Appeal to Reason #4, March 2012

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This fourth issue of Appeal to Reason is being finalised on the day of the MUA’s quadrennial conference (26/2/2012), which should be the supreme policy making body of the Maritime Union of Australia.

I say ‘should’, as the delegates to the conference have the power to halt the seemingly endless bureaucratisation of the union or to allow the leadership to continue on its current course in which such fundamentals as free and fair elections are not treated with any of the seriousness that they deserve.

As delegates contemplate their positions on many of the issues, we at Appeal to Reason ask all members to consider just a few important issues.

Firstly, the MUA elections for officials and branch committees should be handed to a statutory independent authority in the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) to run our future elections. As most would
know, I and many other members consider the recent MUA elections a shambles, run by a returning officer who was anything but independent and whose closeness to the current union made him look like a conjoined twin rather than an officer whose most important attribute must be independence.

It is only by having the AEC independently run our elections that we can guarantee an honest and fair result for all those who participate. Currently the system where sitting officials elect the returning officer who will run the elections is totally and utterly contemptuous of the democratic process. A sensible working class solution to this problem in lieu of having a fully democratic and combative union is to have elections processed by the AEC.

Here’s another example of the web of problems created by unions running their own election processes. I have included in this issue a two-page letter concerning the running of a recent CFMEU Mining Division election [see pages 4 and 5 below].

Like us, the miners are one of the few unions that still run their own elections without the assistance of the AEC. As comrades read this material they will see that the election had to be cancelled because of many irregularities. This simply sells union members short.

Many of the points raised by legal counsel are similar to the ones oppositional candidates raised during the recent MUA elections.

The necessity in regularly changing auditors

MUA members pay some of the highest union dues in the country. In fact, the average MUA member pays at least $500 a year more than a high-earning consultant medical specialist pays in his or her dues to the Australian Medical Association! I have no beef in paying high dues; however what do we get for that exorbitant cost?

If we are to have high dues, this should come with the highest levels of financial probity and it is in this area the MUA leadership is failing
the membership.

My old Dad (Len) often told the story of a discussion he had with the legendary Victorian Branch Secretary, Bill Bird, around the time of the contentious 1960 election when Bird stood against the Federal Secretary, Elliott V. Elliot.

Len asked Bill Bird what would be the first thing he would do should he win the election. Without batting an eyelid Bird replied, “I would change the auditors”.

Whilst we have a system where the one auditor continually does the auditing of accounts, there is always the possibility of an unhealthy relationship developing. That is why the most ‘switched on’ organisations and businesses change auditors on a regular basis to avoid compromising relationships from emerging.

Appeal to Reason calls on the MUA leadership to do the same. In fact, should our union’s leadership reject doing this, it should be spelt out to the membership very clearly: why has the same auditor been used since the amalgamation in 1993?

Bob Carnegie

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