Lockout

A delegation of MUA and CFMEU members have returned from the United States to Australia with reports of widespread community support for the ILWU.

Federal Government Ministers, including John Howard, attacked the delegation in their absence, despite MUA National Secretary Paddy Crumlin successfully brokering a deal to guarantee the movement of perishable Australian cargoes in any future port stoppages in the US.

Barry Robson from the MUA, who led the delegation, was scathing of statements by Federal Agriculture Minister and National Party member Warren Truss, who joined the chorus of ministers who sided with US employers against the interests of Aussie farmers.

"He should be knocking on John Howard's door to take us out of the hands of foreigned owned ships and crews," says Robson, who raised the issue in media interviews in the United States.

Robson described the trip by the delegation as a "great success". "The response on the picket lines was fantastic. There were over 40 picket lines in Los Angeles alone. We were going to mass meetings day and night."

Part of the delegation was also able to travel to the Pacific Northwest, to ILWU Local 19 in Seattle and Local 23 in Tacoma, where the delegation expressed solidarity with their fellow workers and presented MUA Flags.

"One disappointment was not being able to get to San Francisco, to the headquarters of the ILWU and the famous Local 10 started by Australian Harry Bridges in the thirties," says Robson. "But we did get to meet the National President of the ILWU, Jim Spinosa."

Robson was also able to share a platform with Jesse Jackson, who has been very vocal in his support of the locked out waterfront workers. The delegation was also struck by the amount of support in waterfront communities:

"In the San Pedro district in Los Angeles, which is near the waterfront, every shop has a poster up in the window supporting the ILWU or calling for an ILWU Contract," Robson says

The delegation, which included two delegates from the New Zealand Seafarers Union and two from the Waterside Workers Union of New Zealand, was impressed by the resolve of the ILWU - likening the dispute to the one engineered by Patricks in 1998.

While the delegation was in the states US President George Bush used the infamous anti-union Taft-Hartley Act to order locked out longshoremen back to work, with the resulting "cooling-off" period set to expire on December 27.

"During that time Congress isn't sitting, so Bush will be able to introduce his own emergency legislation against the ILWU without having to go through Congress," says Robson.