New cross-Tasman maritime worker federation to bolster MUA and MUNZ power in Kiwi and Australian ports

At the Mari­time Uni­on of Australia’s Nation­al Con­fer­ence in Adelaide the MUA and the Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and (MUNZ) announced a new fed­er­a­tion bring­ing togeth­er the two uni­ons in a form­al arrange­ment to build work­ers’ power at ports through­out Aus­tralia and New Zea­l­and.

Speak­ing at the announce­ment, Nation­al Sec­ret­ary of the MUA Paddy Crum­lin explained that a form­al arrange­ment was the next logic­al step for the two uni­ons after many dec­ades of closely work­ing togeth­er on work­place, safety, geo­pol­it­ic­al and indus­tri­al chal­lenges facing mari­time work­ers in both coun­tries.

“The fraternal bonds that link our two uni­ons are some of the closest, old­est and most dur­able in the trade uni­on move­ment, and giv­en we are work­ing in an increas­ingly glob­al­ised work­place and stand­ing up against some of the same bosses, it makes per­fect sense to expand and bol­ster the strength of our Uni­ons through a form­al­ised fed­er­a­tion,” Crum­lin said.

The Mari­time Uni­on of Aus­tralia, formed in 1993, is an amal­gam­a­tion of the old Water­side Work­ers Fed­er­a­tion and the Seamen’s Uni­on of Aus­tralia. The MUA, through its pre­de­cessor Uni­ons has been an immov­able force on the Aus­trali­an water­front and around our coast­line for 151 years. Like­wise, in 2002, MUNZ was formed through the amal­gam­a­tion of two uni­ons, cov­er­ing whar­fies and sea­farers, that trace their his­tor­ies in New Zea­l­and to the 19th cen­tury.

“The his­tory of mari­time indus­tries was one of cas­u­al labour, injury and death on the job, and ruth­less employ­ers who wouldn’t cede an inch to their work­ers,” said Craig Har­ris­on, the MUNZ Nation­al Sec­ret­ary.

“Our mem­bers had to fight for and defend their right to secure, per­man­ent jobs, a decent wage and safe con­di­tions of work. We have stood togeth­er to improve the lot of work­ing people and their com­munit­ies since those early days and we now look towards an even stronger pres­ence on the water­front and on our ships across the Asia Pacific through this fed­er­a­tion with the MUA,” Har­ris­on said.

The expan­sion of glob­al net­work ter­min­al oper­at­ors and the vora­cious appet­ite of big employ­ers like Qube for swal­low­ing up smal­ler steve­doring oper­at­ors across New Zea­l­and has made the fed­er­a­tion an obvi­ous stra­tegic step for the two uni­ons to take togeth­er. The Aus­trali­an Fed­er­al Government’s stra­tegic ship­ping fleet com­mit­ment will also deliv­er sig­ni­fic­ant trans-Tas­man capa­city and new train­ing and employ­ment oppor­tun­it­ies in both Aus­trali­an and New Zea­l­and for mari­time work­ers.

“We saw dur­ing COVID, where ship­ping and ter­min­al oper­at­ors manip­u­lated vital sup­ply chains to extract max­im­um profit from vul­ner­able coun­tries like Aus­tralia and New Zea­l­and that are entirely depend­ent on glob­al ship­ping,” said Mr Crum­lin. “Now the same car­tel forces are organ­ising against Aus­trali­an and Kiwi com­munit­ies to use the sheer brute force of cap­it­al to take con­trol of our docks. They will jack up land­side prices, con­trol sched­ules and freight lanes, and drive down the work­ing con­di­tions and wages of our mem­bers, so the stra­tegic import­ance of the rela­tion­ship between the two Uni­ons can­not be over­stated,” Crum­lin added.

The two Uni­ons, togeth­er, rep­res­ent tens of thou­sands of mari­time work­ers. The MUA, a divi­sion of the CFMEU, has branches in every state and the North­ern Ter­rit­ory while MUNZ has ten branches across both the North and South Islands. The two uni­ons already attend each other’s Nation­al Coun­cil meet­ings and work in the strongest uni­fied way across their shared inter­na­tion­al trade uni­on affil­i­ations and by shar­ing trade uni­on train­ing and stand­ing side by side in struggle and cam­paign­ing.

Togeth­er, the MUA and MUNZ, have col­lab­or­ated on a num­ber of indus­tri­al and polit­ic­al cam­paigns and estab­lished strong fraternal bonds of solid­ar­ity between the two Uni­ons. The ‘War on the Wharves’ char­ity box­ing tour­na­ment, held each year to raise money for char­ity, is a long-stand­ing expres­sion of this close and import­ant rela­tion­ship.