By Maurice Sibelle
BRISBANE — "Queensland's Transport Workers Union is now back in the hands of its members," says Hughie Williams, the union's Brisbane sub-branch secretary and newly elected organiser. When the votes in the branch elections were announced on March 5, the Transport Workers Action Group had won every position it contested.
The group's 21 candidates won nine out of 14 positions on the branch committee of management, every organiser's position, and the sub-branch secretary positions in Brisbane and north Queensland. The victory followed a series of clashes between incumbent officials and the members.
In August 1991, the officials attempted to sell an award restructuring package cooked up by federal officials and the ACTU. The package would have undermined overtime and penalty rates by increasing the spread of "normal" working hours. It would also have given employers more control over workers' holiday entitlements, and would have done away with many full-time jobs in favour of part-time work. Even after the deal was rejected twice at mass meetings, the officials still kept trying to foist it on the members.
The officials also backed an attempt to amalgamate the TWU with the larger National Union of Workers. Had the merger succeeded, the officials would not have had to face election for another three years, by which time they would have been part of a very large bureaucracy, which would have been very difficult to change and would have consisted mainly of officials who had little to do with transport workers. Nationally, the amalgamation was rejected by a vote of 26,114 to 10,179. Queensland transport workers voted 70% against.
"Workers are sick of the lack of consultation", says Williams. "The decisions made at the top with the ACTU meant that the rank and file workers had no say in the important decisions about their jobs and their future."
The TWAG campaign stressed the need for strong unionism to fight attempts to load the cost of economic recession onto workers. It also called for open unionism, access to information, measures to make officials accountable, better servicing of workplaces by officials, and measures to deal with increasing unemployment among TWU members.
Williams is a long-time official of the TWU, having been part of the team that built the Queensland branch from 6000 members in 1971 to 18,000 in 1973. Under the leadership of Stan Tapper and others, "we did grassroots, on-the-job work," says Williams. "We had organisers who cared and were responsive to their members."
Williams' team was defeated in the 1983 election under an onslaught by the Bjelke-Petersen government, the employers and the media. He was harassed by police during the campaign.
While Williams was elected Brisbane sub-branch secretary, the new officials refused to pay him a wage and denied him access to union facilities. But Williams continued to work as a full-time official, ekends and working part time to pay the bills.
"Transport workers have had a gutful of the Accord", he says. "They are sick and tired of the trade-offs. They're sick of the government and the ACTU trying to rectify the economic problems of this country by attacking the wages and conditions of the ordinary worker.
"Most of the TWU officials have accepted the framework of the accord. Working people are opposed to that approach. In 1981, the TWU took action to demand $20 and succeeded. That flowed on to other industries and broke the restrictive Fraser wages system. The accord is strangling the conditions of workers. The union is now back in the hands of the rank and file, and we will be guided by their decisions."