WORKERS at Western Australia’s Dampier supply base have returned to work as of Monday following a five-day union strike deemed an ‘irresponsible and misguided economic attack on Australia’s national resource industry’ by national resource employer group AREEA.
The strike was triggered after negotiations between the Maritime Union of Australia and Mermaid Marine reached an impasse, leading 65 stevedores to walk off the job at the Dampier port operations in the Pilbara, a critical service and supply base for the offshore oil and gas industry.
AREEA criticised the strike as irresponsible and damaging for the national economy.
“For far too long the resource industry and the broader Australian community has put up with MUA threats to hold critical parts of our economy to ransom in pursuit of inflated wage increases, exorbitant allowances and attempts to control business operations,” AREEA chief executive Steve Knott said.
“In virtually every enterprise negotiation it is involved in across the resource and related sectors, the MUA has belligerently pursued unrealistic industrial claims well above those in other industries, with zero regard for the broader impacts of their actions and their impacts on working people.
“The offshore oil and gas industry has created thousands of employment opportunities and billions in economic value for Western Australia. The MUA’s ideological campaign against major project operators and their contractors and service suppliers is particularly flawed and misguided.”
In a separate matter also impacting the offshore oil and gas industry, AREEA continues to negotiate with the MUA for new agreements covering 21 vessel operator employers and about 2,500 employees in the maritime support sector.
“After more than 18 months, the union is still unable or unwilling to narrow its extensive shopping list of claims down to the core issues and give employers something to properly respond to. Rather, it has preferred to delay and frustrate proceedings to equip itself to take widespread strike action,” Mr Knott said.
“Whether it is threatening strikes against either of the Pilbara’s resource ports (Dampier and Port Hedland) or its disingenuous behaviour in the offshore maritime negotiations, the MUA must urgently reassess its approach and the wider impact it is having on one of the pillars of Australia’s economy.
“Our message to the MUA is drop the strike threats, drop the misguided campaigns against nationally important hydrocarbons projects, and get serious about working with resource employers towards sustainable and fair outcomes for the industry and all who work within it.”
Mermaid Marine expects to meet with the MUA in coming days, telling ABC News the organisation hoped for ‘meaningful negotiations towards an agreement that delivers flexibility for customers, sustainability for the business and security for employees’.
