of shameless greed.

Nancy Pelosi entered the Convention Hall to a rock star welcome and very quickly got to the point of the link between the ballot box and the bread box. She went into detail about the massive tax breaks offered by the Republicans to Corporations for moving US jobs overseas.

She acknowledged the tremendous influence of the USW and drew the link between the political Industrial environments, stating that every good thing that has happened to working families in the US in the last 100 years has happened because of the union movement.

Tom Mulcair, Canada’s opposition leader of the New Democratic Party, described the inseparable link between the New Democrats and Steel.

Mulcair is leader of the Government-inwaiting as the 2015 election approaches, and enjoys the highest approval rating among Canadians (compared to other leaders) at 54%.

The United Steelworkers was a founding partner in the New Democratic Party’s creation in 1961 and there is a sense of a turning point in history as the Canadian election draws closer.

Mulcair described the current conservative and previous Liberal Governments’ legislation as regressive and being responsible for levels of poverty and inequality not seen since the Great Depression.

Delegates voted unanimously to renew the USW’s commitment to work for social and economic justice at all levels in the US and Canada. “A Union that works” directs its policy to fighting for full employment, decent wages and the end to economic inequality that flows from deregulation, de unionisation and race to the bottom globalisation.

The Rev Dr William Barber raised the decibel level of the convention floor with a stirring speech invoking the memory of Dr Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders, and the struggle of the 1950s and 1960s during the height of the Civil Rights movement.

He emphasised that Civil Rights struggles and Labor Rights struggles are one and the same; and if our enemies - the bigots, the racists, the huge Corporations that divide us and segregate us - work together against us, we ought to be smart enough to work together against them.

He spoke with plenty of humor about having to venture into Mitchell County in the US South to preach - a place where 99% of residents are white and 79% Republican, but it had to be done (just not at night time).

Rev Barber is responsible for launching the Moral Monday movement in his home State against policies that hurt working families. Since the Moral Monday protests commenced in April 2013, the movement has spread across the American South where working families are under relentless attack from the Right, which controls most State Governments.

Barber was a powerful presence in his own right, but the message was clear as with all speakers: that unity is key.

Delegates unanimously approved the political Activism resolution calling on “all USW members to commit to engage in the www.mua.org.au

INTERNATIONAL struggle against right wing suppression of worker’s rights in both the US and Canada”.

UK Union leader Tony Burke spoke on the success of “Worker’s Uniting”: the partnership between Unite and the USW. Worker’s Uniting was formed in 2008 to challenge multinational corporations and combat inequality and right wing austerity policies on both sides of the Atlantic.

Burke explained how global solidarity had aided in international campaigns, including support for Crown workers in Toronto, Kimberely Clark, International Paper, Huhtamaki, Cooper Tyre, Dow Chemical, Honeywell and Rio Tinto. He particularly highlighted the campaign to stop Rio Tinto from providing metal for the 2012 London Olympic medals during the company’s lockout of workers in Alma Quebec. The dispute was settled just before the Olympics started.

(The MUA was also engaged in international support for this campaign.)

Delegates unanimously supported the resolution calling for the continuation of efforts to build International Solidarity among workers and their Unions, to challenge right wing governments and corporations and achieve social and economic justice and a sustainable environment for all. It is clear International Solidarity is the only solution in standing up to anti-worker, anti-democratic corporations and their political lackies worldwide.

Napoleon Gomez, leader of Los Mineros Mexico’s National Union of Mine, Metal, Steel and Allied workers - while being denied entry into the US to attend the USW International Convention, addressed the convention via video.

With the support of the USW, Napoleon Gomez has lived in Canada since 2006.

Napoleon has repeatedly been re-elected in absentia by his membership.

His ongoing commitment to his members and his union, while facing bogus charges, is an inspiration to all said Leo Gerard, describing Gomez as a “true Labor hero of the international working class”.

Napoleon Gomez was represented at the convention by his wife Oralia, his son Napoleon, assistant Sergio Arrambide and another Los Mineros senior leader Sergio Beltran.

The plight of US manufacturing was driven home in a short address by District 12 President Bob Lebantor. He described the loss of 6 million jobs in the manufacturing sector, and 600,000 in Canada. In the last month of the Bush Administration 700,000 jobs were lost, yet the ‘Banksters’ of Wall Street survived.

Once the entrenched ground of the automobile Industry, and brands like Firestone and others, the US tyre industry has www.mua.org.au

suffered greatly with 50 million cheap tyres from China being dumped on the US market having a dramatic effect on the Industry. Just 13 years after China joined the WTO, jobs in the US have fallen significantly as the global struggle for manufactured goods heats up.

This was not criticism of Chinese workers, but of the huge corporations promoting it at the cost of US jobs at home.

In the Rio dispute in Alma Quebec, over half of the town marched in support of the locked-out unionists. The world’s third largest miner was offering half union pay and less benefits for one of its most productive enterprises; and at the same time being treated like a good corporate citizen by the Canadian Government, which basically gifted water resources to the company and then used taxpayer’s money to buy it back.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told the convention that America is losing middle class jobs from Montana to the Gulf of Mexico, from Ontario to the Californian coast. From fast food to forged steel and everywhere in between, more and more people are raising the issue of economic and social inequality.

Workers have suffered badly since the economic recovery: hourly pay rates have risen by only 0.1% from June 2009 through March 2014 despite productivity having increased by 6.5%, with most of the benefits provided by workers’ increased productivity going to corporate profits.

Working people globally are beginning to see that the only way to economic equality is through collective strategy and action via Unions that work.

Convention speakers also included US Congressman Mike Michaud, Senate majority leader Harry Reid, Lucineide Varjao (President of the Brazilian National Confederation of Chemical Workers), German union leader Michael Vassiliadis, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Niki Ashton (one of Canada’s youngest Parliamentary members, elected when she was 26 years of age) and Congressman Mike Mischer.

President Obama also addressed the Convention via video, which underpins the significance and respect the United Steelworkers are held in. Obama called for unity as the US heads into November and cited the Republicans preparedness to stall the US Government recently by halting money supply as a desperate and irresponsible act that damaged the US economy, and will stop at nothing to take control of the White House.

The Convention was not just a demonstration of a “Union that works” at work. It was testimony to a progressive union - not content with having been successful yesterday, but setting strategy and policy through its rank and file to ensure it is even

more influential in the US and Canada and globally, through its growing alliances and International influence going forward.

The International Executive Board of the USW led by Leo Gerard is a powerful presence industrially, which has forged political, social and civil rights alliances that see the USW as a rallying point for all that needs to be changed in order to progress the agenda for economic and social justice, in an environment where transnational corporations are sucking the life out of the productivity gains being achieved by the American and Canadian working class.

The USW is focused, resourced and determined. Gerard reported there had been 967,000 hits on social media on the first day of the convention, and 6.7million page hits by the third day.

Gerard is the son of a union miner; his leadership has assisted in bringing more than 300,000 new members into the union since taking office as International President in 2001. He describes as “the theory of Zombies” the disinvestment in manufacturing and reliance on capital to create employment and prosperity for working class Americans.

Gerard reminded the convention of the way capital responded to workers’ demands in 1937, when 260 police fired on Steelworkers on Chicago’s east side. The massacre saw 10 killed and 9 permanently disabled, “and they would do the same now if they thought they could get away with it”.

There were initially 474 resolutions listed at the convention; and the political Industrial debate was in every aspect of discussion. It is 30 years on from the stated aims of Reagan and Thatcher; but the fact is working families have never suffered as much, and inequality has never been as bad, as exampled in Toronto, Canada’s largest city where 50% of households cannot rely on a full-time job.

The United Steel Workers is a mighty union. This conference saw more young people attend than for 20 years; and there were more women at this convention that at any time in the history of the USW. Approx 85 International guests were in attendance, representing 47 unions from 25 countries.

The convention was an outstanding success: disciplined, determined and resolute in the work ahead, and led by an enigmatic and informed International President in Leo Gerard.

The MUA was proudly represented after an invitation was extended to National Secretary Paddy Crumlin, who was unable to attend due to the ITF Congress taking place on concurrent dates. Every issue spoken about was our issue, whether it be Industrial political, social or international. It was a privilege to witness a “Union That Works” at work at the USW International Convention.

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INDEPENDENT AUDITOR'S REPORT TO THE MEMBERS OF THE MARITIME UNION OF AUSTRALIA AND ITS SUBSIDIARY AND BRANCHES Report on the Concise Consolidated Financial Report The accompanying concise consolidated financial report of The Maritime Union of Australia and its Subsidiary and Branches (the "Union") comprises the statement of financial position, the statement of comprehensive income, statement of changes in members equity and statement of cash flows, derived from the audited consolidated financial report of the Union for year then ended 30 June 2014. The concise consolidated financial report does not contain all the disclosures required by the Australian Accounting Standards.

National Council's Responsibility for the Consolidated Concise Financial Report The National Council is responsible for the preparation of the consolidated financial report in accordance with the Australian Accounting Standards AASB 1039 concise consolidated Financial Reports and the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act 2009 and for such internal control as the Committee of Management determine is necessary to enable the preparation of the concise consolidated financial report that is free from material misstatements, whether due to fraud or error.

Auditor's Responsibility Our responsibility is to express an opinion on the financial report based on our audit. We conducted our audit in accordance with Australian Auditing Standards. Those standards require that we comply with relevant ethical requirements relating to audit engagements and plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance whether the financial report is free from material misstatement. Our audit report on the financial report for the year was not subject to any modification. The Australian Auditing Standards require that we comply with relevant ethical requirements relating to audit engagements and plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance whether the financial report is free from material misstatements.

Our procedures in respect of the concise consolidated financial report included testing that the information in the concise consolidated financial report is derived from, and is consistent with the consolidated financial report for the year, and examination on a test basis, of evidence supporting the amounts and other disclosures which were not directly derived from the financial report for the year. These procedures have been undertaken to form an opinion whether, in all material respects, the concise consolidated financial report complies with Accounting Standard AASB 1039 Concise Consolidated Financial Reports.

We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our audit opinion.  

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www.mua.org.au

REPORT

Independence In conducting our audit, we have complied with the independence requirements of the Corporations Act 2001, APES 110 - Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants and the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act 2009.

Opinion In our opinion the concise consolidated financial report of the Maritime Union of Australia and its subsidiary and branches for the year ended 30 June 2014 complies with Australian Accounting Standards AASB 1039 concise consolidated Financial Reports and the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act 2009.

As part of the audit of the financial statements, we have concluded that the council's use of the going concern basis of accounting in the preparation of the financial statements is appropriate.

In accordance with the Reporting Guidelines for the purposes of Section 253, the following declarations are made in reference to the auditor: i.

is a registered company auditor and a director of Harveys Accounting Pty

ii.

is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia, and holds a current Public Practice Certificate.

Harveys Accountants

__________________________ David P. Robinson, FCPA Principal

Dated this 3rd day of November 2014

Level 3 2 Bulletin Place SYDNEY NSW 2000

www.mua.org.au

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THE MARITIME UNION OF AUSTRALIA AND ITS SUBSIDIARY  CONCISE FINANCIAL REPORT 

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 JUNE 2014



                 



         

         

              

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 

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

 

 



 

 



 

 



 

 



 

 



 

 



 

 

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 

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 

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 

 

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

  



 























 

 



 

 



 

 

 

 



 











 







 

 



 

 

 

 









 





 

 

 













 

 



 

 



 





 

 

 











  





 



 



 

























 











 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

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THE MARITIME UNION OF AUSTRALIA REPORT AND ITS SUBSIDIARY CONCISE FINANCIAL REPORT



FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 JUNE 2014

 



   

 

 

 

   

                



  

 



  

 



  

 

  

 



     



 

 





  





  



  

 

  

        

     



  

 



  

 



  

 



  

 

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  

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  

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 

     

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  

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 

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www.mua.org.au

When you need n a c u o y , e ic v d a good . n io n u r u o y n o t coun We’re proud to have been chosen by the MUA as the health fund for their members!

As a union member, you can enjoy special value health cover with one of Australia’s oldest mutual funds. The MUA health plan exists to benefit members – NOT shareholders!

Plus, when you join, you’ll collect a • $100 grocery or fuel voucher for trusting your health cover to us.

• And we’ll waive your two and three-month waiting periods!

1300 287 609

Call Email mua@rthealthfund.com.au Visit www.rthealthfund.com.au/mua.html

© RT Health Fund 2014 1114/2938

Maritime Super is the largest industry fund of its kind, dedicated to the maritime industry. Over the years, we’ve delivered innovative super and retirement benefits to our members. Today, Maritime Super looks after more than 30,000 members and over $4 billion in assets.

Maritime Super has a proud history of serving the maritime industry. We’re committed to building lifelong relationships with members throughout their working years and into retirement. Our goal is to help members make the right decisions now to secure financial freedom in the future.

Some of the many benefits of membership include: Profit-for-members philosophy – as an industry fund, we are run only for the benefit of members. Our members are the reason we’re here, and we never lose sight of this.

Quality member education – we’re committed to helping members make informed decisions about super through a suite of member communications such as the website, fact sheets, newsletters and seminars.

Strong investment performance – our investment strategy is focused on long-term fundamentals and diversification across a range of asset classes, sectors, regions and managers – delivering strong investment returns to our members.

Access to financial advice – our team of financial planners is available to members across the country. Our planners operate on a fee-for-service basis and are paid by salary, with no ongoing commissions.

Competitive fees – our size allows us to negotiate competitive fee arrangements otherwise not available to individual investors or self-managed funds.

A range of pension options – we offer a range of pension products including an allocated pension, transition to retirement pension and fixed term pension.

A range of investment options – we offer a range of diversified and sector investment options to offer members flexibility and choice when it comes to investing their super.

Lifetime membership – members can stay with the Fund even when they change jobs, leave the maritime industry altogether or retire.

Maritime Super values our relationships with members and employers – building our future together.

For more information about Maritime Super, visit our website at www.maritimesuper.com.au Issued by Maritime Financial Services Pty Limited, ABN 16 105 319 202, AFSL 241735. This document provides general information only. It is current at the date of issue and may be subject to change.