BY IAN JAMIESON
FREMANTLE In a massive jolt for incumbent officials, rank-and-file activists in the Maritime Union of Australia have won a number of positions in the union's national quadrennial elections, including the WA state secretary position.
By June 22, six full-time MUA officials seemed certain to lose their jobs. In Melbourne, an opposition ticket made a clean sweep of all positions, two of three positions have fallen in WA, and the Rank and File ticket won more than 40% nationally.
A higher-than-usual 64% of members voted nationally, climbing to over 75% in WA.
The Rank and File ticket gave MUA members an opportunity to oppose the union's tame-cat leadership.
In WA, where it is strongest, the ticket contested all three branch positions, but it also stood three candidates for national positions, two candidates for the central NSW branch and supported challengers in Victoria and South Australia.
The Rank and File's Chris Cain was elected as WA state secretary with 58.7% of the vote, trouncing incumbent Wally Pritchard's 36.5%. Pritchard will now also vacate the Unions WA presidency.
Cain's running mate Ian Bray was slightly ahead of his rival by June 22, with 39.87%, and is likely to be elected as an assistant branch secretary. Cain and Bray have been active seafarers for many years and stood in the 1999 election.
Cain, a national executive member of the Socialist Alliance, is well known as a militant unionist throughout the WA labour movement.
The Fremantle Rank and File committee had up to 30 MUA members attending its weekly meetings. The three WA candidates travelled thousands of kilometres to address dozens of meetings. Thousands of dollars were raised for the campaign, and the ticket's policies were distributed throughout the state. The campaign launch was attended by 350 people.
Seafarers and wharfies with decades in the industry ran alongside others on the ticket with just a few years in the industry. In WA, the ticket included a long-time ALP member as well as an independent militant and a Socialist Alliance member.
The union's national leadership will be alarmed by the strong vote for relatively unknown candidates standing against sitting union officials.
Roy Atkins, for example, garnered 41% of the vote, running for assistant national secretary against incumbent official Jim Tannock. In WA, Atkins out-polled Tannock, who helped get through a P&O enterprise bargaining agreement that traded conditions without a fight.
The Rank and File's Hakan Taulla, a wharfie from Patrick's Webb Dock in Melbourne, out-polled the incumbents in Victoria, but did not garner enough votes nationally to win the position.
The vote has been a slap in the face for MUA officials, many of whom are involved in the conservative Maritime Union Socialist Activities Association.
For example, Shane Bentley, a casual wharfie working for Sydney's White Bay P&O, polled 44% against MUSAA member Robert Coombs for NSW central branch secretary, despite being relatively new to the industry. Bentley had led opposition to the P&O EBA at White Bay.
Bentley's running mate, Eddie King, with 38 years' experience on the wharves, was one of seven candidates for two assistant branch secretary positions. King and Bentley missed out on the positions.
Incumbent assistant branch secretary Barry Robson lost his position. The new assistant branch secretaries will be Communist Party of Australia leader Warren Smith and Paul Garrett, who is the son of a retiring deputy branch secretary.
NSW MUSAA member Sean Chaffer was soundly defeated by former Patrick wharfie Glen Wood in the contest for the deputy secretary position.
MUSAA officials have regarded the union as their territory for many years, excluding rank-and-file activists from any meaningful role.
Members have been resentful about officials not representing them effectively in employer negotiations officials appear determined to keep the peace at all costs. Many MUA members are also concerned about the weakening, or vanishing, of delegate structures on the job.
MUSAA's approach is to not rock the boat, in the hope that a future federal ALP government will come to workers' aid.
The election results reflect the growing anger of maritime workers, whose workplace rights and conditions are under unrelenting attack from shipping and stevedoring companies, at the union's failure to fight.
Increased casualisation is at the core of the discontent. Since the Patrick dispute in 1998, the percentage of full-time permanent workers on the wharves has fallen from more than 70% to well under 50%.
Enterprise agreements negotiated by the union have fallen well below expectations. Far too often conditions are traded off.
Employers appear to be working together to ensure union militants do not get employment. In most cases, the union refused to meet such sackings with industrial action.
The MUA incumbents have had no effective strategy to counter the government's legal attacks, and thus the union has copped huge fines. Atomisation continues to plague the MUA, with divisions between permanents and casuals, wharfies and seafarers.
The Rank and File's policies emphasise returning the union to the members. There is no "white knight" who can resolve MUA members' problems. A fighting union must rely on the ranks democratically discussing action, and collectively deciding what to do.
Work force casualisation will not end overnight. The WA rank and file team therefore offered a plan to pool casual labour across the port. Pooled labour uses the existing work force to counter labour-hire companies.
Another important plank of the Rank and File's platform is for a common push for enterprise agreements across the industry. Because agreements are separately negotiated with each employer, maritime bosses can use divide-and-rule tactics to whittle away conditions.
The Rank and File also advocates training and empowering job delegates. This will help improve safety conditions, which are a major problem in shipping and stevedoring.
In short the Rank and File policies call for a return to the traditional values of militant unionism that took decades to build in the Waterside Workers Federation and the Seamen's Union of Australia (the forerunners of the MUA).
These sentiments were echoed in the jubilant atmosphere of the celebrations towards the close of the ballot in Fremantle on June 20. Hundreds poured in to the Fremantle Club to hear the successful candidates.
To rousing cheers, Cain proclaimed this was a victory for the members of the MUA. Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union WA state secretary Kevin Reynolds told the gathering that "No-one realises the full impact of the victory we're celebrating tonight. The victory will have a broader impact beyond the MUA. It will help change the union movement in WA. It is part of a growing challenge to the intimidation of unions and unionists by governments and employers."
Visiting union activist Craig Johnston, former state secretary of the Victorian branch of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, declared the election result to "be a warning to all union officials who feel comfortable in ignoring the building anger in their ranks".
He added that "this victory tonight for Chris Cain, who is a member of the Socialist Alliance like myself, will have all of the time-serving union officials who are just waiting their turn to jump into parliament worried". Johnston was scathing of the ALP leaders and their minions in the union hierarchy and praised the role the Socialist Alliance has played in building a militant political current in the union movement.
[Ian Jamieson is convenor of the WA MUA Rank and File committee.]<|> From Green Left Weekly, June 25, 2003.
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