Union gets ready for industrial action as it seeks pay increases
Members of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) are preparing for industrial action as they seek pay increases and reduced work hours. Under the union’s demands, the minimum salary would be nearly $119,000 per year.
Union members on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly for industrial action options, including 24-hour strikes, at the Webb Dock terminal controlled by Victoria International Container Terminal (VICT), according to a report by The Australian Financial Review.
The union is seeking wage increases of up to 20%. It is also pushing for minimum manning levels and a rostered week off every three months – changes that VICT said would force it to hike its workforce by 25% just to maintain operations.
The union is trying to topple the only non-MUA stevedore agreement in the industry and standardize conditions at Webb Dock, a terminal that largely sidesteps the union’s membership through automated tower controls, according to AFR. The union fight comes as VICT prepares to expand its operations to the point that it will control 50% of container volumes coming through the port.
VICT chief executive Tim Vancampen blasted the union’s demands as unreasonable.
“The maritime unions are attempting to steer the waterfront firmly back to the past, effectively ignoring the efficiencies of automation and hobbling VICT with outdated rosters, old-fashioned manual roles and inapplicable wages and benefits,” Vancampen said.
The MUA, for its part, said that VICT’s claims that it would need to boost staff by 25% are “completely false” and that the union is simply trying to bring the company’s conditions into line with the rest of the industry.
The union has the backing of the more moderate Australian Maritime Officers Union, which negotiated the original non-MUA agreement but is now supporting the MUA’s claims.
VICT has offered to hike the pay of the MUA’s core membership, the 65 casual wharfies required to tie up and fasten containers at the dock, AFR reported. VICT proposed a 20% wage hike in the first year, 2.5% for the second and 3% for the third and fourth years. It has also offered to raise pay for the permanent workforce by 11% over four years.
But the MUA is pushing for 3.5% annual pay increases in addition to new classifications that would raise the minimum salary by $20,000 to $118,955 per year. Under the MUA’s demands, the most senior classification would see a $10,000 salary hike to at least $162,888.
Casuals would earn at least $67 per hour. The union also wants members to have a week off every 10 weeks so that VICT’s four-day-on, four-day-off schedule at 12-hour shifts averages out to 37 hours per week.
“We are seeking a reduction in the standard working week to 37 hours from 42 hours,” said MUA West Australian secretary Will Tracey. “We have provided significant offsets to the costs, which the company is considering.”
The union said it wanted certainty about hours of work and safe staffing levels to address what it called “severe shortages” of staff, and to reduce “excessive hours being worked with either no or little breaks in a 12-hour shift.”
