Corporate Crash

?Just give me a minute to get up there and watch the sparks fly,? said gun portainer operator and soon to be pensioned off CSX worker Graham Owen.

With only days left on the job he was still giving it his best.

?Some of these men are the best you can get,? said delegate Jamie Newyln ?And they?re letting them all go. It?s such a waste.?

Others were still reeling from the shock. Many had families to support. Some had taken out big mortgages only weeks before the decision was made to sell up and go.

In yet another piece of creative corporate juggling Patrick Stevedores has taken over the CSX wharves and equipment, in Brisbane without taking on the labour.

Yet more victims of the Howard Government?s competition at all costs policy that saw an Australian icon and one of our biggest airlines go down taking 60,000 workers with it after decades in the air.

And Patrick parent company Lang Corp made a similar grab for Ansett assets only months later - a move which competitor, transport magnate Lindsay Fox suggested had inside government support. NSW Labor Council Secretary John Robertson also made analogies with the waterfront war, suggesting Government failure to prevent the collapse of the airline was but a ploy to de-unionise the airways.

?The Howard Government has sought for the last six years to remove the protection workers rely on from unions. It has removed award rights, fought for over generations by the labour movement, criminally conspired against our union to sack the Patrick workers, undermined our domestic and international shipping industry through the removal of legislation in support of the industry and the use of single and continuous voyage permits, and overseen massive corporate failures including Ansett, HIH and OneTel, due to their obsession with so called competition,? said MUA National Secretary Paddy Crumlin.

?They?ve reduced the quality of health care particularly for the aged, privatised important public utilities like Telstra, sold off successful public enterprises and burdened the nation with a tax that discriminates against the less well off in favour of the wealthy. They?ve supported a foreign monarch as Australia?s head of state, refused to be a party to any serious process of reconciliation with our indigenous people, pissed the collective public wealth of 15 years of solid economic growth up against the wall trying to buy votes, run down education, undermined unemployment support and rural communities and supported liars and rorters in its parliamentary party in direct rejection of parliamentary standards. And Howard has now has embarked on a jingoistic campaign about his strong leadership.?

Another Howard Government only means more companies going under and more jobs lost, without any guarantee of entitlements being protected.

Workers at CSX at least had the benefit of a strong union able to cushion the impact of their fall by ensuring some found jobs elsewhere. And those who did go did so with all their entitlements and generous redundancy packages.

The MUA fought for the permanent jobs which were lost with the withdrawal of CSX (Sea-Land) from Brisbane after Lang Corp/Patricks bought its assets midyear, with most other members offered interport transfers, casual positions or redundancies.

Permanent jobs were available at Patrick, Brisbane and CSX, Adelaide with further casual jobs available for redundant workers at P&O Brisbane.

Assistant National Secretary Jim Tannock reports permanent transfers were also offered to CSX workers for Patrick operations in Darwin, Sydney and Fremantle, but there were no takers.

Others from the 84 strong workforce which included 40 supps and 12 guaranteed wage earners took redundancies offered before operations closed on October 12.

Like Ansett, CSX was a victim of federal government competition policy and its own company policy, adopted in the US, to move out of stevedoring.

The union movement is now opposing rampant industry competition, with the MUA concerned about the Victorian Government plan for a third operator at Westgate Terminal in Melbourne and moves by Western Stevedores to start up in Darwin.

In both cases the work is not sufficient to support new entrants with the inevitable outcome that employees will face job losses, problems with debts and mortgages, family breakdowns and the loss of entitlements that follow such collapses.

ACTU policy opposes competition which adversely affects economic and social development. The ACTU ?does not support competition as an end in itself, and notes that conditions in some particular markets mean that competition will not result in economic efficiency or social equity.?.

National Secretary Paddy Crumlin points out that competition policy is really about union bashing. ?So called competition policy is often only about driving down labour costs and breaking workers? rights by introducing non union labour,? he said. ?That?s why Howard is making it tough for Fox to bid for Ansett. It has the worker?s support and the support of their union.?