> i *dimly* recall the dock struggles in australia a few years ago (which i
> followed closely at the time), but i don't remember a horrible outcome . . .
> could you (or someone else, perhaps one of our comrades from down under)
> provide a quick synopsis?
from http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/feb99bacon.htm
Liverpool Dockers By David Bacon (Z-NET)
Liverpool was once the strongest union port in Britain, a country where all dockworkers were unionized for over 100 years. Under past Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, however, British ports were turned over to private companies. Dockworkers, who had been public employees, then became employees of individual private employers. In the process, recognition was withdrawn from the unions, and almost all were destroyed. Today, every port in Britain is non-union.
[...]
In the last decade, privatization of ports has spread to Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and elsewhere. In most cases, the process has led to mass layoffs, the destruction of unions, and declining wages and working conditions. In some cases, as in the Mexican port of Veracruz in 1989, privatization has been carried out at the point of a gun.
[...]
The Australian dockworkers strike began soon after the situation in Liverpool concluded.Now it looks like a possibility on the U.S. west coast, where the Pacific Maritime Association [the ship-owners association - ed.] wants to implement some of the same drastic measures other ports have adopted.
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Remember, this is from 1999.
Brian
--
"At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid." - Friedrich Nietzsche