Unions threaten Chevron with rolling strikes

Unions are threatening two weeks of rolling 24 hour strikes at Chevron’s Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG facilities, in a significant escalation of their dispute.

A Chevron Wheatstone LNG cargo ship.

Unions are threatening two weeks of rolling 24-hour strikes at Chevron’s Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG facilities, in a significant escalation of their dispute.

The Offshore Alliance unions on Tuesday announced the ­planned action, to start on September 14.

Late on Tuesday, the unions said workers at Chevron’s Wheatstone Downstream facility had made an offer to the company to perform work during the notified industrial action.

The unions alliance said Chevron’s domestic gas plant at Wheatstone had tripped and required work to be performed to restart and return to full production ­capacity.

The unions had previously announced industrial action from Thursday.

The alliance of the Australian Workers Union and the ­Maritime Union of Australia rejected claims made by Chevron that the negoti­ations had ­become ­intractable.

The escalation came as union representatives and Chevron negotiators appeared before the Fair Work Commission in an ­attempt to conciliate an outcome to the dispute, which us involving 500 workers at three different facilities.

Alliance spokesman Brad Gandy said Chevron was the only major outfit on the WA gasfields without an industry standard enterprise agreement covering its workforce.