Socialists, unionists, community activists and his many comrades were saddened to learn of the passing of Doug Jordan in Melbourne on 19 May.
Doug learned late last year that cancer in his leg had spread. The diagnosis was not good. He took the news stoically and with much courage – characteristics that marked his long life in the revolutionary and labour movements. In typical fashion, he organised his own wake last month with friends and comrades.
Doug was already a committed socialist before he migrated to Australia from Britain and joined the Socialist Youth Alliance at the height of the anti-Vietnam War movement. He was a member of the Socialist Workers Party/Democratic Socialist Party for many years. He proved himself a leader, serving on its national committee in the 1970s and ’80s.
He later became involved in community campaigns including Defending Public Housing and was well known as a presenter on Radio 3CR’s City Limits, which he co-hosted with Kevin Healey for many years.
Doug was a union activist on the Melbourne and Adelaide tramways until he was made redundant when the Liberal Kennett government axed tram conductors in a bitter dispute in the late 1990s. His commitment as a union activist had already gotten him arrested in the 1990 tram dispute, when he helped organise the blockade of Melbourne’s CBD with dozens of trams.
His role as a rank and file activist in the Rail Tram and Bus Union served him well when he wrote a doctoral thesis on the influence of Communist Party activists in the union movement. It was published earlier this year, titled Conflict in the unions: the Communist Party of Australia, politics and the trade union movement 1945-1960. At the time of his passing, he was writing another book on the history of the tramway unions in Victoria.
Conflict in the unions highlights the legacy of committed rank and file Communist activists who, despite the Stalinist character of the CPA, were able to cement very strong bonds of working class militancy on the shop floor. Doug outlined the role of the CPA in building the peace movement, strengthening ties with Indigenous communities and fighting anti-migrant racism.
Doug wanted to pass these examples on to younger generations. One of his last formal activities was to attend Marxism 2014 despite his failing health.
He will always be remembered for his principled commitment to socialism and his eagerness to impart his formidable knowledge as an activist within the union movement and progressive causes. He will be remembered for his non-sectarian approach, a delightful sense of humour in dishing out as good as he got and his courage in the face of adversity.
Doug was a friend and comrade of mine for more than 40 years – it is difficult to be reminded of our own mortality. But we will remember his lifelong commitment and unstinting loyalty to the working class and those oppressed by a rapacious system of profit gougers. Douglas Arthur James Jordan fought until his dying breath.
Vale Doug!

Ian Jamieson

Doug Jordan: socialist, unionist, labour historian

The WA branch of the Maritime Union of Australia is facing a major battle with the shipping and resource industry as negotiations over an offshore enterprise agreement remain unresolved.
After 15 months and more than 100 meetings with industry and its representative – the Australian Mines and Metals Association (AMMA) – union members at a number of shipping contractors have now voted for industrial action.
However, at one major company, Tidewater, the AMMA has wormed straight in at the Fair Work Commission to have the proposed two-day stoppage delayed. It won the argument that any strike would be illegal because the MUA “has not attempted to bargain in good faith”. The union says that the commission is using a technicality to block workers from striking legally in pursuit of their aims.
The AMMA’s concern about good-faith bargaining seems only fleeting; it has been waging a malicious public campaign designed to poison perceptions about the role of the MUA in the resources industry. Its message has included claims that MUA members earn $400,000 a year, that the WA branch is “rogue” and that the entire resource industry is at stake in this dispute. 
Backing these nonsensical claims has been the federal government, which has been keen to use AMMA’s anti-union stance to tighten industrial laws further. Industry minister Eric Abetz has flagged imposing further restrictions on the existing small legal opening for union members to take industrial action during enterprise bargaining.
The Abbott government has also just announced that it will introduce regulations allowing companies running pipe-carrying construction vessels to bypass local workers and those on 457 visas and instead employ workers on special maritime crew visas. Workers on these visas have fewer rights than local workers and likely less even than those on 457 visas. This regulatory manoeuvring is part of a strategy to allow the resource industry to get around important workplace standards and protections under Australian law. 
The latest moves by industry and the federal government have been backed by a minister of the previous Labor government. Martin Ferguson, a former secretary of the ACTU who now works for the petroleum industry, has joined the AMMA in labelling the WA MUA a “rogue union”. He has also accused the union of critically damaging the resource industry.
Last year, Ferguson was publicly bid a fond farewell by the AMMA when he resigned from his parliamentary career. Today, he continues to fight the bosses’ battles. At the instigation of the MUA, the WA branch of the ALP unanimously carried a motion calling for his expulsion from the party. 
On yet another front of the attack on the MUA, again spearheaded by the AMMA, tug workers employed by TeeKay Shipping (one of the world’s largest marine energy transport companies) operating from Port Hedland have postponed industrial action over their claims for a pay rise of about 4 percent per year and four weeks’ annual leave. The delay is to allow negotiations to continue.
The AMMA has been ramping up its public campaign around the dispute with claims that a strike would cause losses of $100 million per day, along with false claims as to pay rates and other tales about how the current roster provides TeeKay workers with six months a year off the job.
The AMMA has remained deliberately silent on the length of the working day for tuggies – a minimum of 12 hours per day for 28 days straight. This means that, over each of the 52 weeks in a year, a tuggy works an average of 39 hours a week. TeeKay workers are right to fight for four weeks’ annual leave, a condition that is shared by nearly every other permanent worker in the country.

WA maritime union fighting on multiple fronts

Yet another plank in the raft of proposals to weaken unions and emasculate working conditions is the Abbott government’s move to repeal legislation that provides migration zone status to off-shore projects.
It will specifically affect the multi-billion dollar Gorgon LPG project off the coast of Western Australia.
Introducing the Repeal Bill on 27 March, immigration minister Scott Morrison claimed it would remove red tape in the industry. He has the full backing of the Australian Mines and Metals Association.
The original legislation, which was introduced last year and comes into effect on 30 June, sought to clarify that Australian law applies to the off-shore industry. The legislation followed a Federal Court ruling that vessels not attached to Australia’s seabed were exempt from Australian law.
The law gave a measure of protection to workers in the industry in terms of safety, training and contractual arrangements. National secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia Paddy Crumlin said at the time that the legislation would allow “employment, safety, training and occupational licensing requirements [to] be brought up to Australian legal and industrial standards”.
With its repeal, employers such as Gorgon’s Chevron will be able to employ people who have little to no training or experience in the off-shore industry.
Although the company will have to comply with international laws and regulations, workers will not be covered by higher Australian standards in a range of areas such as safety and proper training – and of course, they will have no access to unions who can defend their rights.
The new legislation has created an uneven playing field that will only benefit the massive LNG industry and provides another path to super exploit guest workers. It further hampers attempts by the MUA to ensure that its members, highly qualified and trained in the industry, are guaranteed employment.
The Repeal Bill, which has yet to face the Senate, comes at a critical time. Negotiations over the off-shore Enterprise Agreement with the MUA have reached a stalemate. The WA branch of the union has declared its determination to ensure there is permanency in the industry.
The Mines and Metals Association, in welcoming the Liberal government’s decision, is just as determined to see an untrained, unqualified, nonunionised workforce in the off-shore industry. They want to place workers beyond the reach of established protections in order to make billions of dollars more than they already do.

Doug Jordan: socialist, unionist, labour historian

WA maritime union fighting on multiple fronts

Liberals to attack seafarers’ rights – again

Other Media

Shop

Manage Your Subscription

Contact Us