Pilbara Ports: ‘no immediate threat of industrial action’

PILBARA Ports believes moves by the Maritime Union to take protected industrial action will have no immediate impact on operations at Port Hedland.

A Facebook post by the union this morning threatens escalated industrial action at the port, but a spokesperson for Pilbara Ports said for protected industrial action to take place it would need a ballot, formal approval by the Fair Work Commission, eligibility rules, formal conciliation, and notice requirements.

“None of those things have yet occurred and so there is no immediate prospect of industrial action at Pilbara Ports,” the spokesperson said.

“Pilbara Ports does not expect any short-term protected action to impact on port throughput, given the nature of the work undertaken by the employees.

A total of 166 employees, based in Port Hedland, are covered by the agreement.

These employees are predominantly office-based, or in operational support roles such as maintenance, store persons and administration.

“Pilbara Ports began a consultation process to renegotiate the Port Hedland General Employee Agreement several months ago.

“The bargaining process with employees and union representatives will continue in good faith,” the spokesperson said.

Pilbara Ports comments are in response to the Facebook post this morning, 16 May, in which the union’s WA branch said the Pilbara Ports crew based out of Port Hedland had rejected what it said was the port’s “subpar” offer with a massive no vote.

“The Union is about to escalate and up the ante against this mob,” the post said.

“For too long the company have ruled by fear and this has only gotten progressively worse in recent years attempting to save pennies, peanut-by-peanut.

“The whole bargaining process to date has been an absolute shambles with the company recently abandoning bargaining to put a sub-par agreement out to vote.”

The post said while there are a plethora of issues with Pilbara Port’s proposed agreement, the key issues on site were locking in wage parity for same job, same pay and locking the entitlement to housing into the agreement.

“With the next bargaining meeting set to take place around late May, it’s hard to say which side of the street the company will take.

“They will either throw their toys out of the cot or seek to properly negotiate an agreement that provides a fix to the several outstanding issues.

“No matter what, we continue stand with the PPA crew and are ready to take the next steps in this campaign!”