Briney wrote
No denying that the wharfies were generally difficult to work with, Bogan. However, that was generally because those that attempted to dictate to them how they should work had never worked a hard day's work in their lives. Unloading or loading ships was generally done before the 1970s by hand, on the backs of workers. Workers who had a hard life and were often injured or worse, killed during those duties.
It was nowhere near as hard as walking over the Owen Stanley's, living in a slit trench, and getting shot at and shelled by mortars and artillery. When well paid, striking coal miners in the USA went on strike during wartime, FDR had the perfect solution. He had most of them conscripted and sent to the infantry.
Brian wrote
Wharfies weren't willing to work superfast when they were dealing with cargoes that they had little previous experience with. Outsiders didn't appreciate that and demanded they worker harder, faster when it was dangerous to do so. When handling explosives and vehicles, extreme caution was needed. The military was often called in but found that they lacked the skills to accomplish the tasks set for them, without the help of the Wharfies.
Brian, according to Hal Colbech's book, they had no trouble loading explosives, provided that they received extortionate "danger money". The situation of Australian wharfies refusing to load desperately needed supplies was so bad that the Curtin government routinely used the Soviet ambassador in Canberra to lecture the wharfies on how much the supplies were needed to fight fascism. One wonders at what the Soviet ambassador thought of doing that? In the USSR, if their wharfies had behaved like that, they would have been taken to the nearest wall and summarily shot by firing squad.
In Darwin, the authorities figured out that the best way to get the Darwin wharfies to work was to make sure that the arriving beer supplies were at the very bottom of the ship loading.
Brian Ross wrote
After the introduction of containerisation, generally the wharfies worked harder, because they could. However as Patricks discovered, that wasn't in their opinion fast enough and so we had the MUA dispute in 1998. That was when the employers tried to bring in scab labour. They were shown the short end of the stick in no uncertain terms. We saw the Police join with the Wharfies to refute the lies that were being told by the employers and the Government of the day under John Howard.
Australia's ship unloading rate was the worst in the world. Our strike bound ports were a disgrace, even in wartime. Somebody should put up a statue to Chris Corrigan for changing that.
Brian Ross wrote
You can believe what you like - I know you will no matter what evidence is presented to you - but this book your quoting is based on the flimiest of evidence. Tsk. tsk.
But you haven't read the book and you won't read the book because you do not want to face the fact that your perfect left wing ideology is a sick illusion. And one section of your left wing support base stabbed their country in the back at the time of our nations greatest peril.
Brian Ross wrote
My own experience with unions has been generally good. I don't doubt you've never been a member of a union, right, Bogan. How unsurprising.
Wrong again. I was a member of the CEPU which was considered a "right wing" union and a responsible one. I often advised young tradesmen that they should join the CEPU for their own good. I didn't have any success. The unions are on the nose with most workers because of their disgusting behaviour during the 70's, which many older people like myself still remember. Even older people remember how the unions acted during wartime.
Brian Ross wrote
Having met Dr. Peter Stanley several times, I have a great deal more faith in his historical understanding than that of a fellow like Peter Bowen. Peter Stanley was the head historian at the War Memorial. He was also head historian at the Australian Museum. He has a great record of historical works behind him. Much more than Peter Bowen or Hal Colebatch.
Yes, I am sure he is part of your leftist, Australia and western hating bubble. I can not remember the details of his sacking from the Australian War Memorial, but I remember that some idiot was sacked for (among a lot of other PC things), for trying to rename the War Memorial the "Peace Memorial". And there was another furore over the Australian Museum. Among other things, it was discovered that the architectural design of the place was copied from a Jewish holocaust museum in Europe. This slyly suggested that Australian history was linked to genocide.
People with your leftist mindset routinely piss on my people, my civilisation, my people's superior culture, air brush our history to suite your left wing narrative, while your most ardent trade union supporters endangered the survival of OUR country during wartime with their incredibly selfish and irresponsible behaviour, and then you wonder why people like myself stopped being a leftie and became the left's arch enemy?
