WA BRANCH SECRETARY REPORT
no outcome is achieved without the membership pulling together and taking the employer on with the only campaign that we know works – direct, militant, collective action in support of our members collective interests. Collective strength, collective struggle. The recent industry wide outcomes achieved in the highly successful offshore oil and gas EA campaign sees MUA members across the sector receive wage and condition outcomes that will cushion the blow from those factors beyond our control. And wages through Union agreements must play catchup to the inflation and cost increases that are being driven by employer profit gouging. More key research has come in that confirms that increasing wages are not responsible for the inflation problems we have and that the Reserve Banks blunt instrument of interest rate rises won’t fix the problem, instead just hurt working families. With all the major vessel operators and crewing agents closed out and just the smaller industry players left to finalise, we should have the entire offshore oil and gas industry on an MUA agreement before New Year. The MUA offshore oil and gas campaign has been an outstanding success built on the discipline, militancy, and collective organisation of our membership, who were headed up by the outstanding leadership of our delegates and committees with each of the various employers. In an industry that had just came out of a downturn and the debilitating effects of Covid lockdowns, the speed with which the delegates, activists and members repositioned the campaign was inspirational.
The collective position of the membership that decided our campaign strategy and tactics came through industry wide conferences, both in the Union rooms and by Zoom, as well as company specific meetings of members and delegates followed up with a heap of direct vessel visits in Dampier, Broome, Fremantle, Darwin, Melbourne, and Barry’s Beach. We cannot underestimate the destabilization and disruption caused by consolidation across the industry and the attempts by the employers to get around our industrial action through the use of split crews via labour hire companies and Go Offshore wherever possible. The attempts by AIMPE and AMOU to undermine the campaign, by siding with the employer representative AREEA and the key employers on their claims, made things difficult but the strategy we ran out overcame this. A strategy that was backed in by a collective determination to win and win together.
Leave provisions, increased casual loading, and severance benefits for casual employees, among many others. A key outcome was the industrial resolution to our Workers Comp coverage as the industry wide Seacare coverage falls over. It is a massive outcome for MUA members offshore and again all our membership, and especially the delegates of each particular company, need to be congratulated for their leadership, collective strength and discipline which delivered this outcome. This year saw the push for industry-wide terms and conditions of employment through the inshore diving and vessel sectors where many of our members work. These areas are extremely hard to organise and the ability to push for an industry wide standard long and complex. This campaign is predominantly run out of the Pilbara by our North-West Organizer, Joel O’Brien. The collective will of the membership to fix these sectors of the maritime industry is inspirational and we made some major strides this year to get in behind the collectively determined position of our membership to fight for agreements across the industry. We now have 6 agreements across the inshore diving companies with the major employers coming on board. We have landed 5 agreements across the inshore vessel employers and have covered off the key parts of the industry. Both campaigns across both sectors took varying degrees of industrial action but you don’t get anywhere without the membership coming together and being willing to take militant industrial action.
United We fight, United We Win!
Will Tracey| WA Branch Secretary Will.Tracey@mua.org.au 0423 895 575
Comrades
The campaign cut across around 20 employers all with different agreements, different finishing dates and different bargaining positions. AIMPE and the AMOU ran out different campaigns across different employers and each other, and the only thing they had in common was to oppose the MUA campaign. AREEA and the employers backed them in. The only consistent position across the entire industry was the collective determination of MUA members to come together and win across the entire industry and prosecute a single schedule agreement at 117%. The membership almost unanimously endorsed this landmark achievement agreement that delivered through the unified 117% schedule up to a substantial 45% increase in wages and improved conditions over the span of four years, with nearly half of these enhancements taking effect in the first year. In addition to these significant gains, we have secured a host of other key outcomes. These include the introduction of 4-week swings, improved trainee ratios, provisions for paid isolation/quarantine leave, strengthened job security measures, enhanced redundancy entitlements, expanded Long Service
This edition of Maritime Workers First highlights the many Enterprise Agreements (EA’s) your Union is involved in, as Unions use the only real tool they have to get workers through the cost of living crisis hurting so many Australian families. Especially when November saw the 13th rate rise in 15 months which did little more than gouge further profits for banks from the pockets of working people so they can inflate their already obscene bottom line. It’s clear that the big end of town and those that already have money aren’t suffering as increasing interest rates and prices for everyday necessities such as food, fuel, power, rent and mortgages cripple working Australia. The agreements we do at the MUA are the result of collective campaigns where the strategy and tactics are decided through the collective decision-making processes of our membership with the Delegates and Officials. Industry and sector conferences with rank-and-file involvement determine the position we take into each unique bargaining campaign. But
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