''Patrick Stevedores Operations No 2 Pty Ltd v Maritime Union of Australia'',
[.] was a decision of the
High Court which culminated the legal aspects of the
1998 Australian waterfront dispute, in which a major
stevedoring
A stevedore (), also called a longshoreman, a docker or a dockworker, is a waterfront manual laborer who is involved in loading and unloading ships, trucks, trains or airplanes.
After the shipping container revolution of the 1960s, the number o ...
operation, the
Patrick group of companies, sought to replace its largely
unionised workforce with a non-union workforce.
The Court heard an application for special leave to appeal from a decision of the Full Court of the
Federal Court of Australia
The Federal Court of Australia is an Australian superior court of record which has jurisdiction to deal with most civil disputes governed by federal law (with the exception of family law matters), along with some summary (less serious) and indic ...
,
[.] which itself was an appeal from a decision by Justice
Tony North of the Federal Court upon an application for urgent interlocutory relief which had been brought by the
Maritime Union of Australia
The Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) was a union which covered waterside workers, seafarers, port workers, professional divers, and office workers associated with Australian ports. The MUA was formed in 1993 with merger of the Seamen's Union ...
.
[.] The notice of motion seeking the interlocutory orders from North J was filed on 6 April 1998, and the litigation went from that original step to a decision of the High Court within a single month.
The orders made by North J sought to unravel a set of arrangements which had been made within the Patrick group of companies, arrangements which were found to give rise to an arguable case that there had been a conspiracy to injure the MUA members in their employment, contrary to the protections of the ''
Workplace Relations Act 1996
The ''Workplace Relations Act 1996'' was an Australian law regarding workplace conditions and rights passed by the Howard government after it came into power in 1996. It replaced the previous Labor Government's ''Industrial Relations Act 1988' ...
''. Those orders were upheld on appeal to the Full Court of the Federal Court.
The High Court upheld the substance of the orders, but modified them to acknowledge that ultimately it was a question for the administrators of the company whether it resumed trading.
References
*
High Court of Australia cases
Australian constitutional law
Australian labour case law
1998 in Australian law
1998 in case law
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