A fresh dispute and strike has broken out on Melbourne’s docks as Qube stevedores fight for a liveable roster.

The waterfront is dangerous. In the past decade, several waterfront workers have died on the job. Each incident is specific – a falling load, a reversing forklift, a fall down a hatchway or over the side of a ship – but dockworkers will tell you, fatigue always plays a part.

Just weeks ago, a Qube stevedore, Tony, a man in his 50s, had a heart attack at work. He died in hospital awaiting surgery. Chatting to Red Flag on the picket, one of the striking wharfies recalls the last shift he worked with Tony, the day before he died. “He looked tired and asked me to ‘take it easy’ and not to ‘rush the job’. He wasn’t well, but I had no idea that anything was out of the ordinary. All of us are constantly tired.

"Like all of us, he’d been working irregular hours; a few night shifts here, a day there, back to nights, an evening shift and then back to days; all in a fortnight and sometimes with just eight hours between shifts.”

There is a causal relationship between heart disease and shift work. Researchers studying the effects of shiftwork on nurses found the risk of heart disease increased by as much as 40 percent. The longer a person works night shifts, the greater the risks. One analysis reported that that workers who did shiftwork had, on average, a 5 percent increase in their stroke risk for every five years they performed shiftwork.

Speaking about the company’s response to Tony’s death, his co-worker said: “The company didn’t even give him, one of its most loyal employees, a minute of silence. When news of his death came, we were expected to keep working”.

Qube is Australia’s biggest port operator, with a monopoly on break bulk and general stevedoring. Qube has a well-deserved reputation as the most belligerent employer on the waterfront. It’s been three years since their workers at Melbourne ports had a pay rise. Since 2016, nine workers – some elected union reps – have been sacked; six more are on their “last warning”.

The company and the MUA have been negotiating over a new enterprise agreement for two years. In that time, Qube has done nothing except demand concessions. It wants to force through an agreement that will undermine job security and permanency. On 16 March, in a move designed to ramp up the pressure, the company asked the Fair Work Commission to terminate the existing enterprise agreement. But union members too are taking action to put the squeeze on. After a vote in favour of industrial action, our campaign started with a two-day stoppage on 17 and 18 March.

The union’s central demands are for a ban on the 12-hour night shift and for a livable roster. Currently, Qube stevedores can work anything from 0 to 80 hours a week. “You don’t know if you’re working the next day until 4pm the day before”, explained one striker.

“It’s about 12-hour mid-nights and fatigue”, another worker said. “They don’t care. They keep telling us to manage our own fatigue. The answer to fatigue is ‘go home sick’. So you use up all your sickies, and if you do they call you in and say you’ve used too many!”

What is absolutely galling for long term workers is that this issue has been fought over in the past. In 2008 – after an horrific death happened in the last hour of a 12-hour night shift – workers forwent a pay rise as a trade-off for restrictions on the use of the long night shift. But in recent years, the company has been clawing a lot of conditions back. Even before bargaining started, Qube removed rostering provisions that gave permanent workers one week off every seven.

During negotiations, Qube has responded to the union’s claims by withdrawing all pay offers and pulling all offers of permanency off the table. There is now the added threat hanging over workers’ heads of being forced back onto the award if the company’s termination application is successful.

These workers know what sort of enemy they have in Qube. “We know that the company will throw everything at us to win this dispute”, said one. But union members are prepared: “We’re not just copping what the company wants to give us”, said another. MUA members at Qube have declared that they will do what it takes to win an agreement that puts safety first and maintains the wages and conditions that generations on the waterfront have fought for.

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Update: Qube workers are now back on the job but have placed bans on shifts of more than 7 hours. They are still staffing their protest camp outside the Melbourne International Rollon Rolloff Automotive Terminal in Kooringa Way, Port Melbourne. Supporters welcome.