Maritime Diary

Paddy Crumlin National Secretary

By National Secretary Paddy Crumlin

You'll have to excuse me if I don't shed too many tears at the passing away of Ronald Reagan, one time president of the US. They reckon he suffered from Alzheimer's for the last 10 years. I'd say it's more like 30 years.

Good riddance Reagan

Reagan was the front man for big business in the US, much the same as George W Bush is now. Neither were elected on their insight and intellectual capacity (in fact, George W. was not elected at all). Reagan spent hundreds of billions of dollars on nuclear and conventional weaponry, including the infamous Star Wars initiative that would have given the US the capacity to carbonise any person, town, city or country from outer space. George W. wants to kick start this idea again. It's a great thought, isn't it? If you don't agree with their version of events, you might get scorched with a couple of nukes. Nothing like leaving a bright new future for our kids.

Reagan and Thatcher waged another war against workers and trade unions that saw some of the most brutal attacks on our movement in modern history. Reagan's crushing of the air traffic controllers was not only a favour to his mates in the airlines, it ushered in a period of safety breaches, air crashes and further deregulation that ruined the industry eventually and ironically sent most of those same companies broke. Thatcher, his offsider, did a similar job on the British miners and other British workers. She not only destroyed those industries and the living workers and their families made from them, but bankrupted communities and even cities in the North of England, a legacy of impoverishment and destruction still being felt in those areas today.

The fawning, saccharine and distorted coverage of Reagan's Presidency reflects the media's total control by the enormous trans-national companies he and the people of his administration represented and were controlled by. Little is being said about his support for the gangster who ran Nicaragua, or the outrageous Contra initiative by Oliver North and his CIA goons against the democratically elected Sandinista Government. We only hear what a lovely old guy he was. Yeah, great.

Arnold, John and George

What a quinella George W. and John Howard are. Or even better, Arnold Schwarzenegger and John Howard. The latter pairing, as one wag put it, is like a political version of the movie Twins. The little fellow is huffing and puffing his way all over the world so his big mates can put in a good word for the Don Bradman of politics, as he thinks he is. Well, he's no Don Bradman, but I hope he gets a duck like the Don in his last electoral innings.

It's a disgrace to compare the D-Day Anniversary with their cynical and destructive little initiative in imperialism in Iraq. Again, the fact that Saddam's mob were gangsters not terrorists, and that he had no weapons of mass destruction, and the Iraqi people clearly don't appreciate having their homes and families bombed and murdered and their economy destroyed, is all last in the media coverage. But Howard's comparison of his dirty little war to the heroic destruction of fascism in World War II is even too much to cop from the children overboard and Patrick dispute gang. Let's see the back of them this year, and really work hard for it.

Ports of Convenience

At the ITF Asia/Pacific Dockers' conference this week all the affiliate unions determined to support a campaign against "Ports of Convenience". This included terminals and other stevedoring workplaces around the world where workers' rights and conditions of employment are being attacked. Increasingly, the world's docks are being controlled by a handful of international companies that are driving down the rights of workers to gain market share. We know all about it. Casualisation, sub-contracting, reduction in penalty rates, use of non-stevedoring workers including FoC seafarers to do wharfies work and in some countries importing cheap guest labour from third world countries is increasingly the order of the day.

I reported on the MUA conference decision to work with the miner's union and other Australian transport unions along with our NZ and US, Japanese and South African mining and dockworker mates to protect our jobs and the conditions we work under. The ITF is fully behind making this a worldwide, particularly by having ITF affiliates acting against rogue stevedoring employers. It will be an important step forward for all dockers. The casualisation and attacks on our conditions are happening everywhere, so we must act with unity and clear focus in the same way.

Many of the world's dockworkers and maritime unions look to the MUA for leadership on these matters, and the deep involvement of international guests and the subsequent resolution of our National Conference are understood and appreciated by workers around the world. Touch one, Touch all.

Super surplus

We have finalised an agreement in-principal with the main stevedore companies Patrick and P&O to restructure the SERF scheme, greatly increasing the benefits for members in both the Defined Benefit and Accumulation Section, permanents and casuals alike. It will involve giving members the option to move from a defined benefit to an accumulation approach. This will potentially greatly increase their entitlements in retirement, and provide further financial support to retire earlier if they wish.

The negotiations with the employers secured agreement that they would greatly reduce the five year holiday surplus previously agreed to pay for the increase in entitlements for members under the accumulation option. Any change from Defined Benefit members would be voluntary. The union, together with SERF, will make presentations to all SERF members in coming months so all changes and options can be fully explained and understood.

The negotiation of the new agreement follows determinations by our union to increase early retirement benefits in the stevedoring industry following the removal of some early retirement provisions in R&R agreement and has taken a couple of years to secure.

I believe the new agreement will be one of the great achievements on realising further financial security and independence for stevedoring workers in their retirement. It will take a month or so to finalise some details, and the presentations will commence in late July, early August, with plenty of time afterwards for members to consider their choices.