After ten years, last night I finally had the opportunity to question Doug Cameron about his failure to support Craig Johnston during the Johnson Tiles/Skilled Engineering dispute (at which time DC was the National Secretary of the AMWU). I said to him that I saw agreeing with his tactics and supporting him as discrete matters and I thought his failure to support him sent the very damaging message that if a unionist, acting only in the interests of aggrieved members in the course of an industrial dispute, makes a mistake (which many do not accept he did, but this is clearly DC’s position) then the leadership will turn their backs on that unionist. I think this is still a sore spot for DC because he became I think what can be fairly described as “worked up”, made three very quick, unfair comments about Craig and his conduct in the dispute and told me he no longer wished to discuss the matter. I told him that he was wrong about his assessment of Craig, and I would know as I was his daughter (I had not intended to disclose this as I did not want DC to temper his answer, but I decided to at that point as I felt that DC would not otherwise feel obliged to discuss this matter with me). I told him that my perception of dad growing up was a person who had been selflessly committed to the union movement at a great personal cost to him, and I reminded him that he achieved much during his time as an AMWU official and was supported, loved and respected by many. In relation to the Johnson/Skilled dispute, I said that regardless of whether DC agreed with the tactics adopted, he had to acknowledge the complexity of situation he was in, that he had the interests of the aggrieved workers against whom a great injustice had been committed at the forefront of his mind, and that he did what he assessed on the information available at the time, to be right. Sorry for this long status (the conversation ended up much longer, and there’s much more I’d like to say!) but DC said two interesting things I’d like to share here: Firstly, after a lengthy discussion, he did not seem to disagree with much of what I put to him but said that ultimately, dad was wrong because he should have favoured the interests of the union as a whole over the interests of the workers (he had earlier said that he thought the dispute could have led to the union’s deregistration). Secondly, he talked about the facts of the case in the sort of terms I would have expected a Herald Sun journalist to report it. This shocked me at the time because I had expected impartiality. On reflection… I can’t help but feel DC has at some level decided to let himself be convinced by the right’s misrepresentations and exaggerations of the facts, as a way to perhaps justify to himself his failure to support him..? Also, I would love to hear any thoughts about DC’s stated position that union officials must concern themselves with the sustainability of unions over the interests of specific workers (he didnt say this; I deduced this from what he said). Here is a link to an article from some time ago about the dispute: https://greenleft.org.au/node/31487 Here is a link to the appeal judgment: https://jade.barnet.au/Jade.html#!article=71252
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 23:43:32 +0000
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