Don’t Blame the Wharfies!

Date: 12 April 2000

MEDIA RELEASE
April 12, 2000
Bad government & bad management
to blame for falling crane rates

"The Government has no one to blame but themselves for falling productivity on the waterfront."

This is the response of MUA Assistant National Secretary Mick O'Leary to comments by the Minister for Transport John Anderson in today's media.

"They blamed us last time, they can't blame us this time," he said. "They didn't get to keep their militia or the dogs on the docks, and they didn't get to sack the whole workforce, but they did get their reform -- thousands of wharfies made redundant, massive casualisation of the waterfront, on-going sackings of union delegates and the so-called right for management to manage. And what's the result? Falling crane rates at all ports except for Adelaide where union friendly Sea-Land has been getting better and better each quarter. And Sea-Land have achieved this without dogs and balaclavas, without any redundancies, without casualisation and without reducing the role of the union. It just goes to show."

The furore over waterfront reform comes on the second anniversary of the Patrick Dispute, with the release of the latest Bureau of Transport quarterly crane rates.

"The figures speak for themselves," said Mr O'Leary. "Sea-Land, Adelaide has a crane rate of 23.2 boxes an hour, well above all other ports. The policy of getting rid of MUA labour and bringing in fresh young casuals has been a dismal failure. Patrick are just not training and looking after the new recruits and they are rushing to join the union. At the same time Patrick have been bringing in more managers with military background to push people around, morale is down, they've contracted out maintenance and labour just don't have enough equipment in working order to do the job."

Mr O'Leary said P&O Ports was also experiencing similar problems because the Government had forced it into going the way of Patrick, refusing public funding if the company did not meet a deadline to halve its permanent workforce. As a result the company was struggling for months with new, casual workers trying to do the job."

Acting National Secretary Paddy Crumlin, mobile: 0418 379 660
Assistant National Secretary Mick O'Leary, mobile: 0419 413 464

For further information

Contact:	Zoe Reynolds
Union:	Maritime Union of Australia
Phone:	0417 229873
WWW:	http://mua.tcp.net.au/

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