Triton Crew Statement from Maritime Union of Australia News

We the crew of the RV Triton would like to put on record ourdisappointment at Gardline for sacking us because we are members of aunion.

They have used WorkChoices to undermine the wages and conditions ofAustralian workers, even after the Australian people overwhelminglyrejected the anti-union laws and dumped the Howard Government fromoffice on the strength of fighting for our rights at work.

MUA crew members have over 100 years of combined experience on thisvessel and our work and performance on the Triton has been abovereproach. Australian seafarers are the most highly trained andqualified seafarers in the world. We are proud of our contribution inmaking this operation a success.

We have the highest levels of security clearances available to workersand we are concerned that Gardline are undermining Australia's bordersecurity by using untrained and unchecked foreign labour to replace theunionised crew.

We are determined to stay on this vessel as long as it takes until weget our jobs back. We understand that the bosses from Gardline are coming to Australia toattempt to fix this problem that they have created.

We say to them the ball is in their court.

If Gardline can agree to the following we will get this ship working asit should be, patrolling our waters and looking after the interests ofthe Australian people.

All we want is:

• Our jobs back

• A union collective agreement which is our democratic right

• We want to sail this vessel out of Darwin harbour and have an ironclad commitment the company will not replace us while overseas.
We want to thank our wives, families and the community for their loveand support of us in this difficult time.

12:30pm today, 31st January

Fort Hill Wharf, Darwin

This article can be found on the Web at: http://www.mua.org.au/news/general/triton5.html