Union’s fury at ‘clean energy’s dirty secret’
Electrical Trades Union launches court action after being denied entry to the nation’s biggest electricity transmission project.
The Electrical Trades Union has launched Federal Court action after being denied entry to the nation’s biggest electricity transmission project, dubbing it “clean energy’s dirty secret”.
The court will next week hear the union’s bid to have organisers hold discussions with 60 mostly skilled migrant linesmen working on the $2.3bn Project EnergyConnect electricity interconnector between South Australia and NSW.
ETU acting national secretary Michael Wright said the subcontractor employing the workers was open to talks with the union but access was being denied by the project contractor, Secure Energy.
The union says the workers’ contracts describe them as “linesworkers”, and most of them worked previously in high-voltage transmission line construction work.
The employees are engaged to perform high-voltage transmission line construction work and employed under a standard contract that describes them as “Linesworkers”.
They have been assembling and erecting monopoles and crossarms which will hold high-voltage transmission conductors.
The same workers will later be responsible for stringing the high-voltage transmission conductors between each monopole, fixed to the insulators on the crossarms.
Mr Wright said “the shift to renewable energy is essential but all too often, clean energy’s dirty secret is that workers are exploited and their labour rights are denied”.
“The ETU has members on this site who are raising real concerns about safety and working conditions, yet the employer is using desperate and ridiculous excuses to prevent our investigations,” he said.
“The ETU covers lines workers and the electrical industry, and the contracts these workers are employed through state they are lines workers building electrical transmission infrastructure.
“This is a bizarre try on that makes us think the employer has something to hide.”
Joint venture partner Elecnor said on Friday that it took “work health and safety responsibilities of all our workforce very seriously”.
“To date, there has been no safety concerns raised by our workforce,” a spokeswoman said.
“Currently the Australian Workers Union has coverage of the construction industry. As we are not operational, we are not considered part of the Australian electrical industry.”
Sources said there was concern that the cost of the project would increase if the workers were covered by an ETU agreement.
But Mr Wright said Australia had a skills shortage and skilled migrants needed the same rights and representation as every other worker in Australia to prevent them being exploited.
Mediation between the parties has been scheduled for next week, ahead of a hearing to consider a bid to have the organisers enter the site.
The union says SecureEnergy refused three ETU organisers right of entry to hold discussions with employees on May 9 and 10.
It says the company has effectively stopped the union from talking to employees during their lunch break, some of whom are members of the union, about their workplace rights.
The SecureEnergy joint venture was awarded the engineering, construction and procure-ment contract for the new 700km 330kv transmission line extending from Wagga Wagga in NSW to the SA border of Transgrid’s Energy Connect project in June 2021.
EnergyConnect includes a new 900km electricity transmission line, known as an interconnector, that will connect power grids across three states. It is being built between Wagga Wagga and Robertstown in SA, with a connection to Red Cliffs in Victoria.
