(Part Two)
Not long back I penned some reminiscences for John
Papenhuyzen's excellent website, on parts of my career with RIL/Nedlloyd.
They were fascinating times with, what was most appealing, the great variety of work as I moved through the company. Whilst most of my employment was with RIL and its many representations for other major Dutch shipping companies, the opportunity to be much involved at the time Nedlloyd came into being, was most stimulating. Not everyone found the new organisation to their liking, but in hindsight it was a pragmatic move to "lump" many famous Dutch shipping companies into one entity. There again, there is likely to be no small number of persons who will argue it was the start of several developments which ultimately set-up Nedlloyd for Maersk's takeover recently .
But what really intrigued me was, irrespective of the company's name, the impact the Australian unions had on Dutch shipping for many decades, especially after WW2.
There is no question, the uneasy relationship lasted particularly on the part of the maritime unions. The genesis, probably more than for any other reason, was the "siding" by the unions with Indonesia and its seagoing personnel following the claiming of sovereignty of that nation from the Dutch colonialists. This proved to be a very nasty period between both nations and led, among other things, to the demise of that great, old Indonesian shipping company KPM, which was subsequently merged with the JCJL to become KJCPL-better known as ROYAL INTEROCEAN LINES or just RIL.
The unions were uninterested in names, but more who was behind it- i.e.(still) the Dutch.There would be few in the company at that time who did not feel the wrath of the unions- myself included !
So when my then General Manager, Herman Wever, gave me the job for some years of basically representing the company's interests in liaising with particularly the Waterside Workers' Federation (WWF), life was never dull ! I could almost walk with my eyes closed between the office in George Street and the WWF office in lower Sussex Street, such were the number of times I needed to do so to try and resolve problems.
The many WWF senior officials of the day, albeit
tough as nails, were nevertheless approachable and more pragmatic in their
minds than some in the company could swallow. I recall RIL sending me to an
international course held in Sydney on the subject of negotiating which
certainly helped me to far better see yet rarely agreeing with
the union viewpoint. I am not ashamed to say that -along with my wife
Yvonne - I developed a pleasant friendship with the renowned WWF General
Secretary- the late Tas Bull, and his charming South American born wife,
Carmen.
His autobiography "LIFE ON THE WATERFRONT' is compelling reading, no less so to those who were in Dutch shipping at the time.
If I may be allowed a little pride, in 1999 not long before he passed away, I was on volunteer duty at the Australian National Maritime Museum when I saw Tas approaching accompanied by a Federal Government Minister. Tas stopped and the plain speaking man that he was, said to the Minister in introducing me, words to the effect: " Warwick was one of the biggest b- in the Dutch company in a fight for what he believed in, but we've still remained friends".
Such is life !
Warwick Abadee
Sydney
1 June 2006.