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Issue No. 135 | 10 May 2002 |
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The Costs of War
Interview: Squaring Off Industrial: Heroes Betrayed History: At The Coalface International: Wobblies With Chinese Characters? Politics: Dancing with Trotsky Economics: You Are What You Eat Poetry: Alexander's Bragtime Band Satire: Stott Despoja Celebrates Engagement With Minor Party Review: Painting Paradise
The Soapbox The Locker Room Postcard Bosswatch Week in Review Tool Shed
 Heaps and Heaps of Hate MailNo ChoiceWho Rules Australia?No Wrap for Song Comp Abbott's Contempt
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Industrial Heroes Betrayed
****************** Five years ago retired seaman, Bill Langlois, led the official Anzac Day march through Sydney's CBD. He was proud. Five days ago he stood on the steps to CSL's St Leonards head office and again remembered lost comrades. This time he was angry. Langlois has a chest full of medals from his wartime service, escorting Russian convoys and ferrying supplies to Australian troops. The one on the left is for bravery. "I don't put them on for myself," he explains. "I wear them for my mates. "This one? My mates did all the work but I was the one who got the gong. We still have memories us all old fellas and these help keep the memories alive." The years have changed Langlois. By his own assessment he has gone from Bollocky Bill the Sailor to Testicle William the Seafearing Gentlemen but he still knows an insult when he sees one. And rarely has Langlois witnessed a bigger insult than the two-fingered gesture towards the memory of his mates delivered by a Howard Government determined to sell Australian martime jobs to the lowest bidder. "When we went to sea we went to war," he explained. "Hell, at the start they had to have a five-day strike up in Brisbane so they could get a gun on the back so the Japanese didn't just knock us off like fish in a barrell." Langlois was referring to the supply ships that ran up to Papua New Guinea and into Asia as Australian troops were pinned down on the Kakoda Trail and US marines constructed wharves for their involvement in the east. Alwyn Allport knows as much about that theatre as most. The former assistant secretary of the Seamen's Union Sydney branch caught his first ship, the Matthew Flinders, out of Coffs Harbour as a 14-year-old bushie. The deck boy had no idea that two months later he would find himself on the end of a four inch gun as the Matthew Flinders sailed for Port Moresby, then Noumea. When Allport tried to join the Royal Australian Navy in 1943 he was given short shrift. Running supplies to troops involved in the defence of PNG or the Battle of the Coral Sea was considered more important. Frustrated, he answered an ad seeking seamen to crew US small ships, supplying troops confronting the Japanese. Back after nine months, he joined an Aussie ship carrying bombs into Darwin, then a tug serviceing the US army. He remembers the Iron Chieftan being sunk off Nowra Head, within sight of Sydney, and 20 crew going down with her; the Nimbin being blown up in virtually the same place, courtesy of a German raider that had laid mines around New Zealand and Australia. Those incidents accounted for just a fraction of the 800 Australian merchant seamen killed during the Second World War. Their workforce suffered a higher ratio of fatalaties than either the Navy or Air Force. Langlois and Allport want Australians to remember the sacrifices of their comrades and think about the importance of a domestically-owned merchant fleet to the country's future. It was a point made by Major-General Peter Cosgrove when he spoke publicly about the role of the merchant navy in supporting Australia's peace-keeping efforts in East Timor. But the Howard Government didn't need reminding. It had the facts at its fingertips and chose to ignore them. In 1999 the Shipping Reform Working Group, appointed by the Government and containing all the usual employer and industry suspects, reported to Transport Minister John Anderson. It recommended Government support for Australian shipping on economic and defence grounds. Annual investment of $136 million in protecting Australian shipping from cheap labour, flag of convenience raiders, it argued, could benefit the country by $1.270 billion, in dollar terms alone. "The demise of the Australian shipping industry will impact on Australia's defence capabilities," the report argued. "The ADF places value on the availability of Australian seafarers capable of operating these vessels." We can bring you these quotes because the report was leaked after Government refused to release its contents. Instead, Howard and Anderson have presided over the demolition of Australian shipping. The number of Australian-flagged and crewed ships has been slashed by more than a half since they took office. Security concerns, heightened by confirmation that Osama bin Laden's flag of convenience line ran the bombs into Mombassa, Kenya, responsible for the demolition of two US embassies in East Africa, run a distant second to their overwhelming desire to break the MUA and slash wages and conditions. Allport has a more colourful way of putting it. "Howard doesn't give a f...," he says. "He doesn't care about the security issue because he has his nose up Bush's arse for globalisation and rationalisation. "It's all about competition." A claim given substance by news of comparative wage rates for the CSL Yarra, tied up in Port Pirie, as seamen battle for their jobs in the face of a Goverernment-endorsed corporate manouevre. Under CSL's plan the Yarra will stay on the Australian coast, paying Ukranian seamen $19,000 a year, rather than the $52,000 it had contracted to pay Australians. It has pulled a similar stunt with the CSL Pacific. "If Howard and Anderson are genuine in their commitment to that sort of competition let's see some leadership," Allport demands. "Will they cut their wages by almost two-thirds to make Australia more competitive?"
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