BY SARAH STEPHEN
The Australian Workers Union went before the Industrial Relations Commission on July 16 to seek guarantees of a safe working environment for a group of its members. Nothing new in that - except that the members in this case were 90 of the 115 camp guards at the Port Hedland immigration detention centre.
AWU spokesperson Paul Asplin told the July 2 West Australian, "Detainees at Port Hedland have frightened women security guards with threats to hunt them down and rape and kill them and their children."
Guards of both sexes apparently fear that one of them might be maimed or killed during a riot by detainees. "The death of a staff member is a real possibility", Asplin said, citing a shortage of trained officers, inadequate protective equipment and long working hours as prime safety concerns.
"I am told there has already been one hostage situation which was hushed up", Asplin continued.
Security concerns, health worries and unresolved assault and sexual harassment complaints are among a string of issues the AWU will raise before the commission in Perth.
But whose safety is really at threat in these detention centres?
In June, a young Palestinian man died from gastric cancer after seven months in detention, raising serious questions about why it took so long to identify his condition and admit him to a hospital.
A union has a responsibility to campaign for better working conditions for its members - but it seems this particular union is also perpetuating some ugly myths about asylum seekers, especially those from the Middle East.
Firstly, the AWU overstates the level of violence towards guards. There is a power relationship in the centres, and it's not asylum seekers who have power over guards.
Australasian Correctional Management guards control every aspect of life for detainees. They have the capacity to report people to the immigration department for behaviour which might affect their applications, a capacity which they have made use of.
Secondly, the AWU makes no reference to the context in the detention centres - the reasons for the violence that does occur. The media, too, report when guards in the detention centres are assaulted, but rarely provide any information about why.
The recent report by the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, which included extensive tours of detention centres by committee members, documented a range of anecdotes which give a picture of the dehumanising, prison-like conditions and the lack of respect handed out by guards.
In Port Hedland, a man on hunger strike, who was in isolation with his child, was not allowed to wash his child for 13 days because regulations said the shower could only be occupied by one person at a time. They were only allowed 45 minutes of sunlight a day.
In Woomera, a sick person could not get a meal sent to an accommodation block, an ACM staff member removed a TV set from the women's centre to watch a program of his choice, when the women had wanted to watch a particular program on SBS. Mail is allegedly opened and checked, and, during the fire in 2000, a detainee alleges that ACM did nothing for about 25 minutes until the TV cameras arrived.
At Villawood, one detainee said he had seen ACM guards bash many people. Another accused ACM staff of provoking detainees until they "lose it". A request for toilet paper has to be put in writing and detainees have to wait, sometimes for an hour at a time, for the request to be actioned.
There have also been allegations of physical abuse of several Chinese asylum seekers at Villawood by ACM staff on April 27. Detainees report use of unnecessary force hile being transferred within the centre. One detainee, who says he offered no resistance, was dragged along a corridor by his hair for 30 metres. Following the incident, medical treatment was withheld or delayed.
Assaults on ACM guards by detained asylum seekers, to the extent that they occur, appear to happen most commonly as a result of provocation.
In May, it was reports of the handcuffing and bashing of a 15-year-old Iraqi boy which sparked a riot - which was quelled by ACM guards and then followed by a military-style raid carried out by 170 riot police and ACM guards.
If the AWU wants to protect the safety of its members who guard the detention camps, there's a better solution than calling for better training and more "protective equipment".
That solution is to call for the centres to be closed down entirely - and for staff to be re-employed in more humane and socially useful jobs.