Ron Perkins, Perth
On April 5, the Maritime Union of Australia led a snap protest involving 300 MUA members against the provocative actions of a number of maritime industry-based companies.
Addressing the rally, MUA state secretary Chris Cain said the protest had been called because companies had now begun to use the Howard government's Work Choices legislation to attack working conditions in the maritime industry. He said these included the use of a foreign-
flagged tug to tow another to Singapore (work done by Australian seafarers for the previous 27 years), a rig that had sacked its marine crews and then put them onto individual contacts (AWAs) without notifying the workers and a barge that was towed into Port Hedland using overseas labour especially flown in by the company.
Cain explained that these actions had occurred despite the MUA recently signing new three-year agreements with these companies.
Led byCain, MUA members and unionists from a number of other unions occupied the foyer of offshore drilling company Transocean to protest the actions of one of its subsidiaries, the South East Drilling Company (Sedco).
Sedco had arranged for a drilling platform to be clandestinely cut free from its moorings in waters off Dampier, where it had been sitting for three years, on the day the Work Choices legislation came into effect. The rig was then towed outside of Australian territorial waters under cover of darkness and on to Singapore without a union crew for refitting.
An MUA delegation met with Transocean management, which made no commitment to replace the Australian-based seafaring jobs that had been lost as a result of its actions.
The company that had advised Sedco and Transocean of the new legal options opened up to employers under the Work Choices legislation, Australian Mines and Metals Association, was also targeted for protest. Speaking outside of the AMMA offices, Australian Manufacturing Workers Union state secretary Jock Ferguson told the protesting workers that the union movement had to work together to defeat the Howard government's attacks and that fellow unions could count on the support of the AMWU and its members.
Cain told the rally that workers in this country needed to look at the example the French workers were setting in opposing their government's anti-worker agenda. To thunderous applause and cheering, Cain then set fire to a copy of the Work Choices legislation.
From Green Left Weekly, April 12, 2006.
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