11:12 p.m. Apr 15, 1998 Eastern
By James Regan
FREMANTLE, Australia, April 16 (Reuters) - Police in riot gear dragged dozens of protesters from a picket line outside a Western Australian wharf on Thursday as tense stand-offs developed on docks around the country.
The police action, in the Indian Ocean port of Fremantle, came the day after a court in nearby Perth granted stevedoring firm Patrick a temporary injunction against a union picket.
A similar injunction was granted in Sydney, but a convoy of 30 trucks due to enter the city's Port Botany docks on Thursday morning was turned back in the face of protests by sacked dockers and sympathisers.
Patrick last week sacked its entire 1,400-strong union workforce as part of a campaign to break the Maritime Union of Australia's (MUA) grip on the country's wharfs.
The move was backed by the government, which says Australia's docks are among the developed world's least efficient.
Both sides in the dispute are vying to win crucial public support.
Union officials said Thursday's police action began at 2 a.m. (1800 GMT Wednesday) when as many as 300 police dressed in riot gear moved in to Fremantle docks to evict more than 100 picketers.
Many of the picketers were driven away in police vans, but were quickly released as leather-jacketed police formed a human chain to prevent them returning to the gates of the dock.
A police spokesman said there were no arrests and no injuries.
``If you had a party and people were making noise, you'd call the coppers and have them removed,'' spokesman Bill Malavits told Reuters at the dock. ``This is all we're doing...we're not taking sides here.''
At least 1,000 supporters joined the protest during the morning. Seven or eight trucks were parked on the outskirts of the terminal but none of the drivers attempted to drive into the Patrick terminal.
In Sydney's Port Botany, unionists celebrated an apparent victory when a large truck convoy due in to remove a backlog of containers from the Patrick terminal turned back.
Industrial relations laws passed by Australia's conservative government after it came to power two years ago prevent sympathetic unions from mounting secondary pickets or boycotts.
As a result, MUA officials kept in the background, but a large crowd of supporters joined the MUA picket anyway.
Among them were six officials of Sweden's powerful metalworkers' union, including its national secretary Erland Lindkvist.
``In the open-market world it is important to show union solidarity,'' Lindkvist told reporters. ``If you lose this fight, they will move to other countries in Europe, and the United States, and they will try to destroy other unions.''
Also joining the Sydney protests were two members of the New South Wales parliament. The state is the only one in Australia run by a left-wing Labor government.
``We agreed we would sit down in front of trucks and get arrested in their (the unionist's) place,'' said one of the MPs, Meredith Bergman.
In Melbourne, legal action by the MUA trying to force reinstatement of the dockers was due to resume in the Federal Court. The MUA is alleging a conspiracy between Patrick, the National Farmers' Federation and the government to break its power.
The dispute is beginning to take a toll on the Australian economy and could soon force companies to stand down staff.
Officials from the manufacturing and shipping industries said on Thursday the disruption was tying up crucial imports and exports on the docks, where as many as 6,000 containers are estimated to be stranded on Patrick wharves.
One of the country's biggest car-makers, Toyota Australia, said its Melbourne production line would be in a ``critical position'' within a few days due to a shortage of car-parts. REUTERS
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