Union threatens port stoppages

Port of Brisbane, the country’s third-busiest, faces costly work stoppages if attempts to hammer out an enterprise agreement with marine pilots continues to fail.

Port of Brisbane, the country’s third-busiest, is facing the threat of costly industrial stoppages of up to a week over delays in hammering out an enterprise agreement with marine pilots.

The Australian Maritime Officers Union said pilots employed by Poseidon Sea Pilots were “sick of waiting” for negotiations to result in a collective agreement and were considering taking protected industrial action.

AMOU senior organiser Tracey Ellis said pilots were currently on common law contracts where those who did the same job are earning different amounts of pay and annual leave.

“The pilots have provided the company with ample opportunity to respond to their log of claims, but this has not eventuated,” Ms Ellis said. “Poseidon Sea Pilots this week has again tried to reduce their employees’ bargaining power by meeting with pilots individually to try to get them to consent to reducing the amount of annual leave they have under their common law contracts to be in line with more recently employed pilots.”

Port of Brisbane operations

She said this was despite the parties being engaged in enterprise agreement negotiations for a collective agreement. The union on Friday received approval from the Fair Work Commission for a protected action ballot that if passed by pilots could lead to stop work bans. It is understood the bans could include everything from hour long stoppages to more extended action. Poseidon was in 2021 awarded a $250 million decade-long contract by the state government’s industry regulator, taking over from competitor Brisbane Marine Pilots that had performed the work for more than 30 years. Maritime Industry Australia and the AMOU last year flagged major concerns about what they claim was a “watering down’’ of training requirements for sea pilots working in the notoriously tricky waters off Brisbane. The port has up to 5000 ship movements every year, with every vessel over 50 metres requiring a pilot.

Port of Brisbane

Ms Ellis said Poseidon Sea Pilots had brought marine pilots up from Melbourne to kick off the Brisbane operations and they continued to be on a higher rate than the Brisbane pilots. “The AMOU says to those pilots an enterprise agreement will not hurt you,” she said. “If you have negotiated better conditions for yourself, Poseidon will still have to honour those conditions when an enterprise agreements is approved. Don’t cross the picket line and prevent your colleagues from getting a deal as good as you.”

She said the AMOU had dragged Poseidon Sea Pilots to the table in the Fair Work Commission in August last year and the company had conceded the majority of marine pilots wanted an enterprise agreement. “That was 10 months ago, and the pilots are sick of waiting for the enterprise agreement negotiations to produce a collective agreement,” said Ms Ellis.

Comment has been sought from Poseidon Sea Pilots, which is a subsiairy of Australian Maritime Systems Group (AMSG).

AMSG chief executive Glen Marshall last year denied there was any fatigue problems among pilots but conceded a minority had raised the issue. Mr Marshall said the company paid pilots more than the industry average with a set roster of one week off and one week on.