Hutchison Ports – ‘union busting is their game’

In what the Maritime Union of Australia has called a “twisted mix between James Bond and Harry Potter”, Hutchison Ports Australia (HPA) has named its union busting campaign Phoenix Rising.

The phoenix – a mythical bird fabled to have been born out of the ashes of its predecessor – is a metaphor for the intentions of HPA in Australia. Warren Smith, assistant national secretary of the MUA described the company’s plot, leaked to the union, as “an ages-old divide and conquer tactic”.

At a union rally outside Hutchison’s Port Botany site in Sydney on 3 August, Paul, a stevedore and union member for 18 years, and previously sacked by Patrick Stevedores in 1998, explained the background to HPA’s attacks.

Hutchison Ports is the largest container terminal operator in the world. When it established its Australian operations two years ago it embarked on a Greenfields project to build the company “from the ground up”. Its preference was for non-union labour on permanent but irregular rosters. Workers barely knew from one day to the next what their shifts would be.

Experienced workers like Paul were hired, but others without any experience in the industry were also taken on. “There is no training”, he said, before detailing some of the many perils of working on the docks.

Paul, now a shift leader, and other union militants, set up their own safety committee at Port Botany. They’ve been targeted as a result. Craig, a delegate and member of the safety committee, told Red Flag: “We’ve worked so hard for two years to build up the company and now they’re just getting rid of us. They’re getting rid of us to automate the wharves and bring in non-union labour”.

Since winning the contracts to run terminals in Sydney and Brisbane, HPA has been cementing itself as a competitor to the Patrick Stevedores and DP World duopoly that had previously controlled the container industry in Australia.

The union says that, now that HPA is established, the company wants to dump its workforce to automate its operations, and employ casual and non-union labour. A company memo, provided to the Australian Financial Review, confirms that HPA intends to “remain active in the Australian market but at a lower cost base”.

Paul explained how the company initially broke the news to its existing workforce two weeks ago. “They snuck in to a staff room and left a memo on the table when no one was around, advising us they were downsizing in Australia”, he said.

That this is a class attack is lost on no one at Port Botany. “For every six dollars made in Hong Kong, the owner of HPA makes one dollar”, one worker said at the protest. Several others point out that the company’s owner is the thirteenth richest person in the world. They know too that the Hutchison Port Group is worth $67 billion.

Unionists from around the world have pledged their support to HPA workers. Messages have been received from dockworkers in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Spain, Morocco, the United States, Canada and France.

HPA workers in Australia know that their struggle is shared. They can reel off details about the terrible conditions and pay of the Hong Kong dockers who work for the same boss. And they tell of the 40-day strike these workers held to win, in part, the right to visit the toilet during their shifts and not have to use buckets instead.

“Our struggle is the struggle of the entire working class”, a unionist said from the front of the rally, to loud applause.

Another led the crowd in song:

HPA is their name,

Busting unions is their game

Abbott’s in the caper too,

Both of them would make you spew

We’ll fight the bastards all the way

Hutchison workers here to stay!

[The picket is going 24-hours at Sirius Road, Port Botany. Solidarity is welcome and appreciated.]