Port Hedland Again Facing Strike

The Australian Institute of Marine & Power Engineers (AIMPE) has given notice that the tug boat engineers at Port Hedland, Australia’s biggest iron ore port, intend to take protected industrial action in the form of a four-hour stoppage from 6am to 10am on Wednesday, November 12, 2014, Teekay Shipping reports in a release.

The notice exempts from the stoppage towage operations which are delayed during unforeseen delays and are still underway, and any safety/emergency related issues.

Teekay Shipping (Australia) Pty Ltd has been in negotiations with Australian Maritime Officers Union (AMOU), the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) and the Australian Institute of Marine & Power Engineers (AIMPE) about the terms of replacement enterprise agreements for its employees who operate the tugs which service the port of Port Hedland for approximately 17 months.

The company says it ”is surprised and disappointed that the AIMPE has decided to take this action at a time when the MUA and AMOU have endorsed new enterprise agreements in substantially the same terms for their members.”

Teekay advises that the AMOU and MUA have recommended their members vote to approve the respective enterprise agreements. The voting period for those agreements commenced on November 4 and will close on November 9, 2014.

Teekay says that the AIMPE has not agreed to the terms of the enterprise agreement which the company has proposed for the engineers, which are in much the same terms as those agreed by the AMOU.

The AIMPE had already threatened Teekay with industrial action back in August, when 52 members of the institute announced walking off the job for four hours on Monday and Wednesday morning, August 10 and 12 respectively.

The move to strike came after negotiations with Teekay had failed to meet workers’ requests for maintaining shifts to 12 hours.

Namely, as the workload at the port increases, workers have been faced with ever more longer shifts, reaching up to 18 horus.

The AIMPE stated that the four-hour actions will fall on low tides, in order not to disrupt the Port’s operation to a significant extent.

Press Release