Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 09:43:20 -0400
From: jonathan flanders <jon_flanders-AT-CompuServe.COM>
Subject: Re: M-I: Docks battle becoming more general


I did some web searching last night on the corporate connections in the
Australian dockers strike.

I started by looking into the doings of the Wisconsin Central Railroad, an
aggressively anti-union corporation that has holdings in the UK and New
Zealand, where they provoked a strike several years ago. It turns out they
are heading a consortium that has bought up the privatized Australian
freight railroad. But I saw no direct connection to Patrick's Stevedores.

I ran across a newsgroup posting that claimed Franklins, a large
supermarket chain in Australia, is the real money behind the war on the
dockers. So far I find no direct evidence for this claim, but it could be
important.

Franklins is owned by Dairy Farm International Holdings, headed by Simon
Keswick, which in turn is part of Jardine Matheson Holdings Limited, headed
by Henry Keswick. We are talking about a giant British conglomerate
concentrated in Asia, but with assets in Europe and the US.

If the connection could be proved, its assets would make good targets for
union actions around the world. For example, JM's motor group owns Mercedes
Benz dealerships in Beverly Hills, California. Can't you see a bunch of
dockers and other unionists raising hell there?

If you try searching under the keywords "logistics management", you will
find information about the whole science of speeding up transport, with the
goal of using methods like "cross docking" to achieve the goal of an
inventoryless production system, all of which puts transport workers in the
gunsights of the employers.





Jon Flanders  
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/jon_flanders/index.htm


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