Just as ships with scab cargo are about to dock at West Coast ports......... rumors are spreading on the waterfront that the Australian dockworkers have won their struggle, that it's all over. Brothers and sisters, this scuttlebutt is, at best, premature celebration or, at worst, a rumor initiated by the maritime employers and/or the right wing, anti-union Australian government to confuse and disarm wharfie supporters across the big pond.
The wharfies have been waging a solid strike to defend their union, the Maritime Union of Australia, and working conditions. They are now in the forefront of maritime workers around the world in the fight against capital's attempt internationally to destroy waterfront unions, historically the most militant. The big surprise for the bosses was the overwhelming popularity with which the wharfies' stand was greeted by the Australian working class, bolstering the picket lines to massive proportions in a successful effort to stop scab cargo from entering the docks. Mass defiant actions like these would make the Liverpool dockers or any dockworker proud.
In a fax dated April 30, 1998, a union official, warns longshore workers on the West Coast of company ploys and asks us to keep up the support until they are back at work. We must not let them down. It's the same struggle, against the same bosses whether in Australia, Japan, Mexico, Canada, England or the United States.
Jack Heyman #8780
San Francisco
