What's behind MUA rank-and-file revival?
MELBOURNE â Community radio 3CR's Friday Breakfast Show interviewed Chris Cain and Ian Bray from the WA Maritime Union of Australia Rank and File on February 5. The interview, conducted by Susan Price, has been edited by Green Left Weekly. The program invited the Victorian branch of the MUA to exercise its right of reply as a 3CR affiliate. The Victorian MUA declined on the grounds that it is "bound by MUA rules which outline election procedures, and use of media in election campaigns, which are an internal matter according to MUA rules".
Question: There hasn't been a history of rank-and-file organisation in the MUA. Why was it necessary to form this group now?
Chris Cain: This movement's about giving MUA members back some control over where their union should be going. We were disillusioned to the point that if nothing was done, we'd be a union in name only.
Question: That statement probably comes as a shock to many 3CR listeners, many of whom would have been involved in supporting the MUA during the Patrick dispute. Why this vote of no confidence in the MUA leadership?
CC: Our growth reflects the disillusionment and discontent among members over the loss of conditions that have taken 100 years of struggle to win.
Ian Bray: This movement is about coordinating higher levels of membership participation and encouraging debate without fear of reprisal: basically to give the union back to the members.
Take the Patrick dispute. The disappointment wasn't so much in the dispute, where there was total unity, but the overall outcome. Nine judges out of 10 ruled in favour of reinstatement, and the government's involvement in the conspiracy was being exposed more every day. Yet we struck a deal to drop the charges against Reith and accepted a drastic worsening of working conditions.
Question: Your literature refers to a seafarers' delegates conference held in Sydney in November 1997. Why was that so important?
CC: Look at the decisions: to abandon our long-service leave in the "blue water" [deep sea shipping]; for 300-400 seafarers' jobs to go; abandonment of the industry roster and acceptance of company employment; loss of our pick-up money [allowance paid while seafarers were rostered available for work] and also of shipowner payments into our superannuation retirement fund while on the pick-up.
This was sold as a union contribution to the future of the industry, to be matched by the shipowners and the government. Yet in the 14 months since, Reith has delivered absolutely nothing: ships are going over the horizon at a phenomenal rate.
So, what's the alternative? First, another meeting of rank-and-file delegates should have been held months ago, as soon as it became clear that the government and the shipowners weren't in good faith.
We ask [national secretary] John Coombs and [deputy national secretary] Paddy Crumlin: how long do we have to wait before you wake up to the fact that the government isn't going to deliver the money to prop up the shipping industry? The Coalition wants flag of convenience ships on the Australian coast, and it wants to eliminate cabotage and any participation from rank-and-file MUA members.
Second, we believe that there should be an industrial campaign. If that means taking the government on to stop rust bucket ships, so be it. If it takes a week in Sydney to sit down and develop such a plan, well and good. But we're not prepared to be stood over and watch these ships, our jobs and our conditions go.
IB: In conceding company employment, we handed a powerful weapon to the shipowners. Members are now coming home, having two weeks' leave, and find themselves being told to get back to sea; otherwise they're classed as terminating their own employment.
We're also finding that some members can't get jobs at all while others are fully booked: we're losing the ability to fight the shipowners when they decide to discriminate against members. It's also a roundabout way to bring in casualisation.
Question: In the MUA Rank and File Bulletin, you stress union democracy. Given the decision to phase out 10 elected official positions before the 1999 elections, how do you plan to improve the MUA's democratic functioning?
CC: I would like to ask John Coombs why we now have a number of ex-Australian Workers Union officials working as unelected organisers when they keep saying that we've got no money to keep 10 elected officials. It doesn't make sense to me or the membership except as part of a poaching and pre-election exercise.
We won't be suppressing the views and resolutions of MUA members â as has happened in WA. For example, there was three hours of debate at the October stop-work meeting in Fremantle on the MUA's handling of the sacking of 34 P&O members at Dampier last year. I moved a motion, which was carried 100-3, that an apology to the Dampier wharfies for the inappropriate way that issue was handled be placed in the Maritime Workers' Journal.
Because they didn't get the vote they wanted, it wasn't put in the journal.
Question: Is this movement limited to WA?
CC: There will be a ticket against the incumbent officials in Sydney, south Queensland and in WA, and I have no doubt in other branches, as well as nationally. The issues will be sorted out internally by the union membership, but we take this opportunity to invite the incumbent officials to debate the issues.
[A full version of this interview is available on the National MUA Rank and File web page,