Industrial Rounds

P&O Vote

Progress is slow and steady with negotiations now into their seventh month.

As MWJ went to press Deputy National Secretary Jim Tannock and Assistant National Secretary Rick Newlyn report the state of play was as follows:

Agreements have been reached at Newcastle B & G, Sydney Terminal, Tasmania, Port Hedland, Bunbury, TTLine Melbourne Sydney and Tasmania, Darwin, Adelaide, Port Kembla and Portland.

Still to finalise are Melbourne, West Swanson, Sydney Bulk & General, Melbourne B & G, Brisbane and Fremantle Terminal.

National negotiations were set down for September.

Boeing Solidarity

NEWCASTLE: MUA members have dug deep and raised $10,000 in support of their AWU comrades on the Williamtown Boeing picket.

About 20 maintenance engineers have been locked in an industrial dispute after their employer attempted to force them to sign individual contracts.

AWU Newcastle Secretary Kevin Maher said the existing contracts were in breach of the principle of equal pay for equal work, as Boeing was paying the workers up to $2 an hour less than their counterparts elsewhere who were doing the same job at the same skill level.

"The Howard Government is misleading the community on industrial relations," said branch secretary Jim Boyle. "He says workers will have choice, at the same time backing the right of aircraft company Boeing to deny people jobs unless they signed contracts."

Opposition leader Kim Beazley said the Boeing workers were being denied choice and were "victims of Liberal Party extremism".

MUA National Secretary Paddy Crumlin has spoken to AWU Secretary Bill Shorten and ACTU Secretary Sharon Burrows about MUA support for a delegation to Boeings head office in Chicago.

"The MUA will back the workers all the way," he said.

Patrick Dispute

MUA members rallied nationwide in August in a show solidarity with our comrades, members of the Rail Tram and Bus Union who are in dispute with Patrick's Pacific National Major Terminals in Adelaide, Brisbane, Sydney, Newcastle, Melbourne, Port Kembla and Perth

The workers are taking protected action as part of their negotiations for collective bargaining outcomes with a Patrick Operator.

Sydney MUA members came across some old faces on the picket with branch officials and Patrick wharfies facing off with the likes of Perkins, a former manager of Patrick Darling Harbour, who like many of the worst managers during the bad old days Patrick in 1998, has reared his head in the freight side of the business.

Hardie Rally

Maritime Union members joined construction unions and indigenous Australians to demonstrated against James Hardie in August

Protesters demanded the company honour its undertakings all the undertakings that they gave to the NSW Premier, the NSW Supreme Court, Unions and Victims Groups, and the Australian community last Christmas and set up a $2b fund to compensate future victims of asbestos.

Sydney Branch Secretary Robert Coombs, along with other senior Union Officials gained access to the meeting.

"We demanded James Hardie sign on the dotted line," said branch secretary Robert Coombs. "We also let them know we had no trust in them and will continue to expose their heinous crimes of the past."

The Hardie campaign has not gone global with unions pushing to have workers and consumers in other countries, especially Third World and developing countries, compensated."

30A Protest

The MUA proudly joined the 30A protests against the 300 company executives, representing some of the world's biggest war profiteers, environmental vandals and corporate crooks globalisation, war and corporate greed gathered at the Sydney Opera House for three days in August.

Assistant Sydney Branch Secretary Warren Smith was a key speaker at the rally. "30A is an ideal opportunity to target the big corporations and their puppet Governments," he said. "These forces of capitalism are attacking workers, destroying our communities and implementing policies of war and destruction at home and abroad. They must be opposed and defeated."