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arrived Gadani anchorage

arrived Gadani anchorage 30.03.16

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sold to Gadani breakers

Australian maritime union isolates and betrays Portland seamen

The Maritime Union of Australia, working with the Labor Party and several federal cross-bench senators, has used the sacking of 38 seafarers by transnational mining company Alcoa to launch a reactionary, nationalist campaign directed against foreign shipping workers. On January 13, company thugs boarded the MV Portland, which workers had occupied for two months, and replaced them with an overseas crew. The MUA had demanded reinstatement and Australian-manned crews for domestic shipping—in line with the union’s nationalist perspective. The union’s demagogy about “defending Australian jobs” is an utter fraud aimed at obscuring its own role in enforcing the ever-deeper cuts to jobs, wages and conditions demanded by the major port and shipping companies. In late October, the federal Liberal-National government granted Alcoa a “temporary coastal license,” allowing it to use international shipping companies and crews to transport goods between Australian-based ports. Under the country’s cabotage laws, ships trading between domestic ports are currently required to be Australian-operated and crewed unless receiving a temporary exemption. In early November, Alcoa announced that it was planning to decommission the MV Portland, which transported alumina from Western Australia to Alcoa’s smelter in Portland, Victoria for 27 years. The ship had been due for a statutory dry-dock in mid-2017. The ship’s 38 crew members were told that they would be sacked after they had sailed the vessel to Singapore. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/01/27/port-j27.html