Jenny Long, Sydney
Chris Cain, the new, militant, secretary of the Western Australian branch of the Maritime Union of Australia, spoke to 80 people at a public meeting in Sydney on March 18. He discussed the recent successes of the WA MUA branch in winning back members and conditions.
Speaking alongside Cain were NSW union militants Susan Price, vice-president of the National Tertiary Education Union branch at the University of NSW, and John Morris, a Teachers Federation state councillor and a member of the Activist Teachers Network.
Cain, who was elected last June, said that the most difficult dispute so far faced by the new WA branch was with Woodside Petroleum over the use of Third World seafarers, on Third World wages, to service its offshore platforms. The dispute resulted in the loss of $20 million by Woodside, before it reached an agreement with the MUA on the payment of award wages to all its employees.
The dispute led to the first legal injunction against Cain under Section 127 of the Workplace Relations Act (WRA), which provides for massive fines and jail of unionists.
Cain attributed the WA MUA branch's successes to giving back control and decision-making to rank-and-file members, rebuilding the members' confidence in the union's ability to take on the bosses, renewing delegate structures, and taking on the issue of casualisation that has split the workforce between permanents and casuals, and undermined conditions.
Cain urged all those in attendance to support Craig Johnston, the militant former Victorian secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union who is facing trial on May 10 on a raft of charges related to his defence of his members' interests in defiance of the WRA.
A member of the Socialist Alliance, Cain explained that he has a different view of how the MUA should relate to the ALP from that of the union's national officials, who are pinning all their hopes on a Labor victory in this year's federal election.
While supporting Labor over the Liberals, Cain argued that workers should be getting more from Labor for such support than just promises of minor improvements, for example, to the WRA.
The influence of the ALP in the unions was strongly criticised by both Price and Morris. The explained how their unions have been unwilling to show strong political leadership on behalf of their members, preferring backroom deals and a conciliatory approach that doesn't publicly embarrass the ALP leadership.
They noted that this has led to serious problems for unions in the NSW public sector, where attacks have been raining down on workers from the state Labor government, and are only expected to get worse after the May state budget.
From Green Left Weekly, March 24, 2004.
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