‘Game on, Chevron’: unions strike at LNG plants
Unions have kicked off three weeks of strike action at Chevron’s LNG projects after last-minute talks broke down without a deal.
About 500 members of the Offshore Alliance, a team up of the Australian Workers Union and Maritime Union of Australia, stopped work for three hours at the Wheatstone and Gorgon onshore plants from 1pm (Perth time) Friday, while workers on the Wheatstone platform walked off for an hour.
Workers on Chevron’s Wheatstone LNG platform have started three weeks of escalating strikes.
The stoppages will quickly average about 10-hours a day until next Thursday when they escalate to two weeks of full-blown 24-hour strikes. The projects supply about 7 per cent of global LNG supply and 47 per cent of Western Australia’s domestic gas.
Union sources said five days of mediation before the Fair Work Commission this week had ended on Friday morning without an agreement.
The Alliance told members that Chevron had “plenty of opportunity” to sort out its agreements and “will finally be facing their day of reckoning”.
“When protected industrial action commences, plants on each respective facility will be shut down if there are not competent personnel to undertake handovers during work stoppages,” it said on social media.
“It’s game on, Chevron.”
The Alliance said Chevron had been demanding “special concessions” in bargaining — “a demand which we have put through the shredding machine”.
“Their bargaining performance has been the most inept effort of any employer the union has dealt with in the past five years and our members have had enough.”
Members will also combine the stoppages with work bans, including prohibitions on maintenance work. Saturdays’ stoppages will total 11 hours.
A Chevron Australia spokesman
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