MUA dispute dragged labour on docks ‘into modern era’

Greg Combet says union’s ‘near death” experience’ in the 1998 waterfront dispute drove positive change on the docks.

Former ACTU secretary Greg Combet thinks back on the dispute: ‘What we did was negotiate a sustainable settlement’. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

Former ACTU secretary and Labor minister Greg Combet has acknowledged the settlement of the 1998 waterfront confrontation drove “cultural change” on the wharves and brought work practices on the docks into the modern era.

While maintaining the Howard government lost the extraordinary dispute, Mr Combet said he had told many of the workers after they were locked out by ­Patrick’s Chris Corrigan that the dispute “was not about protecting everything on the job”.

“If it’s something like the ‘nick’ system, that’s got to go. What it’s about is your job, to get you back there, to protect your entitlements, to protect collective bargaining, to protect your right to be in a union, to have a collective agreement, to give you a say in your own workplace,’’ he said in an interview to mark the dispute’s 20th anniversary.

“But it’s going to be a different workplace and it has to be a productive one. If you are prepared to accept those conditions, that’s the objective of the dispute, then we can win it. But if you think it’s going to be about protecting the indefensible then forget it, we cannot win some of the things that have gone on.”

Mr Combet said the negotiation of the settlement, in which half the workers took redundancies funded by the Howard government, was “tough at the end”.

“Some people criticised us that we compromised too much on the number of redundancies but they were voluntary,’’ he said.

“What we did was negotiate a sustainable settlement and it has been sustainable. The union is in business, people earn good money, they’re members of a union, they’re on collective agreements. For me, that’s a success.

“The real loser of that dispute was the Howard government. It set out to get rid of the union, that was its objective, and it demonstrably failed.”

Mr Combet said the productivity improvements were driven by ­incentive payments but also a recognition that work practices had to change. Asked what drove the jump in crane rates, he said: ­“Incentives and cultural change. I should not diminish the importance of that. Everyone knew after that dispute, there’d been a near-death experience and that would have focused everyone’s minds on the job somewhat. It took the waterfront from the postwar ­arrangements that were very, very highly regulated into a modern economy.”

He said Mr Corrigan “used the Howard government to give him $150 million to conduct the dispute”.

“If he could do it by getting rid of the union, well and good but if he could do it by ultimately negotiating a new agreement that ­improved productivity also well and good,’’ he said.

“His objective is to make money. He got $150m out of the government and a productive and very profitable business.’’

Former ACTU secretary Bill Kelty said the union and Mr Corrigan were big winners. “The only real loser was John Howard and the anti-union strategy. They lost,’’ Mr Kelty said.