Kevin Bracken, MUA Victorian secretary, confirmed workers would take to the streets. ”This is the biggest dispute since Patrick’s; it is the most industrial action since 1998,” he said. Mr Bracken said that Citibank would be targeted because DP World was being poorly run under its control.
Striking dock workers will march through city streets today as the biggest dispute since the 1998 Patrick lockout heats up.
The Maritime Union of Australia is in a fierce battle with stevedoring company DP World over a new pay deal that is deadlocked after 11 months of talks.
Up to 600 MUA workers will descend on the Melbourne headquarters of Citibank, whose parent company Citigroup owns 75 per cent of DP World, at 1pm.
The dispute has echoes of the 1998 waterfront war, which erupted when stevedoring company Patrick locked out its workers and tried to replace them with strike breakers secretly trained in Dubai.