Workers' Logies

WA seafarer Karen Levy and family

Per Larsan, bosun, Aurora Australis, is one of 15 MUA members to win special recognition in recent times. He was among 78 scientists, doctors and technicians, awarded an Australian Antarctic Medal.

Other gongs awarded to MUA members include a NSW bravery award for MUA deckhands Lisa Stanley and Mick Cantley, ACTU Awards recognition for our Stolt delegates and MUA film unit, a tertiary scholarship for WA IR Kaz Leavy, a seat in the NSW parliament for Sydney official Robert Coombs, a writing award to former Port Botany wharfie Wayne Grogan and a guernsey for MUA members at the Port of Albany.

Medal winner

Bosun Per Larsen is the first seafarer to have received the Australian Antarctic Medal and use the letters AAM after his name.

Four scientists nominated Per for the medal, including Australian Antarctic Division chief marine scientist Steve Nicol. His medal citation cites Per's professional pride and commitment to his work, his ship and those he works with, both crewmates and expeditioners. It also notes his skills, leadership and concern for safety.

"Everybody plays a part," Per told The Hobart Mercury. "There's 24 crew on this ship and everybody is very important - the cooks, the stewards, the navigators, everybody."

Per migrated to Australia in 1968 and now lives in Phillip Island, Victoria. He first went to sea at the age of 14 and joined the crew of the Aurora Australis in 1994.

Bravery Award

Lisa Stanley and Mick Cantley are two of no fewer than 15 MUA members to take out awards in recent months.

Lisa is a professional diver and self-confessed 007 fan. So when, fresh from completing her advanced resuscitation course, she boarded the Majestic II cruise ship on Sydney Harbour in August 2004 she was ready for action.

"I was on the lower deck when out of the corner of my eye I saw something fall from above into the water," she said. "We knew instantly what had happened."

Lisa, fully trained in water rescue, got her steel capped work boots off ready to dive, while a workmate alerted the captain to turn back. They were near the Harbour Bridge, almost exactly where the recent tragedy that left four dead and made national headlines this March was played out.

"I was with the skipper at the wheel," said Mick Cantley. "Pete's mate was running towards us shouting man overboard.

"I went in," said Lisa. "It was really rough. They call it the washing machine at that spot. The bar tender threw me the life buoy, but Peter was face down unconscious and I needed Mick with me to keep him afloat while I gave him mouth to mouth. He'd hit his head on the life raft as he fell and knocked himself out."

Mick dived in to help but the Majestic was too high out of the water to heave him on board.

"I realised we were in trouble," said Mick. "So I tried to flag a water taxi down. Luckily it spotted me."

Together they managed to get the still unconscious man out of the water.

"What do you think at the time? You don't," said Lisa. "With all the training I just went into automatic. But I broke down and got upset later. Just to see someone in that state, it's horrific. It was his expression when I turned him over. We thought he was dead. I was covered in blood when I got back to the boat later on."

NSW Governor Professor Marie Bashir presented Lisa and Mick with certificates of bravery at an official ceremony last November. Peter, who has made a full recovery, was guest of honour on the day.

In the recent tragedy involving Sydney Ferries that made headlines in March, MUA members were once again among those who dived into the dark waters risking their lives to save others.

"I was working on the wharf the night it happened," said Mick. "I got this strange feeling in the stomach. I was thinking 'here we go again'. Those guys did a really good job from what I heard. I'm just glad I wasn't involved. It's not something you want to go through too often."

"I'm so gutted for the crew who were involved," said Lisa. "It's good they've got the union there for them. I remember Bernie Farrelly really gave me a hand at the time."

Workers' Logies

MUA delegates and filmmakers won special recognition at the ACTU annual workers' awards this year.

At the ceremony held in Melbourne on March 5 ACTU President Sharan Burrow highly commended Stolt delegates Roy Muir, Barry Clapson, Mark Wheatley, Andy Mackay and Dave Stolpnes under the Best Delegates category for their role in the Stolt dispute. The MUA film unit, old and new were also in the finalists under the best communications campaign, with Norma Disher, Jock Levy and Viron Papadopoulos receiving certificates of recognition.

Viron recorded the Stolt dispute providing media outlets with dramatic footage and has since won state film development funding. And who would have imagined that the Hungry Miles film made in the 1950s would, more than half a century later, play a central role in a successful union campaign.

Meanwhile MUA idol runner up Brisbane seafarer Paul Milburn and IR Carl Allen have taken out the inaugural Farstad Safety Award for a safety video they made on anchor handling. It has now been nominated for a national gong.

Scholarship for Kaz

"Mother, diver, deckhand, activist, and now, scholar" - this was how the Curtin University of Technology News reported how MUA member Karen (Kaz) Leavy had won a scholarship to study journalism.

As one of the recipients of a 2007 Curtin Access Scholarship, Karen has been given the chance to fulfill her lifelong dream of a university education.

Karen received her scholarship at a special presentation ceremony held at Curtin in February. A former MUA women's liaison officer, she remains an active union member, working casually on the Fremantle tugs.

"I joined my first ship a week after the 1998 lockout as trainee IR on a bulk carrier," Kaz recalls. "It was the best initiation into the union movement you could ask for. And what a union! It's huge! We gave the scabs at Webb Dock heaps and got the public involved. It was unforgettable."

Robert Coombs, election victory

Maritime Union official Robert Coombs swept to victory in NSW state elections in March, riding a wave of public revolt against the Howard Government's IR laws.

Robert took more than 60 per cent of the votes after preferences, retaining the seat of Swansea in the Hunter for the ALP. At final count Robert won 16,721 votes; double that of his nearest rival Liberal candidate Garry Edwards on 8,227 in a packed field of seven.

"It was a wonderful victory, and came in no short part from the wonderful assistance and support I received from the MUA and other unionists," said Robert. "I must have knocked on at least 7000 doors. So many people told us how their workplace had become a hell hole since the introduction of the new laws and were voting Labor for the first time."

Robert is one of around six maritime unionists elected to state or federal parliaments.

Award winning wharfie

One time Port Botany wharfie, award-winning author Wayne Grogan, has been described as one of the most exciting new talents on our literary landscape.

"Wayne Grogan's sentences open like flowers and snap shut like switch knives," writes best selling author Kate Holden.

Wayne's first novel Junkie Pilgrim on drug addiction and drug running on the Sydney wharves (see MWJ in 2003), went on to win the Ned Kelly Award for best first book of crime.

His second novel Vale Bryon Bay is said to rip up the tourist brochure image of idyllic Byron Bay to expose a lotus land for surfers and dreamers overrun by drug monied criminals.

It is described as "savagely honest and unsentimental."

Critic Robert Drewe writes: "It stings like winter surf. Grogan has truly captured the other side of paradise."

Wayne Grogan, 52, spent 16 years working on the waterfront in Newcastle and Sydney until 1993. He overcame a heroin addiction to complete a Bachelor of Arts degree from Deakin

University. He lives in Sydney with his family.

The Sydney Morning Herald rated Junkie Pilgrim in the top three crime novels of the year. It has since been adapted into a screenplay with Hollywood producer Greg Coote, former boss of Village Roadshow.

Port prize

The MUA got a guernsey from the Albany Port Authority when it won a major maritime industry award for innovation saving millions of dollars.

The award was for new technology to restore load bearing degraded concrete piles. Skills training for local wharfies was an important element of the project and port CEO Brad Williams paid special tribute to the MUA for their support role.

"Through the process the MUA provided their full support and encouragement," he told the 2006 Lloyds Port of the Year Award ceremony in Melbourne in November.