Shipping companies servicing the multi-billion-dollar offshore oil and gas sector face major disruption as the Maritime Union of Australia embarks on a series of strikes seeking massive increases in allowances and wages. In an action condemned by employers as a “destructive grab for cash”, the first strike is planned by unionists employed by Farstad Shipping. They will stop work for 48 hours next Tuesday, affecting 17 vessels operating in Bass Strait and around the northwest Australian coastline.
In a campaign update, the union’s West Australian assistant branch secretary, Will Tracey, said the union was determined to succeed. In a November 6 email obtained by The Australian, Tracey wrote:
We work in an industry that delivers a huge amount of wealth for this country and the many companies who feed off it. And many of those company executives, managers and office blonks also do very well while they sit on their shiny arses in their airconditioned offices up and down St Georges Terrace (in Perth). Well through this EBA campaign we aim to spread some of that wealth around and make sure that those who do the real work in this industry and perform most of the heavy lifting get their just rewards.