Snowy Hydro workers threaten second 24-hour strike

The trouble-plagued government-owned $12bn hydro project will grind to a halt again next week.

Snowy Hydro workers will strike for a second time next week.

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3 hours ago

Australia’s biggest renewable energy project, the trouble-plagued Snowy Hydro 2.0, will grind to a halt again next week after workers voted for a second 24-hour strike in a bid to increase pressure on contractor Webuild.

After hundreds of workers walked off the job on Wednesday this week, union delegates met on Thursday and endorsed a second 24-hour stoppage next week.

Delegates also decided workers would not take work-related calls on their personal mobile phones for seven days while they were at work.

The fly-in, fly-out employees earn more than $200,000 annually on the government-owned $12bn hydro project and want an upfront payment to bring workers into line with tunnel wage rates in Melbourne, where an entry-level tunneller can be paid $230,000 annually and more experienced tunnellers earn more than $300,000 a year, followed by 6 per cent annual pay rises.

After initially rejecting a 23 per cent pay rise offer over four years, workers subsequently rejected a new offer from Webuild that increased a proposed upfront pay rise and brought forward proposed increases in overtime and night shift loading by about 18 months.

Australian Workers Union NSW secretary Tony Callinan said Webuild had not yet made a further offer in response to the initial strike and delegates had decided to walk out again for 24 hours next Wednesday.

The company did not respond to a request for comment from The Australian before deadline.

Asked why workers were banning personal mobile phone use, Mr Callinan said the company was communicating with workers on site via their personal mobiles. While the company has said it would pay a $30 mobile phone allowance as part of its broader offer, he said the ban had been imposed while the parties remained in dispute.

Tensions flared on Thursday when about 100 workers flying out from the project arrived at Cooma airport to find their charter flight had been cancelled because of poor weather.

One of the union claims is that workers are able to fly out of Canberra Airport once they complete their two weeks on.

“We have got 100 workers … bussed to Cooma expecting to get on a flight and get home after their two-week swing now waiting on other buses to come and pick them up, drive them into Canberra and then hopefully get them on commercial flights to get them home,” Mr Callinan said.

“This justifies why we say the charter flights out of Cooma aren’t good enough, given these guys have been away from home for 14 days. They have seven days off and now they are going to effectively waste a day.

“It’s freezing cold in Cooma. We have got people standing in a paddock waiting on buses to take them to Canberra airport and then everyone scrambling to get home.

“They only get flown to capital city airports from Canberra.

“Some of these guys have paid for their own connecting flights and they will miss those flights and be out of pocket.”

Mr Callinan said industrial action would be taken weekly while the dispute was unresolved, with workers surveyed ahead of action to ensure further strikes had the support of the workforce.