The Argument among the Major Stakeholders In the Australian Waterfront Dispute.

Authors Avatar

The Argument among the Major Stakeholders

In the Australian Waterfront Dispute

The Australia Waterfront dispute occurred during 1997-1998. The dispute has been described as a war, which influenced the nation profoundly and immensely (Trinca and Davies, 2000). The Waterfront dispute caused a wide-ranging debate about the role of the Australian unions, the effectiveness of the industrial relations system and the effectiveness of the Australian Waterfront. However, the debate turned into a series of arguments involving workplace change, the role of unions, managerial power and what constitutes the public interest (Petzall, Timo & About, 2000). There were several groups directly affected by this dispute, the different stakeholders (Schermerhorn, 2003) played different roles in the dispute. However, The union achieved the final goal in this dispute.

An important issue for Prime Minister John Howard was to overcome the union’s unreasonable and overbearing: position by not allowing employer to hire the non-member workers of unions; not allowing employer to sign the labour contract with individual workers directly (Robyn Williams, 1998). At that time, Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) had a conference with Patrick to discuss and redesign the labour contract, the Patrick group which were stevedoring the company of National Farmers Federation (NFF), fired the employees who were the members of MUA and other unions, instead of hiring workers trained by some agency in United Arab Emirates and Australia. Furthermore, the Patrick’s actions were connivanced by the government of Prime Minister John Howard and the Federal Workplace Relations Minister, Peter Reith. However, MUA received the support from the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), ITF proceeded to announce at the ports around the world resisting relevant companies and its stevedores. Then, the MUA sued Patrick group through court and won in the lawsuit finally. The Patrick group had to agree to meet the legal costs of MUA, about 1.5 million Australia dollars, the MUA succeeded in the dispute (Petzall, Timo & About, 2000).

Join now!

This essay will explain the dispute from three main views of stakeholders: the government, the unions and the stevedoring and stevedores in this dispute.

From the union’s view, the dispute initiated by Patrick group fired labourers of the waterfront, then, it received support from the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), which declared to the ports around the world resisting relevant companies and its stevedores unless they recalled all the primary labourers. After the judging by law, the MUA got the final success in this war.

Concerning this, the MUA got support from ITF, however it ...

This is a preview of the whole essay