Renewed strike threat rises at Chevron LNG
The threat of renewed strike action at Chevron’s two huge LNG plants in Western Australia has firmed after night shift workers added their support for stoppages, accusing the US energy giant of reneging on a deal struck last month.
The Offshore Alliance – comprising the Australian Workers’ Union and the Maritime Union of Australia – said it would file a new notice of protected industrial action on Monday at the Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG plants.
Chevron’s Gorgon liquefied natural gas plant on Barrow Island is Australia’s second-biggest.
It said it has written to the Fair Work Commission to apply to have the matter re-listed, to ensure workplace issues already agreed with Chevron won’t be lost.
Industrial action had been underway for two weeks when the two sides came to a compromise in-principle agreement on September 22 that was brokered by the FWC on improved pay and conditions.
The deal included allowances for remote working of $103,000 a year for workers on the offshore Wheatstone gas platform and of $85,000 a year for those at the onshore LNG plants at Wheatstone and Gorgon. Chevron also agreed to a confidential ‘job security’ deed that essentially protects the jobs at the facilities.
In a social media post on Saturday, the Offshore Alliance said it had accepted the FWC recommendations “with significant reluctance” when they were handed down two weeks ago and now would not let Chevron back out of the agreed terms.
“There is zero chance of the Offshore Alliance copping Chevron taking a five-fingered discount from the FWC recommendations which Chevron agreed to ‘without qualification’,” it posted.
“Protected Industrial Action is clearly the only thing this mob of industrial troglodytes understand.”
Union sources
Read more on afr.com
