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The Scourge of Dodgy Baseline Agreements
The FWC have made a number of damming findings against various individuals and the Offshore Alliance intends to put out at least one Post per week for the next 12 months regarding the activities relating to Altrad-AGC’s dodgy Chevron facilities Baseline Agreement which were designed to des- troy the bargaining rights of workers. AGC-Altrad are a disgrace and the fact that Chevron have allowed these activities to take place on their West Coast oil and gas facilities is a damming reflection on their procurement policies and over- sight of their contractor’s industrial arrangements.
Altrad-AGC’s dodgy Workforce Logistics EA be- ing used by Altrad at Gorgon and Wheatstone, has been put through the shredder by the Fair Work Commission after it was found to be a sham. Altrad tried, but failed, to prevent the Offshore Alliance’s Appeal to the Fair Work Commission of the earlier Commission decision to approve Al- trad-AGC’s Baseline Agreement. The sham EA was being used by Altrad to exploit oil and gas workers employed on the Chevron fa- cilities. The earlier decision of the Commission to approve the former Altrad-AGC entity was made without the Commission being made aware of the eviden- ce of the sham arrangements, which was evidence presented by the OA in our Full Bench Appeal. Given the garbled and misleading evidence of some of the bosses and associated personnel be- ing cross-examined by the Union lawyers and Fair Work Commission, it is no wonder why Altrad wanted to stop the Union’s Appeal against their morally bankrupt Baseline Agreement being heard by the Full Bench. To the credit of the FWC Full Bench, they didn’t cop Altrad’s best efforts to try and prevent the Commis- sion’s scrutiny of their sham EA.
The Offshore Alliance will not back away or back down from holding corporate gangsters to account.
We have already been threatened with possible legal action by one of the Altrad lawyers regarding comments we made about their sham EA, but we won’t be intimidated or stood over by dodgy cor- porations, labour hire contractors or shiny arsed lawyers acting on their behalf. A big shout out to the OA’s Barrister Varun Ghosh and National Legal Officer Alex Giordano. Top work by our legal team in smashing up the Altrad-AGC EA sham arrangements. Plenty more will follow.
The Commission found the following:
1. That the approval of the (Altrad-AGC) Baseline Agreement involving six (so-called) employees was entirely lacking in authenticity and moral authority.
2. hat the Altrad-AGC Baseline Agreement was not genuinely agreed;
3. That the Altrad-AGC former subsidiary compa- nany was established “merely for the purpose of establishing a corporate shell with an enter- prise agreement for the purpose of sale”. 4. To that end, and with the assistance of his bu- siness partners, Mr Ruffino and Mr Walters, and his ‘trusted friend and adviser’ Mark Hudston, Mr Read (former boss of the ex-Altrad entity) recruited a purely nominal workforce for the purpose of making the Agreement.
5. The making of the Enterprise Agreement was “ingenuine and fake”;
6. The FWC found that “much in this matter turns on the credibility of the witnesses. It is neces- sary to state that we do not consider that Mr Read, Mr Ruffino or Mr Paul Hudston were cre- dible witnesses, and we do not accept much of the evidence they gave”.
7. A number of people involved in this Enterprise Agreement were engaged in a “sham exercise”.
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