BY BOB AIKEN AND DOUG COOPER
As we go to press, thousands of workers are celebrating on the picket lines after the Federal Court upheld the April 21 court order reinstating all sacked Patrick workers, dealing a further blow to the union-busting attempt by the company and government.

SYDNEY, Australia - Thousands of defiant unionists, working people, students, and others have weighed in on the side of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) by ignoring state Supreme Court interim injunctions banning peaceful MUA assemblies at wharves in Melbourne, Sydney, Fremantle, and Newcastle. Chris Corrigan, the boss at Patrick Stevedores, is attempting to set up a nonunion operation. With full backing from the federal government headed by Prime Minister John Howard, Patrick's sacked its nationwide workforce of 2,100 MUA members April 7.

As mass pickets continued to prevent many goods from reaching their destination, a Federal Court justice stunned the Howard government and Patrick Stevedores April 21 by ordering reinstatement of all sacked workers, saying the company had "engaged in an unlawful conspiracy." This announcement was greeted by rousing applause on the picket lines. Patrick immediately appealed the order, and the battles at the waterfront continue.

At Melbourne's East Swanson Dock, in a test of strength and resolve that began on the evening of April 17, 3,000 MUA supporters with arms linked spent the night calmly facing down attempts by hundreds of cops to intimidate and disperse them. Cops, massed in formation, came within 25 feet of the blockade only to withdraw and try again. Overnight the road leading to the main gate was barricaded with railway sleepers (ties), rails, and an overturned shipping container. Australian Council of Trade Unions national secretary Bill Kelty, former Victoria state Labor premiers Joan Kirner and John McCain, and some 20 state and federal Labor MPs joined protesters in the early morning hours.

At 6:15 a.m. the protesters, ignoring the April 16 injunction won by the Melbourne Ports Corporation to evict protesters from its property, were joined by 2,000 Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) members.

Surrounded, the cops were forced to withdraw, only to counter with a police barricade of the Coode Road gate. Later 80 cops clashed with 400 MUA supporters at the Footscray Road entrance. The Appleton Dock rail gate was briefly secured by cops around 8:00 a.m. and at 10:00 a.m. some 100 cops attempted to move a train through protesters on the tracks who were heaping concrete blocks around themselves. Union organizers reported that the train driver "suddenly decided he wasn't feeling well, and called in sick." No arrests were made.

At Sydney's Port Botany wharf, hundreds of unionists and others responded to union calls on April 14, 16, and 17 to block trucks coming to pick up full containers. The state Supreme Court granted a temporary injunction to Patrick late on April 15 barring MUA members and officials from this and other sites, including Darling Harbour, near Sydney's central business district, and the port of Newcastle.

With the injunctions, MUA officials and delegates handed over direct responsibility for the picket to officials of the CFMEU and the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union. Rank-and-file MUA members are taking on increasing responsibility at the pickets.

On April 14 police tried to clear a path for a scab truck to enter Port Botany, dragging dozens from the line who had sat down and linked arms. They arrested 22, who were taken to Surry Hills police station and released without being charged. Most were back at the picket within the hour. Earlier nine trucks arrived but turned back without attempting to enter.

On April 16, in the wake of the previous night's injunction, some 800 were on the line by 4:00 a.m. Later, police did not intervene and 28 trucks backed off. Protesters at Port Botany and Darling Harbour have not prevented buses carrying security guards and scabs from entering or leaving but have used each opportunity to loudly voice their opposition to union-busting. On April 17, 200 out of 600 protesters were forcefully removed at Port Botany as 70 cops failed to clear a path for a waiting truck. Forty- one were detained and released at Maroubra police station without being charged. Ralph, an MUA member on the picket, gleefully told the Militant later that day that the workers who had been arrested hopped into taxis and beat the cops back to Port Botany.

Some 300 people also rallied in Burnie, Tasmania, April 14, when all 31 sacked Patrick workers rejected being rehired on three-month individual contracts.

Mass support galvanized
Mass support around the country was galvanized by the actions of 200 West Australian cops, some in full riot gear or on horseback, who raided the Fremantle picket camp at 2:00 a.m., April 16, just hours after the state Supreme Court injunction was issued. While some 100 pickets relocated 100 yards down the road, more than 2,000 supporters massed at the picket line the following morning. Another clash with the cops took place around 11:00 a.m.

No Patrick freight has been moved off the Melbourne, Sydney, Fremantle, or Newcastle docks since the pickets were set up April 7.

Patrick was forced to abandon attempts to work its Newcastle, New South Wales, operations with scab labor April 15 when a bus with six scabs and 15 security guards on board was forced to leave. "There were hundreds of people here - pensioners, students, actors," David Lewin, a sacked MUA member at Newcastle told the Militant. "I've seen nothing like it [in years]."

With Patrick facilities shut, "MUA labor is loading all the ships on the Newcastle docks," Eddie Seymour, a rank-and- file picket line coordinator there, said. "This is a victory for us."

The following evening some 300 people attended a public meeting called by the Newcastle Trades Hall Council, and more than 400 took part in a protest April 17 in nearby Maitland called by the council to protest a visit by Prime Minister John Howard.

Federal Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith was also met by a rowdy protest of 200 near Brisbane April 18.

Well-known actors, including Jack Thompson and Ernie Dingo, have publicly supported the MUA, along with former rugby league captain Wally Lewis and others. State Labor premier Robert Carr has visited Sydney picket lines three times, urging Patrick and Howard's Liberal-National coalition government to move to an arbitrated settlement.

The leader of the federal Labor opposition, Kim Beazley, visited the Fremantle picket April 16 and called on Prime Minister John Howard to end his partisan stance. "Govern for all Australians, intervene and get the parties together in this dispute and bring it to a conclusion," Beazley said. Howard hit back, noting, "The only two governments in Australian history that have used troops in industrial disputes have been Labor governments. It is not a precedent I desire to follow."

Some workers and others interviewed by the Militant on the picket lines believe the police in New South Wales have been held more in check due to the existence here of Australia's only state Labor government. While cops in Victoria, Western Australia, and Queensland have been more violent and confrontational, few if any charges have been laid against the locked out workers there either.

Pickets continue to be injured in the second week of the fight. One escaped serious injury after being knocked down by an accelerating semi-trailer at Darling Harbour, April 17. Retired wharfie Ron Cummins suffered broken toes after being run over by a bus carrying scabs in Newcastle, April 15. He was back on the picket line within hours.

Steady streams of people come to the picket camps at all hours. Unionists often arrive in organized contingents.

Bruce Frary, 37, a seaman and MUA member on CSR's Goliath cement carrier between Tasmania and Sydney, told the Militant April 18 at Darling Harbour, "This is an issue of democracy. If they succeed here, everyone's right to protest is threatened." Frary noted that "Howard thought he had a mandate, that he was immune" after the conservatives' sweeping election victory in March 1996. "But attacking the aged and other things has really weakened his position."

Longtime unionist Jack Lawrence said he was bringing his 80-year-old father-in-law, a retired wharfie, to Darling Harbour April 21. He worked on the wharves "when this street was known as the `Hungry Milé and men fought each other for jobs. I want the young blokes here to meet him. They stand on his shoulders," Lawrence said.

The fight in Australia has begun to win international support. "We will do everything we can to influence shipping companies not to do business with Patrick," declared International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) general secretary David Cockcroft, April 18, after the UK High Court lifted an injunction stopping the ITF from assisting the MUA. Maritime and longshore unions around the world, including in Japan, the United States, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden, and Denmark, have announced plans to organize solidarity actions. On April 21 the Maritime Workers Industrial Union in Papua New Guinea placed an indefinite ban on goods handled by Patrick, with two ships bound for Patrick terminals already affected.

As the MUA continues to make headway by reaching out, some commentators have begun to realize that the outcome of Howard, Reith, and Corrigan's union-busting drive is far from assured. Michael Gordon, writing in the April 19 Sunday Age, noted, "Either Chris Corrigan's company will be forced out of business and replaced by one prepared to deal with the union, or the MUA will become the anachronism the prime minister believes it already is." Whether the MUA prevails will be decided through continued action by unionists and working people in the weeks to come.

Doug Cooper and Bob Aiken are members of the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union.  
 
 
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