Building supplies and machinery for homes, mines, farms and infrastructure will be held up at ports around Australia over Christmas as the militant maritime union steps up its campaign against major wharf operator Qube.
A schedule of industrial action seen by this masthead shows 24-hour strikes scheduled on and off between December 23 and January 12 at Port Kembla, Brisbane, Fremantle and Darwin wharves operated by the $6.85 billion Qube, in an escalation of a months-long dispute.
Qube workers are planning industrial action at facilities including Port Kembla.Credit: Janie Barrett
The company has offered its staff an 18 per cent wage rise over four years but the union, which represents almost all workers on Australian docks, wants changes to current rostering rules that let Qube determine workers’ shifts at 4pm the day before they begin.
The company operates at more than a dozen ports around the country, but the industrial action only affects facilities handling bulk goods, which include things such as grains, steel and machinery, rather than shipping containers full of toys, electronics or cosmetics destined for Christmas trees.
A Qube spokesman claimed the union, which is a division of the broader CFMEU, was losing support from its own members, and accused it of failing to properly negotiate over the wage offer first tabled in July.
“This is a deeply disappointing, not unexpected and entirely on brand escalation by the CFMEU, which, by its conduct, has been clear a pre-Christmas attention-seeking strike was always the plan,” the spokesman said. “It’s about time the union stopped playing Grinch and meaningfully engages in negotiations to bring these protracted disputes to an end and lock in pay increases for workers for Christmas.”
But the Maritime Union pointed to votes among its members showing between 97 per cent and 100 per cent of its members supported its industrial campaign, and claimed the company had cancelled bargaining meetings because junior managers wanted to go on leave around Christmas.
“For hard-working wharfies to get time off during the same period they have to take protected industrial action,” said Warren Smith, the union’s deputy national secretary.
He said the union was happy to meet throughout the holidays, even on Christmas.
“We acknowledge the right of lower and middle management to take time off with their families, so we call on Qube to send a real decision maker along to bargaining for the first time to get this sorted out sooner rather than later,” Smith said in a statement.
On Monday, union members went on strike at 10 ports around the country for a day, but they have been sporadically conducting lower-level industrial action. The union is no stranger to long disputes, sometimes taking years to negotiate pay deals with the handful of companies that load and unload ships at Australian ports.
Pay rates in the industry are difficult to calculate due to loadings and penalty rates but are often more than $130,000 a year for 35-hour weeks, with costs passed on to Australian consumers via logistics companies.
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