And while Hyde feels the entire spirit of Unionism is what's on trial, for big cases such as these, retaining capable legal counsel has a high cost. That's no problem for the Ashcroft Alliance, but for the CWU, it's a tall order.
We asked Hyde how they are affording it:
Mose Hyde, President, CWU
"Listen one, one coco full basket so yes we have done the dollar drives, we have had two fundraising dances and we are going to continue to do more. There will be more fundraising efforts and we are appealing to our broader union family to support as well. Indeed it's a lot because you must understand, the implications of this, is that this is, our attorneys have expressed to us how they view the implications and whatever ruling comes out of this that you cannot accept it, we don't anticipate and it's not in their history of behaviour to accept rulings at the Supreme Court. So, this is potential, a high potential exists for this matter to go further, we don't expect them to stop because we understand the game that they are playing, we understand why they have brought the litigation against us, we understand the way they are trying to do a leverage."
"On top of stevedores and CWU in their rich man game that they are fighting. We understand what is going on. This is not just some, oh they are concerned about our due process, oh they are concerned about the MOU. No, they have a bigger plan going on and because of that, we don't anticipate that even if we can prevail in this particular trial that they are then going to call it off then. So, we have to be prepared for that kind of journey legally and we have to be prepared to be able to find ways to fulfil the entire length of the journey."
"We were supposed to negotiate a payment for our members, PBL has refused to engage in that process and that is the most outstanding matter that the tribunal ruled on. We have written them and they have indicated that they will not and so we have now written to the office of the Prime Minister and we have written to the Ministry of, we have met with the Ministry of labour to express that and put that on the record."
