Jul-Aug 2008

Docks, docs and dogs

MUA campaign to highlight waterfront conspiracy makes headlines

At the time it was the most reported event of the year. Now 10 years on, the Waterfront Dispute once again made front-page news.

"MUA Bid for Libs Secrets" The Australian headline ran on April 2 highlighting the MUA push to release confidential information that could be used in a revived conspiracy case.

"The deep throat who tipped off wharfies" The Sydney Morning Herald featured on its front page on April 2; "MUA claims conspiracy over unreleased documents" ABC Radio broadcast on The World Today the following day; "Bitter dispute proved MUA here to stay on the wharves" The West Australian noted; "Docks feud: time to tell all" The Illawarra Mercury called.

And on the day that Conference delegates joined waterside workers to mark the day balaclava-clad security guards took control of the wharves on behalf of port owners in a move backed by the Howard government, the AAP new wire report "Wharfies recall waterfront hostility with stopwork" ran in over 50 media outlets. From The Melbourne Age, The Moree Champion, and The Macarthur Advertiser to The Roxby Downs Sun, The Kalgoorlie Golden Mail, The Bendigo Advertiser, Wimmera Mail Times and Walcha News, the story got blanket coverage.

But the 150 stories and features on picket veterans in the weeks leading up to the anniversary were no accident. The union invested heavily in promoting the event with the aim of reframing the narrative around the Patrick dispute and increasing public pressure for the release of secret government documents.

"Veil may lift on 1998 waterfront crisis" The Melbourne Age ran on the 10th after the Deputy PM addressed the MUA national conference in a session open to media. (See box)

The key documents the union seeks are strategy papers written by Paul Houlihan and Stephen Webster commissioned by the government of the day.

Unlike normal cabinet papers which must be made available after 30 years, documents with a "conclusive certificate" may never be released. The FOI Act allows a government minister to sign a conclusive certificate to the effect that disclosure of an "internal working document" would be contrary to the public interest.

"We had a government and a very large corporation that were acting in concert," Paddy Crumlin told The Herald Sun. "The High Court found a probable conspiracy, criminal conspiracy to remove our legal right to work, our legal right to collectively bargain, our legal right to freedom of association.

"That's a tremendous challenge for 2000 blue collar working men and women to stand in the face of that sort of monolithic power and then come through it legally and industrially and reclaim their jobs against almost impossible odds," he said. "That's a victory by any measure I would have thought."

"We are determined to have the information released so we can have a reconciliation of what these people did and what their motives were," he said.

Both ACTU President Sharan Burrow and former ACTU secretary Greg Combet publicly backed the MUA push. Combet told The Australian "they show that John Howard personally signed off on a plan to sack the entire workforce of Patrick Stevedores, put them all out of work, put all of their employees and their families through a lot of trauma," he said. "That's what John Howard did and that's what created the dispute and this is fact and public knowledge."

Along with other key players in the dispute including then MUA national secretary John Coombs and legal team Josh Bornstein and Julian Burnside, Combet received extensive media coverage alongside rank and filers and branch officials of the day.

John Coombs chose the SMH to reveal the key informant at the time - 'Friend no 2' - was former army officer Paul McTernan, who kept the union aware of developments inside Corrigan's new union-smashing stevedoring company Fynwest.

Other issues hotly debated during the anniversary were productivity and union rights.

"Force and efficiency is an oxymoron," said MUA National Secretary Paddy Crumlin. "You can't force efficiency. With labour productivity, people have to want to do it. It's backed up by morale, backed up by safety. These workers have delivered that through agreement and a negotiated outcome through good faith collective bargaining."

Other headlines of note include:

"Crumlin: Maritime Union is a stronger force than ever" (Lloyds List DCN); "MUA questions still valid" (Australian Financial Review, 18/4/08); "Why, 10 years later, the Waterfront dispute remains a Labor of love for union heroes" (Sunday Telegraph 30/3/08); "Waterfront dispute's wounds barely healed" and "Bitter taste remains; Wharfies recall loss 10 years on" (Newcastle Herald); "Cabinet linked to wharfies dispute" SMH, 7/4/08); "Wounds linger on the wharves (Illawarra Mercury 7/4/08); "Howard and Patrick left workers with no income, no job, no dignity" (letter to the editor, SMH, 11/4/08); "The Waterfront battle and its powerful legacy" (The Age, Insight); "War of the Wharves" and "Wharfies recall hostility" (The Herald Sun) "Wharf Warfare" (The Courier Mail), Warfare on the Wharf (The Advertiser).