Weipa and the wharves: Australian strike law

Abstract

[Extract] Throughout much of 1998, the attention of most Australians was focused on the national strike on Australia's waterfront. At the heart of the dispute were two conflicting 'rights': the right of workers to belong to a union and the right of employers to restructure their businesses as they see fit (probably with a view to de-unionising their work force). The waterfront dispute was not the first time this conflict had arisen. The Weipa dispute of 1995, in which the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) took strike action against the mining 'giant', Comalco/CRA, was another national strike to which this issue was central.