Woodside fights Fair Work Commission ruling on bargaining with unions
Woodside has appealed against a Fair Work Commission decision that would force the company to collectively bargain with unions at its North West Shelf platforms.
Woodside has appealed against a Fair Work Commission decision that would force the company to collectively bargain with unions at its North West Shelf platforms for the first time in 30 years.
The oil and gas giant said the commission should not have included supervisors when it ruled the Australian Workers’ Union and the Maritime Union of Australia had secured the majority support of 200 production workers on Woodside’s Goodwyn, North Rankin and Angel platforms for a collective agreement.
The workers have been engaged under individual employment arrangements since the 1990s.
During the FWC proceedings, Woodside said it was unfair to include supervisors because they “could be placed in a position of conflict between their duty to manage and discipline employees on the one hand, and their interest in supporting and advancing the claims of those employees against their employer on the other”.
The AWU argued that supervisors have a hands-on role, are expected to be out in the field most of the time, are typically promoted from a pool of tradespeople, are generally capable of performing technician duties and have supervisory rather than managerial duties.
FWC deputy president Melanie Binet said she was satisfied that supervisors were not operationally distinct from the employee group.
“Supervisors typically have the necessary qualifications to perform the duties of other employees within the employee group and may perform such duties in the normal course of the performance of their roles,” she said.
“Based on their position description, supervisors perform a ‘leading hand’ rather than a managerial role. Their key responsibilities and accountabilities do not note any typically managerial responsibilities such as approving leave or disciplining employees.
“Rather, the key responsibilities speak only to supervisory and leadership duties.”
In a statement, Woodside said the company believed the “deputy president’s findings do not reflect the evidence that was before her, or the way our assets operate”.
“In particular, the inclusion of supervisors in the scope of an EBA is a step out for our industry in Western Australia and does not reflect the role our supervisors perform on the platforms – nor the way that role was described in the evidence,” it said.
“Contrary to the deputy president’s findings, our supervisors play a key managerial role on our assets. Including them in an EBA could compromise their ability to perform their duties.
“We have said all along that if we are required to bargain, we want to ensure the union has satisfied the legal requirements. We think this has not occurred.”
“We have sought a stay on the majority support determination order and hope this matter can be resolved expeditiously.”
AWU national secretary Daniel Walton said “many of Woodside’s investors will be starting to realise that management could achieve a much better long-term outcome by working co-operatively with workers and their union instead of engaging in this unethical and hyper-aggressive lawfare”.
“ Thousands of sensible companies sit down to negotiate with workers and their representatives every year.”