Hutchison Ports: Downsizing expert sacked workers

The manager who sacked 97 dock workers by text was a downsizing expert hired by a stevedoring giant.

Paul Wallington was one of nearly 100 workers who were sacked by Hutchison by text message and email late on Thursday night last week. Paul had worked at the company 1.5 years and at Patrick for 18 years before that, during the last waterfront dispute.

The Hutchison Ports manager who sacked 97 dock workers by text message and email last week was an expert in downsizing hired by the stevedoring giant within months of its Australian launch.

As a union-organised sit-in enters­ its seventh day today, the maritime union is seeking a Federal Court injunction alongside damages and penalties, claiming Hutchison breached its enterprise agreement with workers when it sacked them last Thursday night.

Furore over the sackings erupted when it emerged that workers received a text message at 11pm ­directing them to an email, which attached a letter outlining their ­redundancy terms.

The letter was signed by Hutchison’s general manager human resources and industrial relations, Harriet Mihalopoulos.

Owing to “a reduction in the size of our offering to customers in Australia”, Ms Mihalopoulos wrote, “the intended last day of your employment will be Friday 14 August 2015.

“I realise that this is a lot of information to take in. Accordingly you are will not be required to attend work effective immediately.”

Picket lines at docks in Sydney and Brisbane, overseen by police, are blocking trucks from entering terminals to drop off or collect any cargo, despite orders issued by the Fair Work Commission on Friday to cease industrial action, orders that were extended on Monday.

It is understood the company has subcontracted the bulk of the work to rival Patrick Stevedoring.

Ms Mihalopoulos, who worked as a senior HR manager at Sony, News Corporation, Bupa and Fairfax, according to her LinkedIn page, writes on that page that she “gained a reputation for quickly gaining employee buy-in for major structural and policy changes, and for fostering harmonious workplace relationships”.

At News Corporation between 2007 and 2009, she says, she “played an instrumental role in securin­g a critical reduction in total labour costs via negotiations with unions and employees”.

“Most notable achievements were the implementation of an innov­ative industrial relations model with no union conflict and zero industrial action that led to a multi-million-dollar reduction in labour costs over 12 months.”

The MUA will argue today that Hutchison failed to properly consul­t, although the company has described as a “consultation” a memo it sent to workers late last month flagging the upcoming redundancie­s.

Hutchison Ports Holdings began operating in Sydney last November and Brisbane in March last year. According to Ms Mihalopolous’s LinkedIn page, she started with the company in May last year. At the same time, the company hired experienced personnel from its rivals, including Paul Wallington, an 18-year veteran­ of Patrick Stevedores.

Standing at the picket at Sydney’s Port Botany yesterday, where the MUA had handed over organising duties for the picket to the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union to comply with the Fair Work order, Mr Wallington said “I should have seen it coming”, when describing how management personnel, including the terminal manager, were quietly sacked six months ago.

Fair Work deputy president Anna Booth tried to conciliate the dispute but failed. She is due to hear the matter again tomorrow.