IN recent months the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) has made completely untrue and repeated assertions that AMMA is “misrepresenting” the wages earned by maritime employees in the offshore oil and gas maritime industry.

The latest example of this is another untruthful assertion in today’s West Australian newspaper.
It is time for the MUA to cease running its inaccurate and tired campaign deliberately confusing rates of pay between their maritime members and higher paid offshore construction workers, in an attempt to vilify the real position of AMMA and the companies that employ their members.

For the record, AMMA has never stated maritime workers are responsible for cost overruns on any resource sector project. We have never claimed the maritime workers represented by the MUA are earning wages in excess of $350,000 per annum.

Any public statements on such extraordinarily high wages for offshore cooks, kitchen hands or barge welders have always been referencing offshore construction rates, paid to workers who are eligible and usually covered by other non-maritime trade unions.

Examples include AMMA’s media statement on 29 April 2014, and a prominent opinion editorial in The Australian newspaper on May 16, 2013. We have also referenced offshore construction salaries in this graph, using data derived from registered with the Fair Work Commission and publicly available.

In these statements, it is very clear that we are talking about offshore construction rates, not the rates paid to MUA eligible maritime employees.

Moreover, on several occasions AMMA has publicly clarified the remuneration being paid to maritime workers, whom are firstly employees of our offshore support members and secondly members of the MUA, are in the vicinity of $170-$240,000.

Public statements where we cite these maritime wages include on 23 May 2014; 28 February 2014; and in data provided for a Deloitte Access Economics report, published last year.

Attached here for the public record are full-year wage calculations for lower paid (general support vessels) and higher paid (construction support vessels) maritime employees in the offshore resource sector. The data shows the Maritime Schedule 1 occupation pays up to $183,000 per year, while the Maritime Schedule 8 occupation pays more than $247,000 per year.

We can only assume the MUA is continuing to misinform the public and its members about AMMA’s position to deflect from the union’s reckless industrial campaigns that damage the reputation of an industry that directly employs 2,500 maritime workers and creates 10,000 jobs in flow-on effects.

It is time the MUA’s officials be responsible in industry negotiations and work towards sustainable and fair wage increases for their members in the future.

Such an approach would be in the greater interests of securing more investment into future oil and gas projects and providing further opportunities for maritime workers and their families.

www.amma.org.au

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 THE resource industry strongly endorses technical changes to the Fair Work system which will allow a third party which is impacted by damaging strike action to apply to the Fair Work Commission (FWC) to suspend or terminate that action.

Steve Knott, chief executive of resource industry employer group AMMA, says the Commonwealth’s changes this week will provide much-needed industrial powers for the Western Australian Government as well as employers facing crippling strikes.

“The new regulation will allow a minister of a state which has not referred its industrial relations powers to the Commonwealth, to apply to the Fair Work Commission for the suspension or termination of protected industrial action,” Mr Knott says.

“Such a power exists presently for the ministers of all the states except for Western Australia, where industrial action often threatens both state operations and international trade activities of great national significance.

“The change fixes this anomaly which Labor did not address, despite calls from the WA Government to allow it the same legal capacities as its counterparts in other jurisdictions.”

Importantly, the new regulation will also allow innocent third parties directly impacted by damaging strike action to pursue relief through the FWC.

“This move recognises that strike action sometimes has far broader impacts than just the direct parties, including hurting employers and employees on both sides of the supply chain and disrupting economic activities more widely,” Mr Knott says.

“A current example is the Teekay Shipping dispute, where a small group of well-paid tug boat employees are threatening to halt the $100 million per day export operations of Port Hedland.

“At a state level, such a stoppage would cost Western Australian taxpayers around $7 million per day in revenue foregone in lost iron ore royalties. Over three days that is the entire state budget for homeless support or the cost of building a new primary school.

“Ultimately, the Fair Work Commission will decide how it deals with these matters on a case-by-case basis, but clearly any workplace system that allows a third party to be so heavily impacted by strike action should be amended so they can state their case to the tribunal.”

While a small change to the Fair Work Act 2009, the move also provides much-needed scope to apply to stop strike action where it is threatened, and before it can wreak economic havoc.

“It is well recognised that threatening to take industrial action can inflict as much commercial disruption as the action itself. This has been exacerbated under the Fair Work Act, where union tactics has often seen notice given to strike and then withdrawn at the last minute,” Mr Knott says.

“There is also a greater cost to consider to our international reputation as a reliable supplier of resource commodities. This reputation has been hard won but can be easily lost.

“Australia does not have a monopoly on such exports and provisions such as those introduced by the government this week will assist in minimising the impact of unnecessary strike action on our national reputation and global competitiveness.”

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PEAK retail industry body the Australian Retailers Association (ARA) said the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) decision to keep the cash rate on hold at 2.5 percent for the ninth consecutive month, did little to ease retail struggles after last month’s sluggish retail trade figures and low consumer confidence.

ARA Executive Director Russell Zimmerman said today’s decision while expected, left retailers disappointed yet again.

“Retailers have been doing it tough after concerns raised following the Federal Budget announcement and after experiencing unexpected warm weather affecting retail trade, retailers need to see some form of light at the end of the tunnel.

“What we need is steady Government support to give retailers a positive boost into the new financial year and as such, the ARA urges the RBA to cut interest rates in August given the struggles retailers have been enduring.

“From the concerns raised following the Federal Budget to low consumer confidence due to unexpected warm weather confirmed through last month’s retail trade figures, retailers are feeling the pressure to compete with the sudden winter weather.

“Retailers are running out of time with winter stock and sudden winter weather will leave retailers anxious. It will be interesting to see how retail trade figures released this week will confirm the hiccups in consumer confidence.

“Interest rates must be lowered to give retailers much deserved support and consumer confidence, especially the SME sector,” Mr Zimmerman said.

Since 1903, the Australian Retailers Association (ARA) has been the peak industry body representing Australia’s $265 billion retail sector, which employs over 1.2 million people. The ARA ensures retail success by informing, protecting, advocating, educating and saving money for its 5,000 independent and national retail members throughout Australia.

Visit www.retail.org.au or call 1300 368 041.

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VECCI Chief Executive Mark Stone said the State Government’s announced 4,000 additional weekly train, tram and bus services is welcomed by VECCI, as a strong economy is depend on a reliable, user friendly and efficient public transport system. 

"The boost to services will move more commuters and improve service frequency across these important, interconnected transport modes," Mr Stone said.

"Improved reliability will benefit commuters, including employees transiting to and from work, shoppers and tourists.

"Employers whose staff are dependant on public transport can expect less risk of employees being delayed due to service cancellations or bottlenecks.

"The increase in services will be of particular benefit to existing high population suburbs that are reliant on public transport, including Dandenong, Pakenham, Cranbourne and Frankston.  

- It is also positive to see improvements to regional services, with V/Line’s Ballarat, Bendigo and Traralgon lines to operate on new timetables that will help increase service frequency and reliability. 

"Improvements to our public transport system make Victoria an even greater place to live, invest and work and we welcome this announcement."

The Victorian Employers' Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VECCI) is the peak body for employers in Victoria, informing and servicing more than 15,000 members, customers and clients around the state.

www.vecci.org.au

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