The 1998 waterfront dispute pitted workers against each other. Recruits from the wharves share their stories
Members of the Maritime Union of Australia were sacked overnight and locked out of Patrick Stevedores wharves. (Photographer: Chris Gosfield, from the collection of the Noel Butlin Archives Centre)
It was April 7, 1998, about 11pm on the east coast of Australia, and there was unusual movement in Botany Bay.
Several boats glided through the dark on their way to the shipping terminal of Patrick Stevedores. They carried an unlikely cargo: the boats were full of guard dogs and security guards wearing balaclavas.
They landed, and everyone scrambled up onto the dock. Then they forcibly took over the Port Botany wharves.
This happened at Patrick's wharves all around the country.
Security guards stood by as they were harangued by sacked wharf workers at Melbourne's Webb Dock. (Reuters)
The next morning, Australians woke to the news that Patrick Stevedores had locked out and fired 1,400 workers who were members of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA).
The 1998 waterfront dispute was set to become one of the most significant industrial disputes in Australian history.
It had been brewing for months, years even. The Howard government and the managing director of Patrick Stevedores, Chris Corrigan, wanted to radically overhaul work practices on the waterfront. They argued it was inefficient.
But with 1,400 workers gone overnight, who was going to keep the docks running?
Overseas training for recruits
Months earlier in November 1997, Mark*, a project officer in the Australian Army, saw an ad in the army newspaper calling for "trade specialists". It promised "excellent career opportunities" and a "competitive salary".
He was ready for a career change and called the recruiter.
"We were told it was work funded by an Asian consortium. They didn't divulge too much. It was all very secretive," Mark told ABC Rewind.
The recruiters told him he'd be leaving for overseas training in a few weeks. But Mark had a problem.
The MUA was threatened with legal action if it tried to prevent non-union dockers from going to work. (Reuters)
"My passport had run out and I was given a name. I went into the passport office, dropped this name, and within two hours I had a new passport. And that name was from Canberra."
Other recruits also had their passports approved within hours.
"I had an impression the government was involved when that passport went through within two hours. Someone within the Commonwealth had to give that authority. And that's when my suspicion started," Mark says.
"The speed of everything was laughable. It was like a James Bond movie. Everything was secretive."
This was for a reason. Mark had been recruited for a top-secret mission to train an alternative, non-union workforce in Dubai to take over the jobs of union wharfies.
Mark says they intentionally targeted military personnel.
"We have leadership qualities, and we're not easily intimidated. They knew from the outset what we were in for. They certainly didn't let us know. They kept things very, very close to themselves."
MUA members picketed outside the Patrick Stevedore run wharves. (Photographer: Chris Gosfield, from the collection of the Noel Butlin Archives Centre)
It's since been confirmed that Patrick Stevedores was behind this plan. Mark and others say they were explicitly told the training scheme also had government support.
But when the news broke in Parliament on December 3, 1997 — the same day Mark and 75 other trainees flew to Dubai — Corrigan and the Howard government denied knowing anything about it.
Mark's suspicions about the training were confirmed when they were ambushed by media at the airport on their way out.
"Some of us figured, yes, it could be on the waterfront. But under no circumstances did they make it clear that we would be going up against the MUA. No idea whatsoever."
The waterfront dispute became a political storm for the Howard government. (From the collection of the Noel Butlin Archives Centre)
Just a week into the Dubai training, in solidarity with the MUA, the International Transport Workers Federation threatened to block ports in the United Arab Emirates if its government didn't act. The UAE immediately suspended the training and the recruits flew home to an uncertain future.
"We sat around waiting, people were getting edgy. I thought, wow, this is bullshit. This is way too deep. What the hell am I doing here? But it was too late. Did I feel betrayed? Yes," Mark says.
A 'battle bus' pelted with rocks
Patrick Stevedores' MD Chris Corrigan moved to Plan B.
In January 1998, he partnered with the National Farmers Federation (NFF), which had an historical beef with the MUA, and a new workforce was recruited.
This time they targeted farmers.
Twenty-one-year-old Glenn Adams fancied the idea of driving something bigger than his family farm's tractor. Not to mention earning more money.
So when he saw a recruitment ad, again with a vague job description, he called.
Non-union workers were brought onto the wharves in an attempt to break the union. (Reuters)
"They were looking for farmers because farmers are pretty adept at turning a hand to anything. Give us a piece of machinery and in ten minutes, we can figure out how to use it and use it pretty confidently."
Glenn also says he was told the government was behind the training. Specifically, that "the government was funding and facilitating the setting up of a non-union workforce to work alongside the unions on the docks."
Alongside is key. Glenn had no idea he was being trained as a strike breaker.
This new workforce, under the banner of Producers and Consumers Stevedores (PCS), started training at Patrick's Webb Dock in Melbourne in early February 1998.
Glenn was excited about learning new skills, but his first day of work was confronting.
The non-union workforce was driven across the picket line in a "battle bus".
The protests often became violent as protestors struggled with police and security guards looking to move them on. (Photographer: Chris Gosfield, from the collection of the Noel Butlin Archives Centre)
"If you've seen any Mad Max movies or any Hollywood production of a battle bus that's been armoured up and outfitted for war, that's what we were in," says Glenn.
For the union and its supporters, these PCS workers were "scabs". Rocks and insults were hurled, both ways, for months.
"The rocks, or the stones or the bricks, they start thudding on the outside of the bus and the windows, and you hear windows smashing."
On the flip side, when the union workers eventually returned to work after the dispute, they found their common areas damaged, graffitied and torn apart. Some tools had been destroyed.
Meanwhile, the Dubai trainees who were watching this unfold were livid. They'd signed three-year work contracts. After some tricky negotiations with Chris Corrigan, some end up in the mix with the PCS recruits, some as their trainers.
After a few months of training on Webb Dock, the non-union workforce was ready.
The MUA knew something was brewing. It was waiting for it. But it didn't expect it to go down like this.
The non-union workers were dubbed "scabs" and forced to cross aggressive picket lines. (Reuters)
Things get even worse
When Patrick Stevedores fired 1,400 union wharfies and locked them out of their workplaces on the night of April 7, 1998, Mark and Glenn were part of the non-union workforce that took their place.
So was James*.
"I felt pretty peeved that we were given a misleading statement to get us into that situation. We expected to be providing competition, be working alongside these guys. We didn't think we were going to go in almost like an invasion," James says.
"And it got quite ugly soon after."
Some non-union workers concede they knew exactly what they'd signed up for. But many maintain they were misled.
Fired waterfront workers and other union supporters marched in front of Sydney's Darling Harbour docks in April 1998. (AP: Rick Rycroft)
When James turned up for work on the Brisbane docks the morning after the lockout, it was tense.
"The gates were shut, the police were in attendance. There were wharfies screaming abuse and carrying on.
"We were told not to touch water bottles around the place because the wharfies had done things to the water that would make it poisonous. I don't know whether it's true or not. Even that they pissed in the water, or taken keys out of cranes, out of forklifts and thrown them away."
Picket lines at Patrick's docks around the country blocked their entry daily. It wasn't pretty.
James eventually realised why there was so much animosity.
"I could understand why because they'd lost their jobs and, in effect, we'd taken over."
What happened to the alternative work force?
While the dispute played out on the picket lines, it was also playing out in the courts.
First, in the Federal Court which decided in favour of the MUA and then, on appeal, the case landed in the High Court.
On May 4, 1998, in a six to one decision, the High Court upheld the Federal Court's order restraining Patrick's from sacking its MUA workforce.
The High Court upheld the Federal Court's finding in favour of the MUA and the sacked workers. (Photographer: Chris Gosfield, from the collection of the Noel Butlin Archives Centre)
PCS and Patrick Stevedores were not expecting the union to challenge the mass sacking in court. And they found themselves in a bind. They couldn't pay two workforces.
So, when the MUA workers walked back through the gates a few days later, what happened to the alternative workforce?
Some, like Mark who was a manager, were kept on. But he quit a few months later, finding it untenable working alongside the MUA workers he'd replaced.
Others like James and Glenn lost their jobs. Their three-year contracts were torn up and they received a small payout.
Their names were mud. Many had been outed as "scabs", blacklisted from union jobs and found it almost impossible to get work.
Before working for PCS on the waterfront, James had worked in management. After that he struggled to find any job.
"We're employed one day, gone the next. Then you're fighting for survival. It's all playing out on TV. Your income runs out, then you've got to go and stand in a line to do mundane jobs and earn a buck the hard way."
He lost friends and family too.
"A good friend came into the football club one day, saw me there, turned around, walked back and has never been to the football club since. I was ostracised and vilified. We thought we're only going in on a competitive basis against the waterfront workers, and we found out we were actually used as a blunt tool."
Many of the non-union workers felt they'd been used, dragged into a situation beyond their understanding, and then discarded.
By the time they realised what was going on, it was too late. They'd quit other jobs, had dependent families and bills to pay. Losing their jobs at the end was the final gut punch.
Eventually, when the MUA negotiated its way back into Patrick's workplaces, it had to swallow several bitter pills.
The families of workers on both sides of the dispute were impacted by the waterfront dispute. (Photographer: Chris Gosfield, from the collection of the Noel Butlin Archives Centre)
More than 700 wharfies were made redundant and it agreed to drop the conspiracy case against the Commonwealth of Australia, the NFF and Patrick Stevedores.
A group of disaffected non-union workers eventually mounted a compensation claim against Patrick Stevedores and the NFF. They received a small payout but, for most, it didn't cover the income they had lost.
Glenn says it was a "brilliantly executed deception".
"We were used to achieve an end goal that didn't turn out, never mind the lives that were impacted in between. There were lives at stake, families at stake."
And he has a message for members of the MUA.
"I'd like to say sorry. It wasn't meant to play out that way. It was just a big bloody game of chess and we were both pawns."
*Some names have been changed