The Docker Podcast

We all made it home and took a week to process everything. Dan, Steph, Dani and Tim all sit down and discuss our experience at the Maritime Union of Australia's conference.

Steph digs up a new guest, sort of, she got Steve Todd of RMT to return to the show. Dean Summers must of had fun cause he crashed the party and sat in as well. After updating us on all things RMT Steve refers us to Mick Cash RMT General Secretary to give us a update on the situation in London and the strikes on the Tubes. We finish this one with Dean McGrath ILWU 23 and Adrian Adrian Evans from W...

Will Tracy gives Dan a update on the struggles with Chevron and MUA fighting for workers in oil and gas. Then we are joined by two MUA vets, Gary Smith and Fred Krausert. We finish this one with Michael Cross Branch Committee offshore rep in NSW branch.

We were lucky to get a few minutes with Zac Kinzett and Warren Hopkins. Two of the five aussie seafarers chased off their ship and robbed of there jobs and livelihoods, only to be replaced by $2 a day foreign labour.

Kenneth Riley ILA 1422 President gives The Docker our first interview with anyone from the ILA. Ken briefly talks about the recent job action on the east coast of the U.S. and teaches us about the "Charleston 5"

First we catch up with our old friend Jason Miners , Deputy State Secretary of the MUA Queensland branch. Next up is Joe McDonald, and MUA seafarer and we talk abut his involvement in the Sydney Branch Activist Committee. Then we wrap it up with Nick Pedler and retuning guest Matt Burnell.

Dan gets a few minutes with Danny Cain, Phil Swanston, and George Gakis from WA branch Youth movement. 

We talked with Jamie Newlyn of the MUA about the early days of the MUA youth moment, then Dean Summers joins us to talk about his work with the ITF and swimming the English Channel.

Karen Wheatland aka Kaz and Sue Virago, two key parts of the MUA's women movement sit down and talk about the great strides women have taken in maritime industries, as well as the work that we all still have to do.

First few conversations from the Maritime Union of Australia's Quadrennial conference . We talk about Indian seafarers with Abdualgani Serang of the National Union of Indian Seafarers, then Torban Seebold tells us about the work the ITF is doing in Myanmar. We finish off with Thomas Mayor of the MUA discussing the similarities between Australian aboriginal people and Canada's first nations.

At ILWU Local 502 we celebrate family day with a Johnny Canuck memorial BBQ. We have a good chat with Brian Skiffington and Zack Pattin form Local 23 in Tacoma. They give us a update on how the young workers movement is starting to take shape down there. Then we have a couple quick conversations with Mark Vellios and John Collins JR.  They share some old Johnny Canuck stories and JR tells us the o...

Mike goes solo at the "Touque Tuesday" ball hockey tournament, a event put on by Raising The Roof. Local community groups, unions, and charitable organizations collected a mountain of items to help the homeless.

ITF inspector and ILWU Local 400 member Peter Lahay returns. We speak about labour issues home and away and Peter tells us all about his recent adventures, keeping up the good fight for seafarers around the world.

ILWU pensioners Joe Breaks, Jerry White and Ron Noullett join us on the one year anniversary of The Docker Podcast. They are here to discuss a book out later this year. "Longshoring on the Fraser - History and Stories of Local 502."

Professor Mark Leier a labour historian at Simon Fraser University joins us on the 100 year anniversary of the execution of labour legend Joe Hill. He schools us on the IWW and even brought along his banjo. This episode is dedicated to the memory of ILWU brother Michael Birmingham.

IBU Convention Part 3, the MUA Assistant National Secretary Ian Bray, Sydney Assistant Branch Secretary Paul Garret, and MUA Delegate Scott Hare from Sydney Ferries, all sit with us. We talk about everything from the youth movement, the top, union mergers and get a bit of a update on the Hutchison dispute.

Part 2 from the IBU convention, we had a long talk with Andrew Hedden form the Harry Bridges Center for labour studies at the University of Washington,  and Conor Casey the Labour Archivist and Director of the the Labour Archives of Washington. We find out how a labour leader from San Fran ends up having a building named after him, and a statue of him, on a campus full of corporate money in Washin...

IBU Convention Part 1, this is a mash up of all the short conversations we had over our two days in Seattle. We learned a lot about the structure, scope, and history of the IBU as well as some of the struggles the IBU shares with other maritime unions around the world. 1-Adam Petty, IBU Executive and Zac villanueva from the IBU in southern California 2-Mike Vera IBU Southern california, captain wi...

Brother Aaron Ekman, BCFED Secretary Treasurer joins us for a election wrap up episode. We chew through some international labour news, and Aaron ends things with a great song choice.

The Mikes were both gone, so Dan called in two returning guests to fill some seats.  Dan, Sunny, and Rob sat down with Vancouver-Kingsway NDP MP Don Davies and talked about a bunch of stuff including his campaign, Bill C51, TPP, and the NDP plan for real change.

Day 3 started with some 502 youth delegates, John Collins Jr, Chad Goodrich and Aaron Higo. Then we were honoured to have BCFED President Irene Lanzinger. From Local 13 in LongBeach we had Armondo Porras and Jose Lomeli. The MUA sent two delegates for us to speak with, Codey Buekers and Rachael Carter. We finished it all off with ILWU Canada 2nd VP Steve Nasby.

Day 2 for us started with a conversation with Rene-John Nicolas from Victory Square law office, about appropriate use of social media and some of its benefits and pitfalls. We then spoke with Brian Campbell from the BCFED occupational health and safety centre. Next up was Brother Dean McGrath, President of ILWU Local 23 in Tacoma. We finished the day with Allison Tremblay, also from Victory Square...

ILWU pensioners Tom Dufesne, Mike Morino, and Barry Campbell join us right after their presentation on the history of the ILWU in Canada. We were then joined by actor Ian Ruskin, who performed a one man play on the life of Harry Bridges.

Peter Lahay joins us to have a quick chat about the Liverpool dockers dispute 20 years ago.

Friend of the show Mich-Elle Myers of the MUA calls in and gives us a update live from the Hutchison picket line.