Since its growth in the early 1970s, the live animal export sector has developed from the initial trade of ad hoc exports to a co-ordinated trade of regular sheep exports to the Middle East and live cattle export to South East Asia, North Africa, and China.1 During this same period, over 30 export abattoirs and even more domestic abattoirs closed around Australia with the direct loss of almost 20,000 jobs in the meat processing industry, usually in rural and regional areas.2 Throughout this period, the Australasian Meat Industry Employees’ Union (AMIEU) has been campaigning across Australia to stop the live export trade to save jobs and to prevent the associated cruelty of shipping animals overseas.

To date, research on live animal export has come from two main sources. Animal welfare groups and veterinarians have produced extensive reports and other publications on animal rights and welfare; while Federal and State Governments in Australia and the livestock producers have also commissioned various reports.3 The main gap in the literature is the absence of any research on the three decade long campaign waged by the AMIEU to protect the Australian meat processing industry and its members’ jobs. This paper therefore examines the ongoing campaign begun by the union in 1973 when it imposed a ban on live sheep exports which resulted in a Federal Government inquiry into live export practices. In doing so, the paper examines the alliances formed by the AMIEU with animal rights groups and how these groups became influential industrial relations actors in their own right. These alliances are discussed briefly using social movement theory and an assessment of the three decade campaign is presented.

The key argument of this paper is that lobby alliance partners seek to elicit member support and contributions to campaigns in exchange for specific benefits so that the alliances may not be permanent but rather short term.4 The benefits sought may not be the same for each lobby partner and the alliances will be driven by convenience and the circumstances at a particular time.

Background to the campaign

During the 1970s, employment in the meat industry was subject to extreme fluctuations as a result of changing demand for wool. This saw a series of peaks and troughs in the Australian wool industry and accompanying alterations in the numbers of sheep: when wool demand is low, sheep slaughter is higher and vice versa. The situation was compounded by seasonal weather conditions and the simultaneous growth in the export of live sheep from 1974 to 1978. Sheep that had previously been culled by woolgrowers (that is five to six year old sheep) were exported live to countries that reduced the tariff on live animals imports to be as little as one to three per cent.5 These countries were not new markets but rather existing ones in the Middle East and South East Asia. The AMIEU focused on the culling as unnecessarily compounding the difficulties faced by meatworkers because ‘the continued export of live sheep [had] a big impact on members in Victoria, NSW, South Australia and Queensland’.6 As former AMIEU (Vic) State Secretary, Wally Curran, said:

The impact of live sheep did not close plants but rather live sheep were a factor; for example, at Portland. The plants closed because of a combination of factors but live sheep means no local sheep to be killed in numbers in small sheds and no jobs for the members.7

Fred Hall, former AMIEU Federal Secretary, had also identified live animal exports as the major reason for the problems the meat processing industry faced in the 1970s:

Both the national sheep and cattle herds have substantially dropped and I don’t see any glut of meat on the Australian market any more [because the excess animals are exported live]. We have lost a lot of members over the last four months (9,000 were laid off between March to May 1979).8

The vertically integrated companies which operated initially as meat processors and chilled and frozen meat exporters were able to move into live export. These companies became the target of the AMIEU campaign against live exports because they were the direct employers of the union’s members but were simultaneously reducing the amount of available livestock for processing by exporting live animals. This effectively reduced the number of days of work available to meatworkers from five to as few as two and it also reduced the slaughter season by as much as two months per year.9 By 1979, at least 4,000 AMIEU (Vic) members were working less than five days a week without any redundancy scheme or severance pay.10 A combination of industrial relations changes and poor economic conditions had reduced the union’s bargaining position and forced it to consider new strategies such as political lobbying and forming alliances with groups outside of the industrial relations arena.

Initiating the campaign

The early phase of the campaign (1973-77) was directed at the vertically integrated companies on a state by state basis and was not a co-ordinated strategy under the auspices of the Federal branch of the AMIEU. 11 However, it still resulted in a Federal Labor Government inquiry into livestock exports from which the outcome was twofold: there was a weight restriction placed on the type of sheep which could be exported live and a ratio of live sheep to mutton carcasses was introduced. The ratio did not extend to beef so the union retained the extension of the ratio to this section of the industry as a key objective of its campaign.12

During the mid 1970s, the Western Australian branch of the union had initiated a series of pickets of ports combined with lobbying of the State Government and the various employer groups. This action was successful in part because it ensured that livestock producers adhered more strictly to the ratios than did those in other states. Companies such as Metro Meats and Elders were the main targets of the AMIEU action because they also employed meatworkers in their abattoirs. Producers ignoring the ratios were identified by the State branches of the union and targeted for industrial action across Australia.

As more livestock producers became involved in live exporting, a split in the ranks of employer and producer representatives occurred.13 In 1977, the Australian Meat Exporters’ Association supported the AMIEU’s position and voiced concerns about the availability and quality of livestock for slaughter, throughput, and employment. The newly formed Australian Meat and Livestock Corporation (AMLC) and the Australian Wool and Meat Producers’ Federation both took an equivocal position which involved offering qualified support for live animal export.14 In comparison, the Australian Woolgrowers’ and Graziers’ Council was totally opposed to any restrictions being placed on live animal exports and lobbied the Federal Liberal Government for this objective.15 This organisation provided the main opposition to the AMIEU campaign during the 1970s. In 1977, secondary boycott provisions (s45D & E) were inserted into the amended Trade Practices Act (Commonwealth) by the Federal Liberal Government, possibly with a view to preventing future blockades of livestock on Australian wharves.16 Also, 1977 saw the Federal branch of the AMIEU take over the co-ordination of the campaign against live animal export because problems were occurring with the ratio system in most States. Although Fred Hall was Federal Secretary, Assistant Secretary, Jack O’Toole, took much of the responsibility for the campaign.

The union announced that all live sheep exports from Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, and Tasmania would be banned and stock movements from New South Wales and Queensland into South Australia would blocked. This was followed by a further announcement that it was giving the livestock industry until 1 March 1978 to implement and adhere to an effective ratio system if national industrial action was to be avoided. Industry talks broke down as the AMIEU refused to move from its position on ratios and farmers and their representatives demanded unrestricted trade.

Using traditional industrial tactics

During March 1978, the AMIEU federal executive began planning for picket lines at various ports around Australia from which live sheep transport vessels departed. On Sunday 19 March, a picket was set up at the Cavan sheep yards near Adelaide to prevent the loading of 30,000 Elders-owned sheep for export to the Middle East. Pickets were also established at Bunbury, Albany, Esperance, Fremantle, and Geraldton in Western Australia. The Federal branch was also planning pickets at several other ports around Australia; however, it did not gain the support of other unions prior to the industrial action. While the picket lasted four weeks, it was unsuccessful and the sheep were loaded in Western Australia by members of the Waterside Workers Federation. In South Australia, members of the Australian Workers Union actually supported farmers in their rally against the AMIEU’s blockade because these shearers were employed to shear the sheep prior to their export. Livestock exporters were able to play the unions off against each other by threatening job loss if sheep were not loaded. Further, when the pickets had been breached, the Government, the Australian Council of Trade Union (ACTU), and the Australian Woolgrowers’ and Graziers’ Council met to reach an agreement on how to resolve the situation. In doing so, the ACTU under the leadership of Bob Hawke, reinforced the division between the AMIEU and the other unions.

In 1978, the AMIEU had neither union movement nor community support. The South Australian public supported the farmers who, in Adelaide, had organised a public rally and ‘drive slow’ through the city. In Western Australia, the situation was similar. The media provided favourable coverage for the farmers and their representatives and not for the union which was portrayed as engaging in disruptive and threatening industrial action that would serve only their members.

The first broader support for AMIEU action against live animal export occurred at Portland in western Victoria in 1984. The AMIEU organised a series of strikes to draw attention to the under utilisation of Victoria’s largest meatworks.17 This campaign was co-ordinated by Victorian Secretary, Wally Curran, who designated day-to-day responsibility to local officials at Portland because they knew the member and the local community. Secretary Curran developed rules for picketing, including how to deal with the police presence on the wharf. He also determined that the picket needed to last at least a week to show that the union was serious, as well as handling media inquiries.18 Contamination of livestock food and water with porcine blood was carried out to make the sheep which consumed it unsuitable for Moslem consumption.19 When the union’s officials saw that freshly shorn export sheep were being held in bare, muddy paddocks without shelter in extremely cold conditions, they called the RSPCA. This action gained community support in and beyond Portland through extensive media coverage and the first of the alliances between the AMIEU and animal groups was developed.

Building alliances

For almost the first decade of the campaign, the AMIEU had obtained little community support for its cause and no positive media coverage. The first sign that sentiment was changing had appeared during the Portland dispute. The opportunity to build alliances with parties outside of the industry and outside of the industrial relations arena was also demonstrated at Portland when animal welfare activists became involved in the dispute and supported the union’s position.

It appeared that the way forward for the union was to deliberately build alliances with these groups and to gain positive media coverage for their campaign through these groups. These groups were no longer automatically considered extremist and their ideas found support in philosophy and ethics. The writings of the Australian philosopher, Peter Singer, did much to promote the issue of animal welfare. His book, Animal Liberation, served as a major formative influence on the animal rights movement because in it he argued that all species capable of suffering were held to have rights.20 From this he concluded that using animals for food was unjustifiable because it caused unnecessary suffering. Thus, vegetarianism and veganism gained a moral underpinning that removed these approaches to eating from simply being diet fads.

The risk of being identified with so-called extremists did not bother the union’s officials, particularly as the AMIEU was often regarded as extreme both within and outside of the union movement. The rise in the number of animal welfare groups and in the membership of such groups reflected a change in societal attitude towards animal rights and indicated that a change in Government policy to stop live exports may not be impossible. For example, an extensive body of research contends that consumers across the world have increasingly high levels of concern about the welfare of farm animals.21 In Europe, the concerns have given rise to private sector responses from producers and to legislative responses;22 however, in Australia and the USA, formal responses have been much slower.

To provide factual support for its campaign, the AMIEU began collecting data on the impact of live animal export on the meat processing industry in Australia. This data proved the union’s position that the live export industry was a threat to meatworkers’ jobs and to regional communities: one direct job loss could result in as many as seven indirect job losses.23

The closure of Smorgon’s Townsville abattoir in 1995 in the face of increasing live cattle export to Asia and the Middle East (from 147,000 head in 1993 to 290,000 head in 1994) reinforced the union’s policy of building alliances with animal welfare groups and of distributing information on live animal exports to the wider public. The union asked for assistance from Animal Liberation in its struggle. This request set the trend for future relationships with other such groups. For example, AMIEU (Qld) northern district organiser, Russell Carr, worked with the vice president of Animal Liberation, Tony Clunies-Ross, to call public meetings to raise awareness about live animal exports and its affects on the animals, on meatworkers’ jobs, and on the local community. A committee of four meatworkers and two animal welfare member was formed with Tony Clunies-Ross as secretary. The new group, Committee Against Live Export (CALE), co-ordinated meetings and protests against live export as well as engaging in lobbying of Federal and State Members of Parliament.

The AMIEU also began working with the Western Australian group, People Against Cruelty in Animal Transport (PACAT) to organise rallies and meetings.24 PACAT is an organisation independent from the AMIEU (WA) and has as its mission the replacement of export of live animals for slaughter overseas with the lucrative chilled and frozen meat trade.25 This mission aligns closely with the objectives of the AMIEU to save jobs in the industry. The Western Australian branch of the union has worked with PACAT to present to the public both sides of the argument in respect to the cruelty of the live shipping trade, which is also destroying jobs in the meat processing industry.26 The AMIEU (WA) has successfully lobbied other trade unions to pass a resolution at the 2004 ALP State Conference to form a Meat Industry Task Force under the responsibility of the State Minister for Primary Industry, Kim Chance. The AMIEU is optimistic about the outcome of this task force, although other such inquiries have not produced real change.

Industry inquiries

A number of inquiries related directly to the live animal export industry have been held as well as some only indirectly related. Direct inquiries have included the1985 Senate Inquiry into the live sheep trade which concluded that if a decision was to be made on the future of the trade purely on animal welfare grounds, then there was adequate evidence to stop the trade. Mortality figures from 1981 to 2002 showing an average during this period of approximately two per cent continue to support this position.27 Indirect examples include the 1992 House of Representatives Standing Committee Inquiry called unsuccessfully on the Australian Government to bring international pressure to bear on flag of convenience ships that did not carry out their international responsibilities.28 A number of these ships operated and continued to operate in the live animal export industry. In 1997, 85 sheep ships and 466 cattle export vessels, many of which were flag of convenience, transported 700,000 live cattle and 5,500,000 sheep out of Australian ports. Some of the vessels were hardly sea worthy and crews were paid poorly – if at all – and experience dreadful working conditions.29 The Philippines registered flag of convenience ship, MS Palawan, continued transporting Australian cattle to Japan in contravention of an Australian maritime safety dry dock detention order relating to extensive corrosion of the underdeck.30 Transport ships have even sunk, killing all livestock and causing damage to the marine environment.

In 2003, 57,000 sheep aboard the MV Cormo Express were turned away from Saudi Arabia because six per cent of sheep were infected with contagious pustular dermatitis.31 After two months, the animals were finally accepted by Eritrea after independent veterinary reports confirmed them fit for human consumption.32 The mortality rate of sheep on board was 9.82 per cent compared with the average annual mortality rate of approximately two per cent.33

The Cormo Express incident attracted general public attention to the live sheep export industry with the media covering the story on an almost daily basis between 22 August and 24 October 2003 when it docked in Eritrea.34 The incident was also a factor in the announcement by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry of another review of the livestock export industry.35 As with previous public inquiries, little action has yet been taken with regard to the subsequent Keniry Report’s recommendations and it appears unlikely that the trade will cease unless further pressure is placed upon Federal and State Governments by the public, lobby groups, and the main parties within the meat processing industry. This is despite the support for a cessation of the trade from the Minister, Warren Truss. With this in mind, an alliance between the AMIEU and the Australian Meat Processors Corporation may become a significant factor in future campaigns to stop the trade because it will show unity across the meat processing industry which is the direct competitor of the live animal export industry. While the live animal trade will not end yet, the anti-export campaigners believe the situation is optimistic and that ongoing lobbying and the current Ministerial support will definitely result in a cessation of the exports.36

More odd alliances?

The Australian Meat Processors Corporation has moved to support the AMIEU’s long term argument that live animal export not only threatens the supply of livestock available for processing in Australia, but actually competes directly with chilled and frozen meat for market share, particularly in the Middle East.37 The Keniry Report warned that

The body of counter-evidence to the Hassall Report that was commissioned by Meat and Livestock Australia, and which claimed that the live export industry created 9,000 jobs, is growing. It is possible that an alliance will be formed between the AMIEU and the Australian Meat Processors Corporation as a result in order to protect their respective industry interests. Such an alliance would have greater chance of influencing the Federal Liberal Government’s position than does the AMIEU alone. The difficulty remains with the Meat and Livestock Corporation, the National Farmers’ Federation, and the National Party who draw strong constituencies from the farmers who supply the live exports. The combined influence of these three groups on the Federal Government position remains strong and counters the optimism of the anti-export campaigners.

An assessment of the industrial campaign and subsequent alliances

The industrial campaign fought by the AMIEU across Australia was unsuccessful because it was largely fought in isolation. Meatworkers engaged in traditional collective action to protect their own interests but these interests did not align with those of other trade unionists whose jobs were at least partly dependent upon the live animal export industry. The industrial campaign fought in 1978 also failed because the livestock producers were able to gain public support for their position through rallies and the media. The union was also in a strategically weak position because of the seasonal and industry fluctuations during the 1970s. These external factors caused the union to turn to forming broad coalitions or alliances with non-union organisations to protect their jobs in the traditional meat processing industry.39 The risk with the AMIEU forming alliances with animal welfare groups was that the meatworkers could have found that their interests were subsumed in a campaign concerned solely with animal rights, not with stopping live animal exports. The alliance that appears to reflect a higher degree of commonality of interest is that between the AMIEU and PACAT.

The new alliances between animal welfare groups and the AMIEU fit within the traditional approach to the study of social movements in that they focus on achieving reform of the live animal export industry which necessitates legislative reform at both Federal and State levels.40 A common goal – stopping all live animal exports – unites diverse parties and allows centrally planned co-operation and deliberate resource allocation to occur within each organisation. The alliances cut across class boundaries with middle class and working class animal rights activists, allied with members of a militant, left wing, blue collar union. Further, a lifestyle and moral choice of veganism temporarily aligns with the economic need to keep a job in the meat processing industry.41

However, despite the recent optimism shown by the animal welfare groups, alliances do not guarantee success. Those alliances between parties representing different perspectives within an industry but who are united on a policy issue – for example, the AMIEU and the Australian Meat Processors Corporation and its company members – may be more successful in affecting institutional decision-making because of the increased strength of the strategic influence of the alliance members.42 Such an alliance would give the AMIEU more influence because the union comes to be regarded as part of the meat processing and export industry; an industry that contributes a yearly average to the Australian economy of $5 billion compared with the less than $1 billion contributed by the live animal export industry.43 The domestic meat processing industry is also affected by the export of live animals which reduce the quality and supply of available livestock for domestic consumption. Australian Bureau of Statistic figures showing meat production and slaughter figures compared with figures for live animal export show that from 1998 to 2004, beef slaughtered was just over 2,006,600 tonnes, veal just on 35,000 tonnes, mutton 296,000 tonnes and lamb just over 340,000 tonnes.44 The majority of beef exported was labour-intensive bone-out but the majority of mutton and lamb was bone-in. In terms of actual numbers, slaughter of cattle and calves averaged 8.8 million head and sheep and lambs 31.5 million head.45 The figures for live animal export show an average of 869,600 tonnes gross weight for sheep exports, with the largest export figures being in 2001-02 and 2003-04.46 Live cattle exports averaged 290,000 tonnes gross weight for cattle exports.47 While the live animal figures have fluctuated between 1998 and 2004, they demonstrate the capacity for growth in this section of the industry. The markets for live animal exports overlap with those for processed meat and the growth in the former is of concern to the domestic employers in the meat processing industry because it will erode herd numbers for domestic slaughter. The AMIEU has a sound argument that an increase in live cattle exports will undermine jobs in the beef processing industry because the majority of export beef is bone-out which is the more labour intensive version of the product.

According to research by Potter, alliances which offer potential for collective action problems are less likely to bring success.48 To date, it could be said that the alliance between the AMIEU and PACAT in Western Australia has brought the most success in the campaign against live animal exports, even though on the surface it appears as unlikely to succeed as the alliance between the union and the meat processing industry employer body. The success comes from the high public profile the group has achieved with its presence on the Fremantle wharf. However, it is recognised that a State Government inquiry is not much of an outcome but it is one that is attributable to the alliance between the AMIEU and an animal rights group.

The alliance between the AMIEU and CALE in north Queensland is of a different nature because it consists of a combination of meatworkers and animal rights activists working together to stop live animal exports. This cross membership of meatworkers promotes closer cohesion between the AMIEU and CALE. Further, the formality of the CALE structure resembles that of a trade union so that there is a reporting mechanism apparent within the organisation and a person, the secretary (Tony Clunies-Ross), on whom responsibility falls. Both CALE and PACAT are fairly small organisations that are able to unite their respective members behind a specific objective which, according to Potter, means that any change in the favour of each group will have a significant impact for group members.49 This argument may also hold true for the AMIEU (WA) which is one of the smallest branches of the AMIEU and for regional groupings of meatworkers from a particular geographic location, such as Townsville or Portland.

Australian animal welfare groups are becoming new actors in industrial relations, with the potential to influence the live animal export industry and the meat processing industry to in turn affect employment and perhaps wages and conditions. If the Australian groups continue with their campaigns and if pressure is brought to bear on the Australian live animal export industry from international animal rights groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) with the combined consumer purchasing power to damage Australia’s agri-business contributions to the national economy, then live animal exports will cease.50 The challenge will be for the meat processing industry to then ensure that the platforms of groups such as PETA do not alter the meat eating habits of the consumers in those countries to which Australia exports processed meat.

Conclusions

The 30 years of AMIEU campaigning against live animal exports in order to protect meatworkers’ jobs has had relatively little success in terms of stopping the trade. Specifically, industrial tactics were shown to have no long term success. Instead, new strategies such as increased lobbying of all political parties and the forming of alliances outside of the trade union movement have been developed.

These alliances between the union and animal welfare groups have so far demonstrated to the media, the Australian public, and Federal and State Governments that the issue of live animal exports is not just a narrow one of concern to a few thousand meatworkers and their union. Instead, it is of wider concern to different people within the community. This carries with it the potential of increased voting power and is more likely to result in the successful application of political pressure to Governments, irrespective of political party in power. This is illustrated in the 2004 Western Australian example of the successful lobbying of the ALP for a Meat Industry Task Force.

Despite the comparative success of the alliances as opposed to industrial campaigns to date, the AMIEU must keep its focus on its members’ interests and its own strategies. Retaining the equilibrium between the interests of the animal rights groups and the AMIEU and meatworkers remains the challenge if the union is not to be ultimately defeated by its current allies or by the continuation of live animal exports.