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

By Steven T. Jones and Amanda Witherell - San Francisco Bay Guardian, May 7, 2008

Workers, students, immigrants, and antiwar activists came together in historic fashion on May Day in San Francisco, but it was hard to tell from the next day's mainstream media coverage, which adopted its usual cynical view of the growing movement to end the war in Iraq.

Sure, there were articles in newspapers from the San Francisco Chronicle to the New York Times about how the International Longshore and Warehouse Union shut down all 29 West Coast ports for the day, with far more than 10,000 workers defying both their employers and the national union leadership to skip work.

But each article missed the main point: this was the first time in American history that such a massive job action was called to protest a war.

"In this country, dock workers have never stopped work to stop a war," Jack Heyman, the ILWU executive board member and Oakland Port worker who spearheaded the effort, told the Guardian.

By DAVID MACARARY - Counterpunch, May 2, 2008

On Thursday, May 1, the ILWU (International Longshore and Warehouse Union) staged a one-day (one shift, actually) walkout as a protest against the U.S. military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. The shutdown affected ports up and down the West Coast, from San Pedro, California, to Seattle, Washington.

Although the PMA (Pacific Maritime Association) had warned the ILWU leadership that an “unauthorized” strike such as this was illegal, and that any rank-and-file dockworker who participated could be punished with a fine, suspension or even termination, the one-shift shutdown went off as planned and was deemed a resounding success. Thousands of workers defied management and failed to show up for the morning shift, resulting in port traffic coming to a standstill.

Despite the threats, no one really expects the port authorities to take any disciplinary action against ILWU members. In fact, if any union member is even wrist-slapped, it will be genuine shock. There are two reasons for this.

Their union says the action is to protest the war in Iraq, but port operators and shippers say it's an attempt to influence their contract.

By Louis Sahagun and Ronald D. White, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers - May 2, 2008

Thousands of dockworkers at 29 West Coast ports took the day off Thursday, effectively shutting down operations at the busy complexes in what the union called a protest of the war in Iraq but employers worried might be a prelude to labor unrest.

The stand-down at ports including Los Angeles and Long Beach -- which combined handle 40% of the imported goods arriving in the United States each year -- idled ships and cranes, stranded thousands of big rigs and halted movement of about 10,000 containers during the eight-hour day shift.

The show of force by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which ended as workers reported for the Thursday night shift at Southern California's twin ports, came two months before its contract expires with the Pacific Maritime Assn., a group of cargo carriers, terminal operators and stevedore companies.

By JOHN HOLUSHA - New York Times, Published: May 2, 2008

Thousands of dockworkers at West Coast ports stayed off the job on Thursday in what their union said was a call for an end to the war in Iraq.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union said more than 25,000 members in 29 ports stayed off the job. The action came despite an order issued Wednesday by an arbitrator directing the union to tell its members to report for work as usual in response to a request from employers.

“Longshore workers are standing down on the job and standing up for America,” Bob McEllrath, the union’s president, said in a statement. “We’re supporting the troops and telling politicians in Washington that it’s time to end the war in Iraq.”

The scene at most West Coast ports was quiet, without any scuffles or confrontations. The cranes used to unload container ships stood idle and few trucks were lined up outside gates.

Guillermo Durell, 45, a truck driver, was at the Los Angeles-area port of Long Beach. “I got up at 6 a.m. to drop a load off,” he said. “When I got here the security guard said ‘Drop this, but that’s it. We’re all leaving.’ ”

KELLY KEARSLEY - The News Tribune, May 1, 2008

More than 25,000 West Coast International Longshore and Warehouse workers, including many hundred in Tacoma, are taking a day off work today in protest of the war in Iraq.

May Day is traditionally a day to celebrate labor and workers’ rights.

Scott Mason, spokesman for Tacoma’s ILWU Local 23, said this morning that usually 200 to 300 dockworkers would be coming to work today. But instead four ships are waiting to be unloaded in the Port of Tacoma and the truck gates are quiet.

ILWU International President Bob McEllrath said the workers are “standing down on the job and standing up for America.”

“We’re supporting the troops and telling politicians in Washington that it’s time to end the war in Iraq,” McEllrath said.

The protest doesn’t come as a surprise to longshore employers.

The union voted in February to stop work today in opposition of the war and made a request to the Pacific Maritime Association, the organization that represents terminal operators, stevedores and cargo carriers. The union’s contract allows for stop work meetings, with advance notice, though they usually occur during evening shifts. The PMA denied the request for a work stoppage during the day, typically the busiest hours for West Coast ports.

By ALEX VEIGA, AP BUSINESS WRITER - May 1, 2008

LOS ANGELES -- West Coast cargo traffic came to a halt Thursday as port workers ditched work to commemorate May Day and call on the U.S. to end the war in Iraq.

Thousands of dockworkers at 29 ports in California, Oregon and Washington did not show up for the morning shift, leaving ships and truck drivers idle at ports from Long Beach to Seattle, Pacific Maritime Association spokesman Steve Getzug said.

The longshore workers were expected to return to work for the start of the evening shift, Getzug said.

"There's no work happening so that means there's no cargo being unloaded and certainly being loaded either," Getzug said.

May Day is an international day of labor solidarity.

Longshore workers at several ports participated in rallies with other anti-war protesters, while a number of workers chose to make their statement simply by taking the day off.

In Seattle, several hundred demonstrators were joined by longshoremen for a protest march along the waterfront. Some protesters held signs saying "No Iraq War" and "Stop the war on immigrants and Iraq."

By Amy Hsuan - The Oregonian Staff, May 2, 2008

For about eight hours Thursday, up and down the West Coast, shipyards stood quiet, rail cars stopped and trucks scheduled for deliveries and pickups were turned back at the port gates.

Ten thousand dockworkers -- including about 200 in the Portland area -- took May Day off in defiance of labor contracts, bringing 29 ports from San Diego to Seattle to a standstill. Union leaders said they wanted to stage a protest against U.S. involvement in the Iraq war, but port operators speculated that a big reason for the walkout is to demonstrate union solidarity in the midst of labor negotiations.

Operations at the Port of Portland, Oregon's largest port, were minimally affected since no cargo ships arrived Thursday.

The show of force by the longshoremen's union comes despite an independent arbitrator's ruling Wednesday in California that the workers had a contractual obligation "to report to work as they normally do."

The 25,000-member International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association, representing port operators and large shippers, are just two months away from the expiration of their labor contract.

Lawrence J. Maushard - May 2, 2008, posted at Portland Indymedia

An unprecedented display of labor muscle pumped up the peace movement yesterday when an estimated 25,000 union longshore workers took May Day off for an antiwar shutdown of all West Coast ports, including the ports of Portland and Vancouver.

The protest by International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) longshore workers momentarily froze the vibrant Pacific rim trade - autos, appliances, manufactured goods, foodstuffs and more - in a rare coordinated display by a major American union fed up with the US war in Iraq and the trillions of dollars spent in that effort.

"It's a war that started with a lie. If I went to the courts and told a lie, they'd lock me up," Jerry Lawrence, 59, of Portland, a rank-and-file union member said on May Day. "Now why the hell didn't they lock Bush up or kick him outta office? I blame my senators for not stepping up."

The 27-year longshoreman with ILWU Portland Local 8 was attending a union-sponsored mid-day riverside ceremony on the East Bank Esplanade just north of the Burnside Bridge to mark the union's antiwar stance. About 150 union and peace supporters crowded on the narrow floating docks to hear a few speeches and drop more than 800 yellow carnations in the Willamette river in solemn remembrance of the US deaths in Iraq (one flower for each 5 dead American soldiers now totaling about 4,050).