Logging On

LIES AND LOSERS
News Limited – especially The Australianand the shabby
editorialists appointed by the Dirty Digger to feed his ego and
megalomania – have been typically the worst offenders.
Isuppose like many others we perversely wear their ideological
hysterics against our activities with a bit of pride. But they’re hard
work. The only place we get a run on our side of things is on our
own website.
It was a full time job trying to correct or even publicly challenge
many of the outrageous assertions getting workshopped up by
those roosters at that bastion of objectivity the HR Nicholls
Society, a political organisation dedicated to Untruth, Injustice and
the Corporate American Way.
Ex Labor Party Minister and constant critic of the same party,
Peter Walsh, returned off his neo conservative life support system
to compare us to the Whitlam Government in the 70s. Thanks for
the wrap, but that was nearly 40 years ago, mate. Must have been a
traumatic time for him.
The Employer Bias Group, the ACCI got hot and sweaty after a
session in the HR Nicholls sauna bath and waded in heavily
intoxicated by the prospects of a return to WorkChoices in an
election year. Abbot‘s IR spokesman Senator Abetz, not the
master of the understatement it seems, doubled our wages
overnight, stripped us of all our skills and predicted the end of
civilized life as we know it. They made Chicken Little sound like a
Trappist monk.
The Australian Shipowners Association, presumably feeling a bit
inadequate not having a headline, predicted it would sink the
remaining blue water ships, strangely connecting two different
industries that have happily lived in coexistence for 40 years with
big wage differences, leave systems, working hours and customer
markets. And the Australian Institute of Marine and Power
Engineers leadership, agreed with all of them, while hastily
reassuring their membership that all of the gains won by the MUA
would flow on to them. What a gang.
Julia Gillard, the Minister for Industrial relations made a few
points about our negotiations and actions being legal and
consistent with the Act and coolly encouraged all of the parties to
get on with closing an agreement and building a safe and efficient
hydrocarbon resource sector. Which we have done.
Ironically she was party to the same information as all of the
heaving, sobbing and salivating MUA lynch party, knowing the
only truth was that the MUA claim was a catch-up to wages
already being paid in the industry. The difference in attitude I
guess is she didn’t have any axe to grind with the union and the
many workers that rely on our professional industrial advocacy,
other than ensuring the Fair Work Bill was not just a name.
STEVEDORES GALORE
Hutchinson has been successful in the tender for the new terminal
operation at Botany in NSW. They werealso successful over a
year or so ago at Fisherman’sIsland in Brisbane, and the weights
are going on the Victorian Government to open a third terminal
in Melbourne.
It’s a bit confusing why new stevedores are such a priority.
Politically the Productivity Commission and the pointy-headed
advocates of abstract markets have been huffing and puffing about
widening the market and bringing lower costs to port users, but
they have little hard evidence that this is the case other than their
mathematical algorithms.
Outside this academic womb and in a real world, stevedoring
productivity relies on long-term commitment to capital
expenditure in relationships between stevedores and state
providers of infrastructure. This requires a massive capital
commitment by the stevedore to terminal enhancement,
technology and capacity.
Returns are measured over decades with entry into the market
characterised by years of losses before break-even is reached.
This will be case with Hutchinson as well. The tendering process
has the effect of existing stevedores winding back their expansion
and maintenance programs until the market with the new
stevedore is properly appraised, a disincentive to productivity.
The entry of the new stevedore takes years.
The NSW tendering process in one form or another is already
over five years and startup is a further couple of years away. In
Melbourne it couldn’t happen before 2017. Together with Port
Authorities trying to claw out the cost of dredging and the other
infrastructurework required for a new site from existing
stevedores this becomes a powerful brake on capital efficiency
over a long time.
New roads and rail need to be developed to meet intermodal
increases in freight forwarding, and the expense of this is far
greater in meeting additional business outlets in a port.
Internationally because of this thereareusually veryfew
stevedores in any single port. This is the case other than in some
mega ports of places like Rotterdam or LA/Long Beach.
This makes commercial and public policy sense particularly given
the current and ongoing credit squeeze. Look at the problems
DPW have in meeting those challenges. Even some of the largest
ports like Singapore or Hong Kong are dominated by a single
operator and are highly productive. China adopts this model as
well. Why the difference here then?
Weneed a national stevedore policy, and should not leave it to the
whims, egos and vagaries of state politics. The Federal Minster
for Transport and Infrastructure needs to herd all the cats into
one room and one national port policy.
TRAINING A NO BRAINER
The bullshit of the bosses in the offshore negotiations included
their self-denial about the stuff up with maritime training over the
last 10 years. And it’s not just restricted to the offshore industry.
Thestevedoring industry has been woefully neglectful of their
responsibilities as well for different reasons.
Inthe offshore it’s as if the rise of the price of hydrocarbons has
caught them all with their duds in a ditch. They must have the
project management skills of the government of Haiti. You would
think that high prices clearly translate into greater drilling,
translating into more facilities requiring more workers to build and
service when completed.
Perhaps someone forgot these workers don’t grow on Pilbara trees
and take years to train. The higher wages being paid to
hydrocarbon workers over the last eight to 10 years are testament
to a shortage of skilled workers – seafarers being only one small
part. The oil majors leave training to the contractors, as they are
the employers of labour, and the contractors say they can’t fully
make training commitments until the tenders are awarded.
So it’s the blame game, with the Australian Mines and Metals
Association, those masters of blaming everyone else but
themselves, representing both oil majors and contractors. If their
intellectual productivity output in this area turned to dynamite
they wouldn’thave enough to blow the wax out of their ears.
In stevedoring therearedifferent issues for the same dismal
outcome. The casualisation of labour and over-reliance on
supplementaryand guaranteed workers has been a disincentive to
train to best practice standards. In making it clear what those
standards are the MUA is doing an international benchmarking
with the cooperation of other dockers’ unions.
Simulators, discrete training facilities, agreed modules including
theoretical and practical training feature in stevedoring operations
across the world, making a clear link between training and the
minimisation of accidents both to machinery and goods but most
importantly to the workers on those sites. It’s not the case here,
and training has slipped to a low point, with little or no
designated infrastructure.
Both areas need addressing and it should be noted by all
that the MUA takes its role as one of the stakeholders
very seriously, and looks forward to working with
employers and government on the urgent solutions
required.
The blue water shipping industry, labouring under
narrow profit margins and high exposure to risk, has been
amodel of consistency with training, but has been let
down by failures to have their commitments properly
recognised, including by government. The new shipping
reform package needs to address this.
PHOTO: The national secretary and partner Gayle welcomed by the PM and wife Therese at the Australia Day reception, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.