Maritime workers pledge $75,000 for Tsunami victims
Report by Maritime Union of Australia (MUA)
21 January 2004: Donations are still rolling in from ships and ports for victims of the Tsunami disaster, with maritime workers already raising around $25,000 while pledging another $50,000.
"Maritime communities, seafarers and port workers have been among the hardest hit in Aceh and Sri Lanka," said National Secretary Paddy Crumlin. "We're asking our members to keep donating. The union will continue to work with Apheda, the ACTU and unions in Sri Lanka and Indonesia through the International Transport Workers' Federation to ensure the money goes to working men and women and not the military or corrupt officials."
In Victoria waterside workers at both Patrick and P&O are signing up for payroll deductions to go to Union Aid Abroad (Apheda) through the special MUA Credit Union Tsunami Appeal. The branch is also working with a Melbourne safety gear company to donate container loads of apparel. In Portland members are collecting fishing nets to go directly to coastal fishing communities in Sri Lanka that have lost both lives and their livelihoods.
In Sydney workers at P&O Darling Harbour and Glebe Island are signing up for payroll deductions of between $50 and $100 staggered over eight weeks. Workers on the Sydney Ferries the MV Pioneer and NW Sanderling have voted to donate from their rolling funds.
Both Newcastle and Brisbane branches have donated $5,000 each.
In Fremantle members from Kwinana Tugs, North West Snipe, and Geo Sea have already raised $1,500 with Patrick workers voting to give $50 each. P&O members have pledged $17,500.
In South Australia MUA members at CSX terminal and McKenzie International have raised over $1000 with one member donating $600. The branch is also donating their labour to load containers with goods for Sri Lanka.
Union Aid Abroad reports it has received $110,000 in donations from individuals, many of them union members, by Credit Card or via the website. Donations direct from all unions total $313,000.
Meanwhile ITF Australia Co-Ordinator Dean Summers joined the national secretary and union leaders at a specially convened ACTU meeting and media conference in Sydney this week to consider strategic co-operation between unions and business to aid the long-term reconstruction of the tsunami-affected countries. The meeting also announced the Australian union effort would be co-ordinated with international trade union organisations.
The Maritime Union has contacted both the Indonesian Seafaring Union and The International Transport Workers' Federation asking for urgent information on what could be done to help workers in Aceh.
The ITF/Tokyo and its Indonesian affiliate KPI (Seafarers Union of Indonesia) have sent a delegation to visit Aceh confirming that port workers were among the worst affected by the Tsunami.
The ITF reports 11 local ports suffered heavy damages, two vessels capsized and an electric power plant ship, which was supplementing the city's shortage of electricity before the Tsunami, was carried into the town by the tidal wave and stuck three kilometres inland. Among the 16 crew members, 10 were killed. Many fishing boats carried by the wave remain in the town's streets.
On January 11 the ITF and the other sector based Global Union Federations (GUFs) together with the ICFTU representing national trade union centres, agreed at their annual meeting to establish a 'Global Unions' initiative to provide funding for sustainable rehabilitation and reconstruction.
The MUA and the ACTU will be part of that initiative.
National Secretary Paddy Crumlin stressed the importance of donations going through union and community organisations as reports of the Indonesian army attacks on villages rather than distributing food and aid continue.
Global Unions is working with local community aid organisations to ensure that the military in Sri Lanka or Indonesia do not control aid.
Source Article:
MUA web site
