Labor history of Aotearoa - New Zealand

Use of mercenaries to load ships in Australia will bring instant reaction in New Zealand

New Zealand Seafarers Union press release
12 December 1997

"The use of mercenaries, trained in Dubai on Waterfront operations, as scabs to load any New Zealand manned ships in Australian ports will result in immediate industrial action," said Dave Morgan National President of the New Zealand Seafarers Union today.

Reacting to reports of a large scale exercise currently training mercenaries in Dubai for union busting activities on the Australian waterfront, Dave Morgan said "such an action which smacks of the sandline operation in Papua New Guinea will meet the full resistance of New Zealand Seafarers if they are confronted with these scabs in any way."

'The operation shows a Government out of control and is alien to the Australian culture and to our culture," said Mr. Morgan. "It certainly demonstrates a new low in industrial relations in the region."

The so called stevedores after the three months training in Dubai are to receive further training in New South Wales at which their numbers would be increased by other recruits and could then be employed by an Australian Stevedore.

Their presence on the Australian Waterfront is expected then to provoke industrial disputes on the Waterfront as union members refuse to work with them, thus providing the Australian Government with the excuse to step in.

"New Zealand Seafarers will not tolerate this group of para military scabs working New Zealand crewed ships and we will be in it right from the start," said Dave Morgan.

"The Maritime Union of Australia has always shown itself willing to talk and negotiate reform both in their seagoing and waterfront sections," said Mr. Morgan, "and this should be the manner in which any reform is handled, not by this bullying heavy handed approach which is doomed to fail."