Transport Workers Solidarity Committee

YouTube - Australia Maritime Workers Memorial Service For Stephen Piper-3 Killed In Five Months
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s398J_R8Vws&feature=sub
MaritimeUnion | July 26, 2010
NSW Premier Kristina Keneally expressed deep sorrow over the death of wharfie Stephen Piper and the awful statistic of 3 deaths on Australian wharves in 5 months.
Filmed, edited and produced by Jamie McMechan Maritime Union Film Unit.

The Premier was visibly moved as Mich-Elle Myers read the email written by Fremantle wharfie Ash Huish, the message encapsulated in "No family should sit and wait at the end of the working day for a loved one who never returns". Ash's words were recited at every service around the country.

Unions leant their support headed by Unions NSW's Secretary Mark Lennon. Wharfies and their families held up banners with the faces of 8 workers killed on the wharves in less than 10 years. One of those bore the smiling face of Nick Fanos, crushed to death at Port Botany in April. Nick's sister Maria bravely held up his banner.

The Sydney service was repeated across the country, lead by the highly emotional and dignified funeral in the Boyd Chapel, Springvale in Melbourne. National Secretary Paddy Crumlin said that the church service was a celebration of the wonderful life of a loving dad and husband. "It was about family and friends from the wharves and all walks of life. They paid homage to the joyful and generous character that was Steven Piper", said Crumlin. A full service could not hold some 200 wharfies who gathered outside the church.

Australia MUA Locals Passed Resolutions In Support Of Labor Boycott Of Israel in 2009
http://www.mua.org.au/news/union-peace-plan-for-middle-east/
Union peace plan for Middle East

9 APR 2009

Paddy Crumlin, MUA national secretary and ITF executive board member will be visiting the Middle East later this year, to promote the International Transport Workers’ initiative to bring the workers of Israel and Palestine together.
“It’s the working people who are suffering most from this conflict,” he said. “And it’s the workers and their unions who can begin a lasting peace process on the ground.”
The ITF has been leading a major international union relief effort behind the scenes, throughout the conflict after brokering an historic accord between the Palestinian and Israeli unions in Cyprus in July 2007.
The initiative has seen the creation of the Palestinian Drivers’ Assistance Project. Managed by the ITF in coordination with the Palestinian General Transport Workers’ Union and funded mainly by the Canadian Auto Workers Union (CAW), it aims to provide a hotline for Palestinian drivers facing the 500 military checkpoints each day.
ITF assistant general secretary Stuart Howard reports that the project, monitored by a Joint Liaison Committee (JLC) which also includes the Transport Section of Histadrut, the Israeli union, is to liaise with the army at West Bank checkpoints on behalf of Palestinian drivers.

Indonesia Calling: Joris Ivens In Australia: A Review By Pat Aufderheide

July 8 (Thursday) (Free/Donation) Little Roxie Theatre - 3117 16th St., at Valencia, SF

http://www.laborfest.net/2010/Films.htm
3:30 Show
Indonesia Calling: Joris Ivens In Australia (90 min.) (2009)
By John Hughes
This important film shows the history of Australian trade unionists in fighting for the independence of Indonesia at the end of the Second World War. Dutch filmmaker Joris Ivens made a film documenting the crucial role of Australian trade union support in the establishment of the new Indonesian Republic and John Hughes bring back this history.
http://www.earlyworks.com.au

Pat Aufderheide Reviews "Indonesia Calling:Joris Ivens in Austrlia"

Posted by Patricia Aufderheide on Nov 30, 2009 at 10:55 AM

One I loved was Indonesia Calling: Joris Ivens in Australia. Indonesia Calling
is also the title of a 1946 film by Joris Ivens, the peripatetic Dutch
filmmaker who as a fierce socialist made activist films in social struggles
around the world. Ivens had been sent to Australia by the Dutch

Aussie MUA Dockers To Stop work one hour in memory of Nick Fanos at Patrick Stevedores-Demand End To Deregulation Of Docks

Wharfies across Australia stop work tomorrow for 1 hour remembering death of mate, crushed by containers. Family appeal to Prime Minister Rudd to establish a regulated National Stevedoring Safety Code of practice.

April 6, 2010

ALL WHARFIES TO STOP WORK FOR AN HOUR TO REMEMBER TRAGIC DEATH OF MATE - CALL FOR URGENT SAFETY ACTION

- Family asks the Prime Minister to prevent more deaths by addressing the deregulation of safety on our wharves

VALE NICK FANOS

Dock workers in every port across Australia will stop work for 1 hour tomorrow as they mourn the tragic death of Nick Fanos a 49-year old worker employed by Patrick Stevedores at Port Botany - crushed to death while loading containers.

To honour their friend and fellow worker 4 busloads of workers from the Port Botany wharves will attend Nick’s funeral at St Stephanos Greek Orthodox Church at Hurlstone Park at 10am.

At the same time as the funeral service - from 10am to 11am - branches of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) across the country will hold meetings to move a resolution for the Government to lead a National Stevedoring Safety Taskforce, leading to the earliest introduction of a regulated National Stevedoring Safety Code of Practice.

Australia: Union cuts short NSW bus drivers’ strike
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/dec2009/busd-d22.shtml

Australia: Union cuts short NSW bus drivers’ strike
By Terry Cook
22 December 2009
A 24-hour strike by 3,700 government bus drivers in Sydney and Newcastle erupted last Friday, but was cut short by the Rail Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) after the union accepted an industrial tribunal ruling to negotiate on measures to impose the state Labor government’s demands for cuts to drivers’ jobs and conditions.

The union called off the strike after a lunchtime hearing in the NSW Industrial Relations Commission (IRC), which emphasised that the government’s last-minute offer of a 6 percent pay rise over two years was conditional on “a number of savings initiatives”—particularly greater use of casual drivers.

Bus drivers decided to strike after the State Transit Authority (STA) refused, despite six rounds of negotiations over six months, to offer any pay increase in excess of the government’s 2.5 percent annual ceiling on all public service pay rises, and demanded trade offs for any higher amount.

The union had sought to call the strike off altogether but the STA refused to allow drivers to attend a union meeting to consider the belated 6 percent offer. RTBU division secretary Raul Baonza publicly apologised for the strike, saying it was a “sign of the ongoing frustrations transport workers have with this government”.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/aug2009/wild-a26.shtml

Australia: Bus drivers strike in defiance of union
By Mike Head
26 August 2009

A six-hour strike by 130 bus drivers in western Sydney on Monday morning, carried out in defiance of their union, has produced furious denunciations in the media and from an industrial court judge. The drivers walked out at the Busways Blacktown depot at 3.30 a.m. against the imposition of new timetables that would impose shorter times for routes.
Drivers told the WSWS that the timetables, due to commence in October, would be impossible to meet, forcing them to run late, which would not only inconvenience and anger passengers but cut short the drivers’ break periods. The workers said they would be under enormous pressure to drive over the speed limit.
Months of trade union talks with the company have failed to halt the onerous new conditions. Angered by the lack of support from the Transport Workers Union (TWU), the drivers conducted their own stoppage, giving no warning to the union or management. The TWU opposed the strike and intervened to end it as quickly as possible.
Drivers said the timetables would add to Sydney’s public transport shambles, which has seen the state Labor government in New South Wales cut the frequency of rail services and scrap plans to extend the rail network to new outlying suburbs. In many outer western and southern suburbs, the so-called public transport system depends almost entirely on heavily government-subsidised private bus companies.

Aussie Transport Unions Block Traffic In Brisbane To Support Air New Zealand Workers with Video

http://www.epmu.org.nz/news/show/172819

EPMU welcomes Zeal solidarity protest

4 June, 2009
Australian transport unions stopped traffic at the busiest intersection in Brisbane's travel district late yesterday afternoon in support of EPMU Zeal 320 members who are in dispute with Air New Zealand. The protest was eventually stopped by police.
The solidarity protest by the Transport Workers Union, Maritime Union of Australia and the Rail, Tram and Bus Union came against the backdrop of the triennial Australian Council of Trade Unions congress and shows anger over Air New Zealand's behaviour toward workers in its subsidiary is spreading across the Tasman.
EPMU national aviation organiser Strachan Crang says he welcomes the Australian union movement throwing their weight behind Zeal 320 members.
"We welcome the support and solidarity our Australian brothers and sisters have shown by taking this dispute to Air New Zealand's Brisbane HQ and hope that it signals to the company just how widely the response to their actions is travelling.
"Air New Zealand's use of a shell company to deny workers access to a decent collective agreement is just one example of the increased use of corporate structures to undermine workers here and in Australia and won't be taken lightly on either side of the Tasman.

http://www.mua.org.au/news/general/mourn.html

Maritime workers join CFMEU rally for safe workplace

28 April 2009
By MUA news -

Melbourne rally calls for an end to the ABCC and to work deaths

Today is International Workers Day of Mourning.

In Melbourne maritime workers will join other workers in support of the construction workers' battle to rid the industry of the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

It is also a day to commemorate workers who have died on the job.

On construction sites around Australia, workers will stop for a minute's silence to remember their work mates.

The CFMEU is asking the Rights on Site supporters to join in one minute's silence by watching this video.

You can watch the video on you tube at this link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnfJBX2piXY&feature=channel_page

One construction worker is killed a week in Australia. Hundreds more are injured.

But each year millions of dollars is spent on the Australian Building and Construction Commission, an organisation which undermines workers' rights and safety. That's why the MUA is joining the campaign to get rid of the ABCC and the laws that keep in place.

In 2004-5, prior to the introduction of the ABCC and special laws which discriminate against building workers, 19 workers died on construction sites nationally, but in 2005-6, the figure jumped to 29 and rose again in 2007 to 33 deaths.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/jun2008/qant-j28.shtml
Australia: Once again unions call off Qantas stoppages

By Terry Cook
28 June 2008

Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author

For the third time in six weeks, union leaders have called off industrial action by 1,500 Qantas engineers in a bid to prevent a potentially explosive confrontation with the airline and the Rudd Labor government over the company’s demand for cuts to wages and conditions.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) intervened again last Thursday, arranging another round of negotiations on the new workplace agreement to commence on Monday. The truce was offered to Qantas despite the airline’s adamant refusal to budge from its position and its use of scab labour during this week’s rolling stoppages, which forced the cancellation of about 100 domestic flights.

Australian Licensed Airline Engineers Association (ALAEA) federal secretary Steve Purvinas said: “Hopefully we can sit down for the week and reach an agreement.” Earlier in the year, the ALAEA signed a deal with Qantas to impose a 3 percent annual pay rise limit, which is far below the soaring cost of living. The engineers threw out the agreement in an April ballot, and are fighting for a 5 percent increase.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7468583.stm

Page last updated at 06:40 GMT, Monday, 23 June 2008 07:40 UK

Qantas flights grounded by strike

Qantas is being squeezed by the rising cost of fuel
Six Qantas flights have been cancelled and 18 cancellations are expected on Tuesday as engineers begin a series of strikes over pay.
The Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association (ALAEA) last week announced action in five major cities after failing to agree a pay deal.
The ALAEA had demanded a 5% wage rise for 1,500 engineers, but the airline has offered 3%.
The wage demands come as Qantas is being squeezed by high fuel costs.
The strikes currently affect only domestic Australian flights.
Turbulent times
Qantas executive general manager for people Kevin Brown said that the airline had a "range of contingencies" to deal with the disruptions and that affected passengers would be placed on other flights.
The dispute is expected to continue as union leaders argue that Qantas chiefs have shown no flexibility in meeting their demands.
Qantas, like many airlines, is struggling to deal with a consumer downturn and surging fuel prices.
The firm has already announced a pay freeze for senior bosses and cancelled flights on key routes.