Toast to Super

BILL HEATH, retired Cooks Union: "We got together with the ship owner representatives and got it going. Each side felt that something had to be done. Seamen were like gypsies. Superannuation enabled us to provide for our families should anything happen. In the old days, when a seafarer died his mates would take up a collection for his funeral and his family. The Seamen's Union eliminated the need for this.

I'll never forget the time we collected our first $1 million. We were awe struck. The SRF trustees went out after the meeting in Melbourne. We had a bottle of local wine and a sandwich to toast the million dollars. It was one of the happiest moments I remember - that first million. No one could ever take that memory away from me. Just knowing seamen wouldn't be buried in paupers' graves. Widows would not go hungry. Just being a part of it. It's one of those achievements we should all be proud of."

ALEX MCKECHNIE, retired Adelaide Branch secretary: "It was 1965 and Charlie Fitzgibbon was secretary. I remember him coming to the stopwork meeting and saying we needed to go for pensions. We had a whole series of stoppages, a Menzies inquiry and threatened sanctions before we got it.

Some of our people had spent a lifetime in industry, but had nothing to fall back on. Just a shake of the hand and see you later. Perhaps a drink at the pub from their mates. Superannuation was one of the best things that ever happened on the wharves.

The bosses got their money's worth. They worked us like a draught horses."

ALF (CHOOK) CANE, Sydney: "It was up at 5 Darling Harbour where it all began. John Healy was there. Bobby Bolger came down and we all lined up and signed our name to be in the campaign. We handed pamphlets out all around the waterfront and I had to go around lining up the meetings on the job. If they wouldn't let us in the gate, we'd call the delegate out into the paddock and talk to him there."

REX MUNN, Adelaide: "There were times when not one week went by when we didn't walk off the job and into the union rooms. We drove them mad. I joined the wharves in 1951 and walked into a full-scale bloody war - all over the pensions. I thought jeez, I joined the wharves and never got to work.

But we won. I had the privilege of working with guys who worked on the wharf before the war. They'd worked 72 hours without a night off. The bosses didn't give a stuff about the health of the men. Some of the poor buggers had done war service and were still hanging around for a quid. They came back onto the waterfront and they were crippled.

When I retired I went out with a good sum. It was more money that I ever dreamed I'd have in my lifetime and that was because of the union. It was the strength of my union that gave me that."

BOB MORTON (retired cook): "We could have all finished with nothing. When I first came here from the UK I was working with guys in their seventies. They kept working because they had nothing to retire on. They stayed at sea because they were better fed that way and better looked after.

I thought at the time what a small amount of money to pay in. I'd have to live to 150 to get anything out of it. But SRF made a big difference. Young people these days can expect a very comfortable retirement."

FRANK BOSTICK, Sydney: "I had to retire early a year back at 59 because of injuries to my wrists from working the cranes at Patrick.

I've done pretty good out of the restructuring of SERF and the move to accumulation. I reckon it added around 25 per cent to what I went out on. I haven't even had to draw on a super pension or any of the money I put in. I've kept it all in SERF and live on the interest.

It's been going very well. My wife still does some casual work and I find we've got enough each quarter just from the interest to do a bit of travelling and some living expenses. We've been to America on a holiday and I bought myself a bike and a boat.

I'm travelling all right and I guess everyone else is too because SERF is going very well."

GEORGE BUGEJA, Sydney: "I retired in 1992 at 53 when they offered us redundancy and I put my money into super straight away. Some of my mates withdrew it all and bought property. They said it would make more money. Now they suffer because they have to pay land tax etc. I'm on an allocated pension. My super is always there. It's not locked in. And unlike my pension from Malta if I die with SERF my next of kin takes over."

WAYNE WARD, Newcastle: "I spend all my time writing my novels and being with my family. I spend six months of the year in Canada with my wife and six months back home and I've got SRF to thank for it. Without super, without the union I know I would never be able to afford the lifestyle I enjoy now. I can never thank the union enough."

PADDY BERRY: "Super was popular with members, but not everyone. Some opposed it at the beginning.

But the union did me a big favour. I had a young family and it really meant something to me. I also put in voluntary contributions.

Pat Geraghty did a good job - a very good job. When I retired I lived up the Gold Coast. One day I got a $15,000 cheque - no explanation. It was from the surplus."