Upwards of 60 Australian longshoremen were stood down Tuesday after they refused to unload a container ship from China.
The Xin Da Lian docked at the DP World terminal in the Victoria state capital of Melbourne after leaving Shanghai on March 17. Union organizers claim the ship may be contaminated with coronavirus and should instead be held in quarantine.
The Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) says the vessel is in breach of the federal government’s 14-day coronavirus quarantine period after visiting a Taiwanese port on March 19 during its voyage Down Under, local outlet News.com reports.
Workers say shaving two days off the quarantine period is “a risk to workers and the community” and those who refused to unload the vessel over concerns about the risk of the coronavirus were sent home.
DP World Australia chief operating officer Andrew Adam says the ship was cleared to berth by the Australian Border Force.
Convicted serial rapist originally sentenced to 124 years walks free after 20, sparking outrage
Blue State Schools Forced Christians to Keep Bibles in Envelopes So Other Students Wouldn’t Be ‘Exposed to Them’
Elon Musk Announces Plan to Distribute a Financial Gift to ‘Every Kid in America’
Trump heads to unlikely battleground as GOP fights to hold Senate and more top headlines
State Trooper Dishonorably Discharged for Using ‘Offensive Language’
It took 3 months to get inside this massive Texas data center — here’s what we saw
What’s next for Skydance after the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger?
National Guard member shot in DC, police chief says
Epstein-linked billionaire pours $500K into super PAC backing Kentucky Democrat: ‘Dirty Epstein-class money’
Booker rival who ‘shoots from the hip’ hopes viral debate moment can break GOP’s Senate drought
Firefighters save historic ‘Godfather’ church from raging NYC warehouse blaze
Arizona man accused of plotting mass casualty attack on religious site with ‘cookbook’ tied to OKC bombing
Massachusetts GOP ticket rocked by alleged drunken crash as candidate abruptly halts campaign
Trump unveils plan to transform historic DC golf course as judge tees off
How 1 Single Gun Magazine Could Soon Lead SCOTUS to Upend How Judges Sentence Criminals
“Any crew members aboard a vessel that has been to mainland China must have been at sea for 14 days before they are allowed to dock in Australia,” he said in a statement on Wednesday.
“The union is not allowed to unilaterally declare a vessel unsafe. They are not allowed to create their own set of rules.”
MUA national assistant secretary Warren Smith said it didn’t want to see a repeat of Sydney’s Ruby Princess cruise ship debacle where the vessel was allowed to send all its passengers ashore without screening after it had docked.
“The largest cluster of COVID-19 cases in Australia … was the result of inadequate measures put in place for the arrival of ships,” he said in a statement as reported by local outlet 7News.
“What’s the difference with this ship?”
Story cited here.
