Changes on the waterfront
by Simon Longstaff
The recent period of conflict on the waterfront in Australia has raised, in the minds of many, a host of ethical questions about the way in which the process of change is sponsored and managed. Judging from the evidence of published opinion polls, it would seem that a majority of people has accepted the case for change on the waterfront. Whether or not this acceptance is based on a common view of the reasons for reform is debatable.
Some appear to be genuinely concerned about the economic consequences of a closed shop on the waterfront. This group argues that, to the extent that Australian stevedoring operations are relatively inefficient (when compared to world's best practice), so the community is forced to carry the inflated costs.
Others have a principled objection to the current arrangements under which members of a trade union claim the right to freedom of association while, at the same time, denying prospective waterside workers an effective right not to associate as a member of a union. Of course, this particular aspect of the debate is complicated by the peculiar history of the wharfies who suffered atrocious exploitation during the years before a strong union was formed.
Given that experience, it is understandable (but not necessarily acceptable) that they should so fiercely protect the principle of collective action and mutual support. The unionists' great fear is that non-union employees will be prepared to work for wages and conditions that undermine the hard-won gains secured in the past. These gains are fairly substantial and, as such, trigger the third set of concerns.
There is a final group of people who oppose the current situation because of a mixture of outrage and envy at the employment conditions enjoyed by members of the Maritime Union of Australia. Outrage is felt at news of the apparent 'rorts' that members of the MUA are supposed to have embedded in the workplace culture of the docks. Envy arises from the fact that so many people have trouble accepting the fact that 'blue collar' workers have managed to steal a march on their 'white collar' brethren.
As can be seen, the motives at work, on either side of the dispute, are mixed. This is matched by divisions, in public opinion, about the merits of each position. However, there does seem to be a greater degree of consensus about the appropriateness, or otherwise, of the means employed by each of the parties in pursuit of their objectives. For example, many people are disturbed by the impression that the unionists have been prepared to flout the law and the judgement of the courts. An equal number is shocked by the methods employed by Patrick Stevedores in ridding itself of unproductive and difficult workers.
The legality of all of this is not something about which I am competent to comment. That is ultimately a matter for the courts.
However, the whole episode raises very important ethical questions. For example, is it legitimate for members of the MUA to defy the law on the grounds that they have a sincere and conscientious objection? Does such an objection only count if people are prepared to accept the cost of their defiance? If disobedience is prompted primarily by self-interest (wanting to preserve the status quo), then is it to be judged ethically unacceptable? From the employers' perspective, should we accept their claim that the only way in which they could fix an intractable problem was by “getting their hands dirty”?
Indeed, is this a classic case in which the community wants to accept the benefits of reform – providing only that someone else does the dirty work and takes the blame? Or, has the whole affair been a product of competing forms of self-interest in which the public interest is only appealed to for the sake of winning the public relations contest?
This is not the place to analyse these questions. I raise them merely in order to reflect the difficulty in forming a judgement about the ethics of what has happened. I suspect that history will ultimately judge that no side has covered itself in glory.
Which, finally, leads me to speculate about whether or not the whole episode might have been better handled if only the ethical dimension of each course of action had been explicitly considered at the outset: not just by the employers and government, but by the unions as well.
discuss this articleDr Simon Longstaff is Executive Director of St James Ethics Centre.
This article was first published in City Ethics (now Living Ethics), issue 31, autumn 1998
© St James Ethics Centre