http://www.mua.org.au/events/460_20080513.html

Back in the Gate: Howard Gone- MUA Here to Stay!

Event date: 31 May 2008
Type:
Location: Brett Park, Five Dock
Time: 11am-4pm
Cost: Free
The Sydney Branch of the MUA invites all members and their families to celebrate the 10 year anniversay of the return to work of Patrick workers with a family carnival and picnic day.

It is hard to believe that 10 years has passed since the Howard Government, Patrick owner Chris Corrigan and others engaged in their criminal conspiracy against the MUA to shed the Australian waterfront of unionised labour.

On April 7 1998, hundreds of guards and dogs stormed the wharves under cover of darkness as Patrick boss Chris Corrigan sacked his entire workforce of 2000 men and women nationwide with the aid of balaclava wearing goons and savage attack dogs. The Australian industrial relations landscape would never be the same again. This vicious attack on wharfies was undertaken with the complete support of the then Howard Government.

What followed was a monstrous battle to stop this criminal injustice perpetrated solely because the 2000 sacked wharfies were members of a union. The reactionary attempts to eradicate waterfront unionism failed because the Australian people rejected such inappropriate tactics that were fundamentally at odds with the aspirations of the Australian people who treasure the concept of a "fair go".

THE FREMANTLE PICKETS

The Patrick Lock-out, April 18th, 1998

And we were there, on Fremantle Harbour, in 1998;
A few at first in the dusk of that day as the hours ebbed
Away into advancing darkness; gathered at the gate to face
The threat of coming hostile force. We were one
Of the picket lines, with all hands on deck now
As we battened down for a stormy night

Near the wharves from which maritime workers',
The wharfies, had been driven by thugs with dogs -
The curs of Corrigan - and here outside high fences
We faced the wrecking of our rights, our working lives,
As all around the Australian coast our union, the MUA,
Would be fighting that same bitter battle tonight.

We were the Fremantle picket lines, the night watch
On the barricades of belief, tired out after
Long days and nights, but still there on guard
At the gates, shoulder to shoulder, and we were resolute.
All week we had heard that farmers were coming,
Truck on truck by the hundred to smash through

Our pickets, but we were a union united, we held the line.
We were steel fired in the furnace of solidarity -
Welded in the links of that living human chain -
Because we were shackled by belief to our principles

Disclaimer - This article is being reposted here for informational purposes. It's author doesn't necessarily support the aims of this website and its members.

By Terry Cook - wsws.org, 12 May 2007

An $11.1 billion takeover bid for the Australian airline Qantas collapsed last weekend after the Macquarie Bank-led syndicate, Airline Partners Australia (APA), failed to meet the deadline for acquiring 50 percent of shares—a legal requirement for the offer to continue. If it had succeeded, the takeover would have been one of the largest in Australian corporate history.

Reaching the 50 percent target would have given the consortium a further two weeks to acquire the 70 percent of shares needed to complete the takeover. A final appeal by APA to the Takeovers Panel to allow a late share purchase was rejected this week.

The APA operation—a blatant attempt to plunder the profitable airline—came unstuck when a 4.9 percent parcel owned by Samuel Heyman’s New York-based hedge fund HIA failed to arrive by the deadline of 7 p.m. on May 4. HIA owns 10 percent of Qantas shares valued at $1.1 billion.

War on the Waterfront - Coming soon to ABC TV 28 March 2007.

By MUA news

Maritime workers will be among the stars on tele in coming weeks as the hard hitting ABC doco drama on the 1998 waterfront conspiracy goes to air.

THE BASTARDS ARE COMING

Two Men with everything to lose. One story that shook the nation.

It was the fight that stopped the nation - the 1998 battle for Australia's waterfront. More than just a dispute over reform, it became a war for the hearts and minds of Australians. Controversial, all-consuming and combative, it forced people around the country to pick a side and fight for their beliefs. Political thriller, war epic, buddy movie, love story and courtroom drama rolled into one, BASTARD BOYS is the riveting story of the people behind one of the greatest conflicts in Australia's industrial history.

Over two compelling nights, BASTARD BOYS relives what happened when Chris Corrigan, Managing Director of Patrick Corporation, took on one of the country's most unionised workforces, in a bid to change waterfront practices. On one side is a man determined to instigate change. On the other, an army of workers hell-bent on maintaining their conditions and rights. And in the background, a government intent on pursuing its own agenda. As the drama plays out in the full glare of the public spotlight, there is no room for failure or second chances. Every second counts.

By MUA - 23 March 2007

The giant cranes and straddles that feed international trade on our waterfront stand idle this afternoon, as waterside workers around the nation's ports stop work to honour fallen comrades.

Memorial services are being held in all major ports to coincide with today's Melbourne funeral of Westernport waterside worker, Bob Cumberlidge, 52, who was killed in a work accident on Friday, March 16 at Toll wharf facility. Mr Cumberlidge was the third death in the past 12 months and the second this year, which the union says is completely unacceptable.

"We've been calling for a national stevedoring safety code for the past six months," said Acting National Secretary Mick Doleman. "And absolutely nothing has happened. "Some of our guys didn't come back to work after the last death at Appleton Dock in Melbourne in January. Their wives said it wasn't worth it. They've got young kids. The job's just not safe."

Mr Doleman said the union is calling on federal workplace relations and transport ministers Joe Hockey and Mark Vaile for urgent action.