End port extortion now, Scott Morrison tells wharfies
The MUA has flagged a deal to end industrial conflict on the waterfront after Scott Morrison lambasted the union.
The Maritime Union of Australia has foreshadowed an 11th-hour agreement to end an escalating industrial conflict on the waterfront that threatens the nation’s supply chains, after Scott Morrison lambasted the union for engaging in “extortion”.
In a new war on Australia’s ports, the Prime Minister did not rule out sending troops to stop the industrial action and demanded a “lawful” resolution as Patrick warned that delays were worsening, with 38 ships and 100,000 containers caught up in the disagreement.
MUA Sydney branch secretary Paul McAleer conceded the union had made an ambit claim in seeking a 6 per cent annual payrise during negotiations with Patrick — which has triggered the go-slow action at Port Botany, Melbourne, Brisbane and Fremantle — but would be satisfied with a 2.5 per cent increase.
In response, Mr Morrison said: “We cannot have the militant end of the union movement effectively engaging in a campaign of extortion against the Australian people in the middle of a COVID-19 recession.
“Australians are doing it so tough … We will take what steps are necessary to ensure that this can be brought to a more meaningful and swift conclusion.”
The MUA and Patrick will attend talks on Wednesday scheduled by the Fair Work Commission after the stevedore lodged an application for an urgent hearing to halt the industrial action. The Morrison government is intervening to support Patrick’s application.
MUA national secretary Paddy Crumlin said the union wanted an agreement “now” and accused Patrick of using the pandemic to “try and get personal and corporate leverage”.
“We want a resolution to the thing,” he told The Australian.
“They’re taking away family-friendly rosters. All we’ve been doing is reacting to their aggressive stance. They see an opportunity with COVID to run this witch hunt, which is what it is.
“We offered them a rollover at the start of the agreement for 12 months — we thought that would get through COVID — and they rejected it. A week and a half ago, we said we’d forego industrial action for a month … and they rejected it. I don’t know what more I can do. It is a misrepresentation of Trump-like proportions to say there are 40 ships at anchor off NSW waiting to get in … there are two.”
Patrick said its terminals would be 11 days behind schedule by Friday, more than three weeks behind in Sydney, nine days behind in Brisbane and three days behind in Fremantle as a result of stoppages, go-slows and overtime bans.
Asked whether he would consider using the Australian Defence Force to intervene, as former prime minister Ben Chifley did to end a strike by more than 23,000 coalminers, Mr Morrison said: “I’m not going to pre-empt any of those sorts of things. We’re still at a stage where I think that sort of thing would hopefully be unnecessary and that it would never come to something like that. My simple message today is to get it sorted and stop the extortion and to think of your fellow Australians and get back to work.”
Rigby Cooke Lawyers partner Andrew Hudson, who has clients affected by the industrial dispute, said some shipping lines were no longer taking bookings from China to Sydney because they believed Australia’s largest city was “closed for business”.
“They’re having to go to Melbourne or Brisbane and move it (product) by coastal shipping or move it by rail or road,” he said.
“We’re looking at things taking two to three months as opposed to two to three weeks or a month. They (his clients) are now being asked to cover congestion and other charges and we are moving into additional ‘peak season’ charges.”
Building supplier company Alchin Long Group could soon have thousands of customers affected by the MUA’s industrial action at Port Botany and the Port of Melbourne.
Its chief executive Nigel Long noted not many businesses could afford the 6 per cent wage increase requested by the union.
“All that one is doing is harming the ability for the economy to rebound, but equally just to be able to get through the other side,” Mr Long said of the industrial action.
“Any further disruption is just going to continue to put pain and suffering across a number of sectors, not just the building industry. Particularly our rural sectors and agricultural sectors which have been through some very tough times over the last 12 months and beyond through drought and fire, they’re trying to get back on their feet as well.”
Mr Long said the go-slow action was starting to hit the company’s budget at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“We employ about 250 people locally here in Australia,” he said.
“The reality is we have been drip fed product over the last month to six weeks and that has become more challenging over the last couple of weeks in particular. We will get to a point where we just will be unable to supply product to our customers probably in six to eight weeks’ time or less.”
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