patrick stevedores dispute

ACTUQ meeting condemns actions by Patrick and the Government and resolves "to prepare for an industrial campaign" but no date is set. But as tens of thousands of Australian workers and hundreds of overseas workers marched, picketed, struck and levied themselves in solidarity with the MUA, it became clear that what held the campaign back was not any lack of fight from the rank and file but the leaders' own political and industrial strategy. First is the technical. The succession of "give-backs" occurred at the same time as redundancies were cutting a swathe through the ranks of the union. February-March. Mass meetings of MUA members (from both Patrick and P&O) receive report-backs from national officers regarding negotiations over the Patrick's dispute. The concessions made by the MUA through the late 1980s and early 1990s fit into this general pattern. The deal is also a setback for union power on the waterfront. The NSW Labor Council organised an all-unions delegates meeting on 28 April to discuss action, and the ACTU Executive, having talked weakly about "community campaigns" for a full fortnight after the sackings, was finally forced by the pressure of events to sanction industrial action and to appear at the Melbourne picket line in explicit defiance of a Supreme Court injunction. Established by Bob Hawke, endorsed by the WWF, and overseen by the Waterfront Industry Reform Authority, the programme offered many advantages to the shipping and stevedoring companies. The defeats workers are suffering today are not inevitable. Despite this demoralising experience, a crowd of four hundred showed up at Camp Solidarity on the following morning in the expectation that this time we were going to establish a proper picket to stop all trucks moving in and out of the Patrick's operations. How did this monopolisation of power occur in a union historically known for its lively port debates and argument? Some picketers put this down to the police being merely "meat in the sandwich". The plan was to set up this non-union company as an island of scab labour in a sea of MUA labour aiming to undercut union organised wharves. September Finally, even if none of these tactics had been followed, the conditions set by Patrick and the administrator in the peace package put before members in mid-June should still have been rejected. And in its final decision, although the High Court eventually upheld the wharfies' right to their jobs, it also ruled that the administrators had the right to determine on commercial grounds if the labour hire companies should continue to operate. These bans clauses resulted in unions piling up massive fines, totalling $280,000 between 1956 and 1969, with another $300,000 in legal costs (probably worth ten times as much today). The sacking of the entire Patricks workforce differed from other industrial disputes. Furthermore, it would have raised the issue of public ownership of the waterfront. When at one point police in Sydney were ordered in to break up the lines, more than 160 of them took sickies! Meetings of MUA Patrick members vote in favour of the framework agreement officially revealed to them for the first time at the meeting. The Government had connived with Patrick to train 30 former and serving military personnel in Dubai in readiness to work as scab labour for the Australian waterfront. In late May as the workers were back in the gates, and negotiations were progressing, the picket lines were disbanded. Once picketers were grabbed by the police and taken off the road, they went straight back to join the picket. From dismissing its workforce to patrick stevedores dispute labour-hire companies stevedoring companies, Patrick Stevedores was closed and! Major Australian port made their lives hell finance and business means that patrick stevedores dispute ca n't and... 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