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Tuesday 20 September 2011

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[COMPANY] - MERMAID MARINE AUSTRALIA LIMITED [SECTION] - General News - Marine [REGION] - Australia [RELATED STORY] - Mermaids union stoush: round three - Dampier strike comes to an end [OTHER] - Printable Version

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UPDATED: Mermaid Marine in for union rumble

Friday, 15 July 2011 James McGrath

CHEVRON supplier Mermaid Marine is set to enter a union stoush with 30 workers, covered by an enterprise agreement with the Maritime Union of Australia, from its Dampier supply base over cost of living issues.
The company confirmed the workers had started industrial action as it negotiated a new enterprise bargaining agreement with the MUA. Workers had earlier said they would walk off the base today, with plans to return next Tuesday. They also intend to place a ban on all overtime work. According to the MUA, the 30 workers at the base face rents of $900 per week and electricity bills of $1500 over a 60 day period, and the union has been pushing hard for more cost of living compensation from Mermaid Marine. MUA northwest organiser Doug Heath told EnergyNewsBulletin that while the union was pushing for partial compensation for the costs, it had been underwhelmed by Mermaid Marines counter offers.
Aerial photograph of Heavy Load out Wharf at the Dampier Supply Base.

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Theyve agreed to an increase of $70 per week over the life of a four year period, so in fact what theyre proposing will be a cut in real earnings for our members over a four year period, he said. This is in context of the biggest resources boom in the history of the country. What we have here is a company basically doing Chevrons work that is offering its workers a cut in real wages. He said an offer of a 4% per year raise for the workers had been taken off the table, with the company threatening to freeze wages over the same four year period. Heath said while the union was always open to negotiation, the MUA was prepared to consider further industrial action against Mermaid Marine. Whilst we are committed to negotiating, and continue to negotiate with the company we are going to keep on taking whatever protective action which is allowed for under the legislation until we get an enterprise agreement thats fair, he said. We can have stoppages of up to seven days. Weve got the 24-hour stoppages and 48-hour stoppages and were committed to those 48-hour stoppages. Heath also flagged the possibility of taking Mermaid Marine to Fair Work Australia if an agreement could not be reached, and expressed his frustration at the companys unwillingness to act in what he sees as a fair manner. We first started negotiations with Mermaid Marine in January of this year, weve had well over a dozen meetings with the company, and they certainly havent made any significant concessions to the union in these negotiations. Theyve taken a pretty hard line throughout the negotiations, he said. Mermaid Marine said in a statement to ENB that it had made a fair and reasonable pay offer to the MUA which reflects recent pay agreements in the sector and national and regional inflation. Considerable distance exists between the Mermaid Marine offer and the MUA log of claims with respect to pay increases and the operational restrictions the union is seeking to impose on Mermaid Marine. The company is disappointed the union has chosen to commence industrial action at the first opportunity available to it, rather than engaging in further

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EnergyNewsBulletin.net - UPDATED: Mermaid Marine in for union rumble

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discussions with Mermaid Marine to negotiate an agreed outcome. It added that its slipway and supply vessel operations were unaffected by the industrial action. Click here to read the rest of today's news stories.
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