If there is one thing that Hutchison Ports didn’t count on when it sent late night text messages sacking 97 waterside workers, it was the solidarity that the workers and their union, the Maritime Union of Australia, were quickly able to call upon.

Hutchison hoped that by telling the workers not to report for work, effective immediately, it could isolate and humiliate them. Fat chance when it comes to the MUA.

Immediately, the call went out, and hundreds of unionists from both white and blue collar unions responded. They turned out on the picket line to demonstrate their support and have maintained their presence since.

On the first day, a dozen members of the Plumbers Union, working on a construction site near the Hutchison terminal in Brisbane, used their smoko to spend time with the MUA on the Fisherman’s Island picket line. At Port Botany, Darius Altman, an organiser with the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association, told Red Flag: “We came down with about 50 NSWNMA members as soon as we got the call that the MUA needed people to come down urgently”.

Chris Brodsky, CFMEU mining and energy organiser in central Queensland, assured the MUA of his union’s support: “On behalf of the 7,000 miners that we represent, we will do this every time. We’re only a phone call away”.

Justin Frederick, a seafarer, said that he was on the picket in Sydney to show support for his fellow MUA members “’cos their struggle is our struggle. Anything they can do on the wharves they can do at sea”. Peter Reynolds, retired wharfie, put it simply, “I’m here for solidarity, comrade: touch one, touch all … It sounds like a cliché but really the workers, when we’re united, can never be defeated”.

The MUA occupies a special place in the hearts of many unionists because of its unstinting support for their own struggles. Graeme Ottley, firefighter and Fire Brigade Employees’ Union member, said in Sydney: “The MUA and firies have fought on many pickets together, and this time it’s our turn to support them. They’ve supported us in just about everything we’ve ever done – they’re always the first ones there”.

Keith McKenzie, assistant state secretary for the ETU in Queensland, told a big crowd in Brisbane: “Every time we have a dispute, out in the distance there’ll always be some MUA hats and some MUA flags. They always turn up to support the comrades. And that’s what we’ve done here. And we’ll do it any time and every time to back the MUA”.

Supporters came from near and far. In Brisbane, Dan Wilson, CFMEU member and construction worker at the Gold Coast Private Hospital, showed up, while two of his fellow CFMEU members, Joe and Daryl, came from as far as Clermont, 1,000 km away in the central Queensland coalfields. “We knew it was going to be as significant as 1998”, Darryl told Red Flag, “another attempt to smash the union”.

The message is clear: if the MUA loses, we all lose. Unionists understand that if a strong union like the MUA can be beaten, what chance have the weaker ones got? And if the MUA goes down at Hutchison Ports, the bosses and the government will be emboldened to turn the screws further on other strong unions like the CFMEU and ETU. This is trade unionism 101: “United we stand, divided we fall”.

And we all face the same enemy. Their names may differ, but the bosses are always trying to find ways to cut staffing, chisel wages, push us to work harder and faster. When Hutchison tries to sack 40 percent of its workforce, every worker who has been through “restructuring” at their workplace understands the heartache and misery involved. And when the MUA resists, it gives hope to every worker in this situation and an example that they may aspire to if they organise.

But it wasn’t just unionists. The Port Botany picket welcomed support from those campaigning to save public housing at Millers Point in inner city Sydney and from the Redfern Aboriginal Tent Embassy. Supporters of marriage equality came down to the waterfront after their rally in Sydney on 9 August, bringing a donation of hundreds of dollars that they had raised. University students attended the pickets in both cities. They may not be unionists, but they understand that if the MUA falls, every section of the oppressed and those attacked by the Abbott government will be more vulnerable. There is a long history of the MUA supporting their struggles too.

The bosses may have the federal government and the Fair Work Commission on their side. They may be able to sic security guards and cops onto honest workers defending their jobs. But they don’t have our traditions of solidarity. We rally and defend our own. That’s our shield and our sword, and the picket lines in Sydney and Brisbane show us how to use it.