IN the 1970s, Bob Hawke was ACTU secretary, Australia was known as the strike-bound "land of the long weekend", and "no ticket, no start" closed shops were the order of the day.
Hawke became prime minister in 1983 and while he and Paul Keating might have been socially progressive, they presided over the dismantling of union power in this country, with John Howard then finishing the job from 1996 onwards.
Today, the trade union movement is on its knees, membership wise.
The latest ABS figures have 14.3 per cent of some 10.4 million employees as members, down from 51 per cent of the workforce in 1976.
Across these decades of change, two groups have been able to maintain something like their old bargaining power in the workplace.
They are coalminers and maritime workers.
Stalwarts of the hard industrial left, their "touch one, touch all" collectivism has made them the idols of socialist dreamers, and the bane of the bosses.
Both are part of the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union, while operating as separate entities.
I mention this background because it's been a busy year, industrially, on the waterfront.
You may remember Patrick Stevedores from the wharf wars of 1998, when Peter Reith, Howard's union-busting industrial relations minister, came to the aid of then-owner Chris Corrigan.
Patrick's are still big today, with terminals in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Fremantle.
Corrigan sold out in 2006 and created a company called Qube, which in turn joined with Canada's Brookfield in a 50/50 deal to take back control of Patrick in 2016.
He later retired as Qube chairman but the union still loves to paint him as an absentee landlord directing traffic from his homes in Switzerland and Italy.
Qube's present chairman is Allan Davies, ex Rio Tinto and Whitehaven and another union bete noire.
(Qube runs its own terminals, and the MUA has also been in dispute with it, as shown in the accompanying videos.)
LAST YEAR'S BATTLE:
- Sept 28: Patrick in commission to end port action
- Sept 29: Morrison says wharfies holding country to ransom
- Sept 30: no deal after day of talks
- Oct 1: PM demands wharfies 'go back to work'
- Oct 1: Wharfies agree to end industrial action
The latest chapter of an ongoing battle between Patrick and the MUA took place on Tuesday when the company asked the Fair Work Commission to terminate the enterprise agreement that sets the conditions at its terminals, after two years of attempts to negotiate a new agreement.
One thing that sets this dispute apart from what little industrial action we still have in Australia is the grip the MUA retains on who gets a job and who doesn't.
The waterfront has always been clannish and territorial, but in my experience as an industrial reporter the union would generally dispute accusations of nepotism.
In August, another stevedoring company, Hutchison Ports Australia, signed an enterprise agreement with straightforward clauses giving the union the power to determine 70 per cent of the workforce.
Such written binding authority would have been a big win 40 years ago, but in 2021 it stands in stark opposition to the modus operandi in most Australian workplaces: which is, rightly or wrongly, that what the boss says goes.
The Hutchison enterprise agreement says 40 per cent of appointments will be "from friends and family of employees covered by this agreement", with 30 per cent "from the MUA" and 30 per cent from the company.
Hutchison defended the deal at the time, saying it still gave them flexibility, but other employers and employer groups were quick to bag it, fearing the inevitable follow-on claims.
Assistant national MUA secretary Jamie Newlyn says employers have "unfettered control" of employment on the waterfront and that the Hutchison deal is an "exception by agreement".
Patrick, in turn, says similar clauses are part of the union's log of claims, and points to "more than 220 industrial actions" at its various terminals, - painting the MUA as the Grinch stealing Christmas with supply chain delays. Newlyn says Patrick's claims are "confected outrage".
The MUA, for its part, blames the supply chain delays on COVID, which is undoubtedly hurting the movement of goods.
The union says COVID regulations are also making pariahs of the generally poorly paid Third World crews who are stopped from disembarking at most ports, including Australia's, because of coronavirus fears.
Patrick says it has about 1080 stevedoring employees. It says that as things are, "average" full-time earnings at Port Botany, including bonuses and overtime, are $172,214.
The average number of working days it puts at 198.
The Melbourne figures are $151,048 and 162 days, Brisbane $153,880 and 173, and Fremantle $166,464 and 181 days.
Patrick says it is offering four annual 2.5 per cent increases - a compounding increase of 10.3 per cent overall - and that "the world has changed, and we need to be able to recruit and promote the best people for the job rather than be hamstrung by antiquated union-led processes and policies that restrict our business".
The union says its members are "simply seeking fair pay and job security at a time when Patrick is enjoying spectacular growth in cargo volumes".
Where you sit on this depends ultimately on your view of capitalism and the only tool a worker has: the withdrawal of their labour.
TODAY'S NEWS: MUA and Patrick's slug it out on the waterfront
