One thousand eight hundred wharfies employed by DP World are facing one of the most serious attacks on waterfront workers’ conditions and jobs in decades. 
On 18 July the company sharply escalated its attack by announcing plans to make 200 wharfies redundant at its terminals in Melbourne and Sydney. The announcement was made in the business media before affected workers were notified, and timed to coincide with the beginning of a 48-hour strike by members of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA). 
DP World is Australia’s largest stevedoring company. Parent company Dubai Ports World is one of the top five global port operators. Its 28,000 workers worldwide moved more than 36 million shipping containers last year – nearly one in every 20 of the world’s container port movements – generating a global profit of $US1.29 billion. Though DP World’s Australian operations turn over a minimum of $A500 million each year, the company did not pay a single cent in corporate tax in Australia in the four years to 2016-17 (the most recent year for which figures are available).
Along with its threat of 200 redundancies, management is pushing to outsource work traditionally done by wharfies, such as “cargo care” (looking after refrigerated containers), as well as some maintenance tasks. Management is also refusing to include an automation clause – already in the current Sydney agreement – that outlines a consultation and job-saving process in the event of automation. Management can’t even bring itself to add a clause covering 10 days’ leave for survivors of domestic violence: it wants domestic violence leave subject to company policy and management discretion, rather than an enforceable workplace entitlement.
In July, workers in DP World’s container terminals in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth engaged in protected industrial action ranging from work bans to stoppages to two-day and four-day strikes. Senior DP World Australia executive Andrew Adam complained: “Four vessels have been redirected to other stevedores in July to mitigate delays, and we estimate 40 vessels and up to 110,000 containers will be delayed”. 
Management’s move to sack hundreds of wharfies during this industrial action was a blatant attempt at intimidation. Wharfies have often observed work moving to other operators during an enterprise agreement negotiation. However, there’s a back story to these latest moves, and the competitive pressures that DP World is facing.
The use of new, much bigger container ships that can’t be accommodated at DP World berths has caused work to move from DP World to Patrick Stevedores in Sydney and the new, highly automated VICT container terminal at Webb Dock in Melbourne. Another factor is that VICT employs its workforce on a cut price enterprise agreement, with casual pay rates 40 percent below the industry standards and no restrictions on casuals or penalty rates for overtime. After the sacking of a union delegate, VICT was the scene of a defiant community and worker picket that shut down the terminal for 19 days in late 2017. 
Though the picket got the delegate back on the payroll, it didn’t get him back on the job. And the substandard agreement is still in place. Reports on the MUA website describe 12-hour shifts, exhausted workers and a hyper-aggressive, bullying management. The expiry of the agreement at VICT in October this year raises the possibility of legally protected industrial action for the first time since VICT opened: a major challenge for the MUA will be to achieve an industry standard agreement there.
In the meantime, as the MUA predicted in 2017, VICT’s substandard agreement has motivated other companies such as DP World to attack conditions. Hutchison Ports, which operates terminals in Sydney and Brisbane, has also launched a log of claims attacking worker entitlements to redundancy, superannuation and consultation.
To win against all this is no small task, especially in the face of Australia’s anti-worker laws (constructed over decades by both Liberals and Labor). A series of rulings in Fair Work and the Federal Court have struck out various forms of industrial action by DP World workers. At the end of July, the MUA suspended industrial action, pending further negotiations and court proceedings. DP World has also withdrawn its change proposals, including the redundancies, while talks proceed.
The future of the dispute is far from clear, but the ingredients for a win are the same as always. Stubborn resistance. Stopping production. And solidarity: if DP World succeeds in driving conditions backwards for its workers – a key industrial workforce with solid union organisation and real industrial power – it’s a green light for further attacks. Bosses around the waterfront, and much further afield, will be looking at how the struggle unfolds at DP World. We all have a stake in this fight.

MUA member

DP World escalates waterfront dispute with redundancy threat

Enterprise agreement negotiations are under way for two of Australia’s largest stevedoring companies, DP World and Hutchison Ports. Together, these companies employ 2,200 wharfies. True to form, each company has come to the table with nothing but crumbs, bad faith and outright bastardry. 
DP World is generously offering what it euphemistically calls flexible work hours (roster manipulation), competitive promotion criteria (head picking) and more days off (cancellation of shifts). And that’s just what it is willing to “give”.
What it wants in return is the removal of income protection, a freeze on allowances and guaranteed earnings for casuals, reduced sick leave entitlements and a minimum shift duration of four hours (it is currently eight hours). 
The Maritime Union of Australia log of claims includes the elimination of “supplementary” (totally casualised) labour, guarantees on automation and outsourcing, and a disciplinary clause to stop management from writing its own rules for punishing workers.
DP World is pursuing an industrial strategy of confrontation and provocation. On two separate occasions the company has refused to meet or walked away from negotiations with union representatives. 
In early February the company announced a “rollover” offer of a year, with no improvements and minimal pay rises. Negotiating in 12 months would enable the company to take advantage of a likely economic downturn, as well as enabling waterfront employers to take on their workforces one company at a time. 
After the union rejected the rollover, the company cancelled workers’ income protection as punishment. The union has applied for a ballot for protected industrial action.
Workers at Hutchison Ports are also facing serious attacks. Workers there have overwhelmingly endorsed industrial action, which began on 17 January after one of the most aggressive logs of claims by a stevedoring company in recent memory – and despite a challenge in the Fair Work Commission from the company. Action will include rolling stoppages, work bans and limitations. 
Later in January, Hutchison withdrew its attacks on long service leave. But with attacks on the 30-hour work week, $10/hour pay cuts, outsourcing, automation and much more still on the table, workers voted to begin a 24-hour stoppage on 24 January. Paul McAleer, secretary of the Sydney branch of the MUA, told a crowd of wharfies and community supporters who had gathered to support the strike at Port Botany, “In negotiations Hutchison management had boasted they want to be the ‘Tiger Air’ of stevedoring”, displaying the utter contempt they have for their own workforce.
The protest marched on Patrick Port Logistics, where Hutchison had sent a vessel to be worked, in anticipation of the strike. Riot police blocked the march and detained two MUA members, including Paul McAleer. Protesters formed a blockade to great effect, preventing trucks from entering the terminal for a period; the MUA members were eventually released. This was a small battle in what is turning out to be a war for working conditions on the waterfront.

Same old from waterfront employers

A two-month campaign by wharfies at the DP World Port Botany terminal in Sydney has ended with a victory: 15 new permanent jobs. The workers’ campaign included a golf day held on 10 May, as reported previously in Red Flag. The day before it was scheduled to occur, casual workers’ participation in the social day was deemed by the Fair Work Commission to be unlawful industrial action. Nonetheless, around 100 casual wharfies took long sips from tall glasses of Fair Work defiance as they enjoyed a few holes at Botany Golf Club. 
That same afternoon, wharfies on the evening shift discovered that the cables holding up the large banks of lights on towers throughout the terminal were rusted through. This imminent threat to safety quickly resulted in the closure of one third of the terminal, throwing shipping and trucking movements into chaos.
The next day, DP World’s Port Botany terminal general manager, Bastiaan Hokke, addressed the workforce and gave a commitment that no warning letters would be issued to golf day attendees. He also promised that a labour review to consider an increase in permanent jobs would begin within days. So far, not a single person has been disciplined for taking part in the golf day.
On 6 June, a two-hour mass meeting (known as a yard meeting on the waterfront) was held, at which an offer was put to the workforce for endorsement. The offer included the creation of seven new maintenance jobs (four mechanical fitters and three trades assistants) and eight upgrades from the semi-permanent variable salary employee (VSE) category to the permanent fixed salary employee (FSE) on the 35-hour week roster.
However, several caveats were introduced that had not been aired prior to the yard meeting. These included: changes to the existing order of pick between gangs on the two main operations rosters – the older, established 36-hour week roster and the newer 35-hour week roster; and that all future VSEs shifting to the FSE category would be placed on the 35-hour week roster as required by management. This change opens up the potential for “grandfathering” (phasing out) the 36-hour week roster. This move was seen as another attempt by management to divide the workforce.
A heated discussion ensued. Many were incensed that the job offers that had been wrung from management were bundled into a package along with changes sprung on union members. This was seen as the company trying to give with one hand and take with the other.
The offer was endorsed by the union official and the elected site committee on the basis that it was the best we could get. However, during discussion about the vote, some argued to reject the offer. One worker spoke from the floor: “We’ve got them [the company] on the back foot, our golf day had 96 percent support – why would we accept this? Let’s have another golf day. No – a golf week!” After the debate, a large majority voted to knock back the offer and push for more. 
The DPW workers were encouraged by the four-hour stop work and defiant rally held by maritime and construction workers outside the Fair Work Commission building in East Sydney the week before. This highlights the importance of having an engaged rank and file, concerned with pay, conditions and the outcomes of disputes.
Two days after the yard meeting, Hokke again addressed the workforce and, in flagrant disregard of the decision from that meeting, spoke of implementing all parts of the package previously put to the meeting. On 12 and 13 June the workforce voted across three shifts to reinstate the previous industrial campaign demands. 
On 14 June, the company backed down. A total of 16 permanent jobs are to be granted (the original 15 jobs plus one extra “backfill” position), with none of the changes that had been announced as part of the earlier package.
There is an important lesson to come from this: even in Australia’s anti-union industrial climate, when workers want to fight they can fight, and they can win.

A win on the docks in Sydney

More than 500 maritime and construction workers rallied outside the Fair Work Commission in Sydney on 29 May. The protest was initiated by the Maritime Union of Australia to demand the right to strike. Marching from Town Hall to the steps of the commission, the rally took aim at the industrial tribunal’s growing role in restricting workers’ rights. 
“Wage growth is at historic lows. Employers are tearing up legally binding enterprise agreements and locking out workers who try to negotiate better wages and conditions”, said Paul McAleer, Sydney MUA branch secretary. 
Highlighting how difficult it is for workers to stop work in any circumstance, the MUA cited an example from Hutchinson Ports earlier this year in which the company tried to force workers back to work immediately on an unsafe job after an accident left a straddle-carrier driver in a coma. Union officials were also denied entry to the workplace. 
Speakers from the MUA were joined by union representatives, including from the NTEU, ETU, CFMEU and AWU. Greens MP David Shoebridge also addressed the crowd, saying, “The big law we need to change, that everything hinges on, is the right to strike”. 
One stevedore from DP World described how the Fair Work Commission had recently ruled against casual staff holding a social day, describing it as unlawful industrial action. “This proves just how stacked against workers the FWC really is”, she said. “We can only rely on our ability to strike.”
Another worker from Hutchison Ports echoed the sentiment, explaining that after the tragic straddle-carrier accident, they had “refused to operate that piece of machinery for 16 days: it wasn’t safe, and the company didn’t even tell us how it happened. Someone was almost killed, but that didn’t stop the company taking us to the FWC for illegal industrial action”.

Protest demands right to strike

Workers at DP World’s Port Botany terminal have defied a Fair Work Commission ruling ordering them not to participate in a golf day. The commission agreed with the company that attendance at the social day would constitute unlawful industrial action. The decision, issued by a Labor appointee to the commission, deputy president Geoff Bull – former director of workplace relations for the boss’s advocacy organisation, the Australian Mines and Metals Association – was rushed out the evening before the golf day was planned. 
The ruling was aimed at casual wharfies who had chosen to nominate 10 May as a day off work. Casual workers on the docks don’t get the traditional weekend. Instead, their rosters are variable and determined by the company according to its “business requirements”. What casual wharfies do have is a right, under the enterprise agreement, to elect eight “scratchings” a month. A “scratching” is a day that a wharfie nominates as a day off.
When a few hundred dock workers nominated 10 May as a “scratching”, the company hurried to the commission seeking an order prohibiting the casual workers from having a collective day off. Bastiaan Hokke, general manager at DP World’s Port Botany terminal, told the commission that if “irregularly engaged employees” were not available for work, “it would cause significant disruption and delay to DP World’s operations … leading to DP World and its customers suffering significant financial and other loss”. 
Hokke’s evidence about the indispensability of casual dock workers to usual operations might have come as a surprise to union representatives. The maritime union regularly pushes for more casual workers to be offered permanent positions but is generally rebuffed by the company’s claims that it doesn’t need them. 
As well as seeking a ban order from the commission, DP World threatened disciplinary action against those who did not attend their shift. Despite the commission’s order and the company’s intimidation, 96 percent of the 250-strong casual workforce showed incredible courage by standing up for their right to have a planned day off. The social day at Port Botany Golf Club went off without a hitch, many in attendance hoping for similar days in the near future. 
The dispute about “scratchings” came in the midst of stevedores raising a number of critical safety concerns. In particular, there have been numerous incidents in which the wire ropes used by quay cranes have snapped. Workers also discovered that a part declared unsafe on another type of crane – the rubber-tyred gantries – had not been replaced despite multiple requests from the safety committee. 
The safety fears of workers are well founded. The wire ropes are used to hoist shipping containers that weigh more than 20 tonnes. If one rope snaps, the rest are likely to follow. The outcome for anyone caught underneath a fallen container needs no explanation. People working up higher are not out of harm’s way either. A snapped rope recoils like a broken rubber band, except that a snapped steel rope won’t sting if it hits you, it will cut you in half. This is a particular concern for people working on ships close to the cranes.
A lack of preventive maintenance is being blamed for the failures. A recent investigation revealed that the company contracted to perform maintenance on the cranes neglected to grease wire ropes to prevent rust and corrosion. Another major factor is the slashing of maintenance jobs during the global financial crisis. Maintenance numbers have not been restored to pre-2008 levels despite work at the terminal increasingly substantially. 
In the latest labour review, the Maritime Union of Australia identified several jobs for diesel fitters and trades assistants that could be created in the maintenance department. However, the company refuses to come to the negotiating table with more than crumbs.
These safety concerns and the company’s heavy-handed approach to the golf day for casuals are likely to be hot topics during enterprise agreement negotiations set to begin in August. The defiance already shown by the hundreds who attended the golf day is a sign that the DP World workforce is ready for the fight.

Workers defy Fair Work ban on social golf day

A protracted dispute at Qube Ports Melbourne is drawing to a close. For two years, workers have been negotiating with the bulk and general stevedoring company for a new enterprise agreement. An in-principle agreement was endorsed by members of the Maritime Union of Australia at a meeting at Appleton Dock in late April. 
The new agreement provides a 9.5 percent pay rise over three years. It also imposes restrictions on the use of gruelling 12-hour night shifts. Workers will no longer be compelled to work more than two consecutive such shifts. The agreement provides for a minimum 32-hour rest period following any two consecutive shifts. However, it allows workers to work up to four consecutive 12-hour night shifts if they volunteer to do so.
According to the in-principle agreement, workers will no longer be required to travel to Geelong to work. A $500 sign-on bonus also forms part of the agreement.
It took significant pressure to bring Qube to the negotiating table, including six days of rolling strikes over a 25-day period starting in March. Workers also imposed bans on shift extensions and engaged in work-to-rule activities. 
A community protest was established outside the gates of Webb Dock West. Workers had a limited capacity to set up a hard picket at the site because the massive multi-user terminal has many entrances. Even if they had picketed with the help of reinforcements, Qube had contingency plans. The company resorted to flying in dozens of scabs via helicopter.
Negotiations were vicious, with Qube raising the prospect of sacking one of the union delegates. The company also threatened to terminate the existing agreement, which would have forced the workforce back onto the award and resulted in a 59 percent wage cut. Management made it clear that they had a replacement workforce on stand-by and were willing to lock out existing workers. They also threatened to “flood” the workforce with casuals, which would have significantly diluted the earnings of the existing workforce.
The majority of Qube Ports workers are casual. Of a workforce of 145, only 23 are permanent. One of the most important outcomes of the enterprise agreement campaign was a jump in union density; up from 60 to 93 percent in just a few months. 
The challenge now for the union will be to build on the success of the industrial action. The next agreement at Qube will need to go further and secure demands that improve conditions related to hours of work while maintaining the decent wages that have been fought for.

DP World escalates waterfront dispute with redundancy threat

Same old from waterfront employers

A win on the docks in Sydney

Protest demands right to strike

Workers defy Fair Work ban on social golf day

Qube wharfies hold their ground

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