"Australia's Secret (And Unhistorical) War" Topic

A little old… but still interesting….

"…Many former soldiers recall their embarkation as marked by obstruction and inefficiency on the waterfront, and they remain bitter at what they regard as the wharfies' intransigence. Some believe that the wharfies went on strike even as the troops destined for Tarakan passed through Townsville. In contravention of AIF folklore, in early 1945 there was almost no industrial action among the north Queensland wharfies, and certainly no strike. The port of Townsville had found the transition from minor sugar port to major military base a difficult one. An American report on Australian ports in 1943 had identified shortcomings 'along the usual lines – low efficiency (40% of U.S. average) … stoppage of work at the slightest indication of rain, etc.' By 1945, however, new arrangements had been successful for some time.
The rapid increase in traffic following Operation Instruction No. 99 [the orders that sent the 9th Division to Tarakan] precipitated a fresh, if brief and minor, collision between two working cultures. Troops, accustomed to intensive bursts of effort, often involving danger and discomfort, expected loading to proceed swiftly and without regard to time or hazard. The wharfies, on the job literally for the long haul, worked according to long-established and hard-won practices which conceded little to wartime emergencies. They would not work in the rain, for instance, and enforced rigid demarcation agreements: the branch executive included an official significantly titled the 'Vigilance Officer', alert to breaches of awards and customary work practices. Despite these divergent approaches the wharfies agreed to train troops in the operation of winches and in handling cargo, and the two groups rubbed along better than might have been expected. The accelerated pace of embarkation in March 1945 did not lead to any dispute. The only friction appears to have occurred on the afternoon of Saturday 11 March, coincidentally as the Townsville branch of the Waterside Workers' Federation held its monthly meeting. Just as Comrades Marles and Kerby had proposed and seconded a motion that the correspondence be accepted (the branch's minutes suggest that members espoused communist principles and procedural rigour with equal fervour) Comrade J. Foreman burst into the Waterside Workers' Hall, telling the meeting that a dispute had erupted at the Jetty. True to their principles, Comrades McNamara and Khan moved that standing orders be suspended, and Foreman reported that his gang had been dismissed and replaced by 'solder labour' without explanation. It appeared that an officer had insisted on deploying troops to load a cargo even though a civilian gang was available, but negotiation forestalled any escalation of the dispute. Unease persisted, and when the US Army trans-Pacific transport, General H.W. Buttner, docked early in April, troops were held nearby in case of a dispute. That it did not develop owed more to the wharfies' restraint than the soldiers' tact. Allen Haines of the 2/7th Field Regiment recalled watching from the rail of the General H.W. Buttner as a 'loot' (a lieutenant) intimidated wharf labourers and organised working parties to load the boxes of unfused grenades which they had declined to handle. Apart from a minor dispute over the loading of sugar, a traditional issue in north Queensland ports and unconnected with the embarkation of the Oboe forces, no other industrial action occurred…"
From here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Australia's waterfront has long been a hotbed of 'industrial disputes'.
Read into that what you will

The Living End even wrote a song about it:
YouTube link
In Townsville now, there isn't a problem with too much work, if you get my meaning. The collapse of Queensland Nickel Industries has left a big part of the port's business in the dumpster.