Members of the ILWU Longshore Negotiating and Safety Committees travelled to Australia in early April to meet with 300 union delegates from around the world. 

    Dockers from around the world convened in Sydney to mark the 10-year victory by the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) over a vicious union-busting effort by Patrick Stevedoring and conservative government allies led by former Prime Minister John Howard.

    MUA President Paddy Crumlin delivered a stirring account of that struggle, accompanied by videos of the pitched battles that took place between strikers, scabs, and police.  MUA workers eventually won their jobs back at Patrick, and Australia  now has a more labor-friendly government, but Crumlin said the MUA is taking nothing for granted and sees difficult struggles ahead. 

    The MUA devoted the better part of a day to present a detailed account of their political action effort that helped elect a more labor-friendly government in late 2007.  The key, according to Crumlin, was involving record numbers of MUA members in a grassroots campaign effort. 

    Other dockworker union representatives at the conference described the conflicts underway at their home ports as global shipping interests and anti-union governments keep pushing an agenda of deregulation, privatization, and union-busting.

    Several speakers noted that it was the government of Britain’s Margaret Thatcher, followed by her successor, John Major, that marked a new era of attacks against unions – with dockworkers being a prime target.  The Liverpool dockers felt the lash in 1995 – marking a series of attacks against dockers around the world. 

    ILWU International President Bob McEllrath reviewed the history of struggles that have happened in the ten years since the battles at Patrick, noting that the West Coast lockout in 2002 also involved collusion between longshore industry officials and their friends in the Bush White House that coordinated their attack on the ILWU.  Similar struggles are now taking place throughout the European Community, Japan, and most major ports around the world.

    In all of these struggles, cooperation and international solidarity between unions is becoming an increasingly important factor. 

    “The ILWU has always recognized that international relations between unions are an important source of support. We’re committed to strengthening those ties and continuing to make international solidarity a part of our strategy,” said ILWU International
President Bob McEllrath.

    ILWU members were also able to attend another meeting in Australia:  the 3rd International Pacific Rim Mining and Maritime Unions Seminar. This network, started in 2002 at the time of the ILWU lockout, is co-sponsored by the ILWU, MUA, Australia’s Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, along with Teamsters, Steelworkers, and other unions that seek stronger ties between workers and unions that mine raw materials and produce goods from them – with the unions that transport and distribute those goods and materials. 

    “It’s important to understand these supply chains so we can develop new allies  and exploit the weak links that can help us win organizing campaigns and better contracts,” said ILWU Coast Committeeman Ray Ortiz, Jr.