Almost 100 dock workers were sacked overnight by Hutchison Ports Australia. The company operates international container terminals in Sydney’s Port Botany and the Port of Brisbane. The Maritime Union of Australia says the move is part of a union busting exercise. It has set up pickets at both terminals in protest.

In Brisbane, a number of workers are occupying the terminal lunchroom. The company has already threatened them with fines for engaging in “illegal” industrial action.

“This dispute’s been festering for some weeks”, Bob Carnegie, secretary of the Queensland MUA, told Red Flag at the Brisbane picket. “It came to a head last night when, at 11:30pm, 41 workers in Brisbane and 53 in Sydney were summarily dismissed by text and by email.”

Amanda, whose husband was one of those sacked, said he was asleep when the text came through. “I heard Chris’s phone going off and I woke him up”, she said. “Chris went and checked his phone and it said on the text message ‘please check your email’.”

“We got on the computer and checked the emails. There was a letter stating that he had been made redundant, that he didn’t need to come back to work … and that any of his belongings at work would be couriered home.

“To get that kind of news when you wake up from sleeping, when you’ve got two young children, you just feel totally gutted.”

Carnegie said that the company has targeted militant workers: “Every delegate is gone. Anybody who has opened their mouth in a union meeting is gone”. It is understood that the company plans to increase the automation of its operations. “They want to do that without any union interference”, he said.

Workers on the picket line agree. “They want to casualise the place”, said one, “and automation, they want to bring that in”, said another, finishing the sentence.

Wendel Moloney, an Electrical Trade Union organiser, was at the Brisbane picket to show support. He said that mass sackings like this have been seen in other industries too. “It happens everywhere … then a couple of months later they open everything up again and casualise the workforce.”

Moloney said it was good to see that plumbers from a nearby construction site had come down to the picket to show solidarity with the dock workers. “This is about them [Hutchison Ports] knowing that they’re not going to walk roughshod over us and that the people involved have got the support of their union and other unions and we’re not going to take this lightly”, he said.

In Sydney, Rebel Hanlon, assistant state secretary of the CFMEU construction division, told the picketers that several construction sites had held mass meetings when they heard news of the sackings. “I bring the support of thousands of workers with me here”, he said.

Assistant national secretary of the MUA, Warren Smith, said that the company had deliberately “manipulated” circumstances to create the appearance that the sacked workers are redundant. “Manipulating contracts and colluding with the other port operators in order to manufacture redundancies is just not acceptable”, Smith said.

“This is a plot to remove union delegates and activists and bring in a disposable, casual, pliable workforce when the contracts mysteriously reappear.”

Carnegie said that the pickets will remain until Hutchison agrees to talk to the union. “They will not be strangling our outfit”, he said. Support is needed at both pickets. “If it can happen to us, it can happen to anyone”, said one of the sacked workers.

Sydney picket: Gate B150 Sirius Rd, Port Botany (access via Foreshore Rd)

Brisbane picket: Curlew Street, Berth 11 Fisherman Islands

[Tom Bramble contributed to this report.]