The Guardian 6 February, 2008
Seafarers’ great victory
After a seven-day sit-in on their ship, massive community support and international solidarity, sacked seafarers on the Triton in Darwin have had an historic victory. In fact, they have not only won their jobs back, but have done so on better conditions than before their employer sacked them.
The Triton is a merchant vessel with a government contract to patrol northern Australian waters for illegal fishing. It is owned by Gardline International and its crew, all members of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA), were employed by body hire company TK Shipping. Last month, Gardline informed its unionised crew that when the ship left Darwin port after maintenance work their contracts would not be renewed.
The union believed that their unionised workforce, all of whom have passed stiff security and customs clearance, would be replaced by non-union, low paid, unchecked seafarers working under lower safety standards.
When told they were going to lose their jobs, the seafarers decided not to leave their vessel. The local community, concerned that costal security would be contracted out to a foreign transnational corporation, and the Australian workforce dumped, gave their overwhelming support.
Australian seafarers are subjected to stringent security checks, are highly qualified and in the case of the eight Triton crew who staged the sit-in, have around 100 years of experience between them. The crew that would have taken their place had around 20 days training. They would have been hired on non-union individual contracts (AWAs) and be paid $36,000 less per annum less than the MUA members were with no pay rise for five years.
The company had cynically manipulated the Maritime Authority to reduce the qualifications required to sail the vessel. The MUA has got that downgrading of qualifications reversed.
Dutch, Norwegian and British unions covering the crews of the company’s other vessels expressed their solidarity with their Australian counterparts and played an important role in securing the victory.
Guardline has agreed for the first time to directly employ the crew of the Triton and two other ships on a union collective agreement instead of through a contract with a labour hire company. This in itself is a great victory for the union and its members.
The company has also agreed to drop litigation it had commenced against the seafarers for alleged trespass.
The icing on the cake was the sacking by the company of the local manager, "an evil bastard" according to one MUA member, using polite language. They were pleased to see the back of him.