Patrick EBA Up

By Maritime Union of Australia

A majority of members & a majority of workplaces endorse the new Patrick enterprise agreement, with concerns raised at stopwork meetings now addressed by management

Graham Snedden, Fremantle delegate (PHOTO: Zoe Reynolds)

• Permanent & guaranteed jobs to make up to 90% of the workforce;
• redundancies down from 150 to under 50;
• redundancy payouts up from 26 weeks of base rate to 70 weeks of salary;
• no compulsory redundancy;
• more family friendly, regular rosters;
• 12% pay rise over 3 years;
• minimum shifts up from 2 to 4 hours for supps on lashing;
• an extra worker per gang to relieve straddle operators,
• interport hire;
• integration of terminal with bulk & general workforce;
• no job loss for supps & equitable allocation of work;
• a 15-day-a-year limit on flexi-days,
• redundancy package & entitlements for APS maintenance employees;
• job offers for CSX employees;
• paternity & carers leave for permanent casuals;
• paid training leave; recognition of the delegate & site committee;
• 6 monthly consultation & reviews; better compo;
• free entry for union officials during lunch breaks
• & company recognition that job security,
• equal employment opportunity,
• safety, career paths,
• communication & employee involvement on the job go hand in hand with productivity & company profits.

These are the major achievements of the new Patrick enterprise agreement endorsed by the majority of members in August

"I think we've achieved a decent outcome," said Graham Snedden, Fremantle wharfie and national negotiating team member. "Decent salaries, decent working conditions, decent rostering."

But it was not easy negotiating things for the better. And even harder getting the message across to members. A downturn in trade and loss of business in bulk and general operations made it tough.

Management came to the table pushing for wage cuts, compulsory redundancies, greater casualisation of the workforce, a four hour minimum for all labour, individual contracts, management prerogative, the outsourcing of bus driving and first aid on top of a totally irregular roster.

Meetings dragged on over six weeks from morning till night. Fifty union officials and job delegates led by MUA National Secretary Paddy Crumlin, his deputy Mick O'Leary, Assistant National Secretary Jim Tannock and branch officials sat across the table from Patrick CEO Chris Corrigan and a half dozen of his management.

Talks broke down. Management walked out. Negotiations resumed. Agreement was reached, reviewed and redrafted. A mail out to all members, mass meetings, debate and discussion followed. Then came the stopwork meetings with a majority vote of members and branches required for implementation of the EBA.

But there was a proviso. At issue were two major concerns - flexi-days or 'payback' and loss of casual jobs. With half the workforce made up of supps and not all being promoted to guaranteed jobs, they turned up en masse to the Fremantle meeting, outnumbering the permanents and narrowly voting the EBA down. A majority of Melbourne members also voted no.

"The workforce still don't trust Patrick," said Paddy Crumlin. "It's understandable and I sympathise with that. They have not forgotten what happened three years ago and for good reason. I haven't forgotten and I told management that on day one. But we've gone back and addressed all the key issues raised at the stop work meetings."

The EBA now includes a limit on owed shifts to 15/year, with no more than 12 in any 16 week roster cycle. And management are guarantying no reduction in the number of supps on their books with the promise equitable allocation of work.

APS maintenance workers will get accrued leave entitlements owed and those being made redundant will get the same entitlements and a six week redundancy payment as well as an ex gratia top up payment to $35,000.

Management have also agreed to offer CSX (Sea-Land) employees in Brisbane jobs where Patrick employees volunteer to take redundancies. Successful applicants will be entitled to portability of entitlements. The extra redundancy payments are to be met by CSX.

Report backs to Sydney members resulted in further endorsement of the agreement.

"Overall the union has wound back casualisation and provided for better conditions on the job," said Crumlin. "Casualisation was taking us back to the bull system. They were picking heads. It was undermining everything we fought for in the last 50 years."

Another of the key achievements in the eba is the abolition of the irregular rosters. Gone are the soul destroying rosters that were not only dangerous to health and safety, but fracturing families and communities.

Port Botany delegate Simon Euers

"We were doing long stints of midnighters and becoming zombied," said Simon Euers, father of two, Port Botany wharfie and national negotiating team member.

"You keep going without feeling really awake or really there," he said. "That's dangerous when you're operating heavy machinery. Your biological clock gets out of whack and you tend to get more crabby. And you can't commit to anything outside work because you're not sure when you're going to be working.

"It impacts on simple things like picking your kids up from school or taking them to soccer training," he said. "Your partner can't have a career because she (or he) has to take full responsibility for family. The waterfront is known for its high divorce rate."

But management wanted the roster totally irregular. They used historical data of shipping movements on an Excel software program arguing for a more flexible workforce. But Euers and others on the roster committee mastered the software and used it to the advantage of members.

"I was sent in to get a regular roster so people had a better quality of life," said Euers. "Management said they'd prove our roster couldn't work because of idle time. We proved them wrong."

The new roster gives workers the ability to look days, weeks, even months ahead and know what days they have off. Weeks of irregular shifts are fewer and further between. Everyone has more weekends off. Workers have the ability to structure the roster around their lives.

But management do have the right to cancel shifts at short notice if a ship does not arrive on schedule and there is no work. Under a new flexi time system workers are still paid for the shift they don't work, but they do have to make up the hours with extended shifts or by working a day off.

The system can also work in reverse, with members banking days, by working a day off and earning credits. And so long as you don't blow out more than 30 hours, you do get to choose when you make up the time.

It became known as payback and spooked the workforce, proving unpopular and playing a big part in some members voting against the agreement. On the ground the workforce had not forgotten the recent past. They argued that management would rort the system. Everyone was 'dirty on owing'.

"We've got experience with this mob," said Jake Haub, during a heated meeting of Sydney delegates. "You can't trust them. "

"If they start prostituting the system, it comes under review," said Ron O'Neill. "If we can't reach agreement under the review it can go through the avoidance of disputes procedure and end up in the Commission as one of 20 allowable matters."

"Payback is a bitter pill for some people to swallow," said Graham Snedden. "But if you do have to work a day it's because you've already had a day off on full pay. And there's a limit on what you do pay back. It won't be an issue in the future.

"I'm passionate about the new roster," he said. "It's the best we've ever had. As a family man it means I can plan my life, I know my weekends off. If someone says there's a barbecue on such and such a day I can look at my roster and say 'yeh, I can be there.' And a regular roster means more time off for permanents, so more jobs."

Brisbane crane operator and national negotiator Peter Bruekers also nominates regular rosters as a key feature of the agreement: "Regulated time off is the biggest plus. It's created employment in Brisbane. In Brisbane we've got rid of 10 irregular shifts in a 16 week cycle."

Port Botany delegate Mich-Elle Myers

Regulation and restriction on casual working hours is also a key component of the new agreement. Representing supps and women, 99 per cent of whom are casual on the waterfront, was Port Botany wharfie Mich-Elle Myers:

"Most of us will become PGEs and that gives us sick leave and guaranteed work and a guaranteed income each week," she said. "Before you could not bank on anything. As a supp you don't know what you are going to get or if you are going to get anything at all. You don't even know if you are going to have enough to pay your rent. Now we get regular work and regular shifts."

PGEs is a new job classification which gives people a base guaranteed annual salary of $20,000 or three days a week, sick leave and other entitlements. And like permanent workers, days paid, but not worked, do have to be made up during the year.

"In Sydney we're splitting the PGEs into three categories, one for nights, one for days, one for irregular," said Myers. "We'll rotate each week so that at least you know what time you're working. Currently you wait until 1.30 each day to know if you've got a job and what hours you're working or if you're working at all.

"Once you couldn't plan anything until 1.30 the day before," she said. "And the minimum shift was two hours, so you had people driving all the way up from Wollongong for two hours work then having to drive all the way back."

In another dramatic breakthrough, Myers got agreement that PGEs all get paternity and carers leave built into the agreement as per the Commission ruling in support of the ACTU application in June.

Up till now women were frightened to stop work when pregnant because they had no guarantee their jobs would be waiting for them when they needed them back. One pregnant wharfie worked on the Melbourne wharves until her water broke, she was so insecure about losing her job. Another featured in MWJ only last year has been told she can't come back and is facing bankruptcy

Just as contentious as the high irregular component in the old roster and casuals, was the one person per straddle. Long hours, twisted in cabins, necks craning over shoulders and repetitive strain led to an outbreak of neck and back injuries at terminals nationwide. In Sydney the branch has taken criminal action against the company on behalf of a dozen straddle operators suffering crippling injuries.

The union has got the company to provide a relief person per gang - "recognition by Patrick that we were working too long in the straddles," according to one of the negotiating team.

The company has committed in writing to putting a supp or PGE on four hours. Start time will be two hours after beginning of shift, ensuring straddle operators all get rotated or relieved both sides of their meal break - and the shift can be extended.

Perhaps the most important win of all in the agreement are union rights, recognition of the delegate, on the job joint reviews of labour requirements and operation of the agreement.

"We've got a lot more control as delegates in this," said Fremantle wharfie Graham Snedden. "It's not just up to management to move the goal post at their whim. We've got constant reviews, consultation and a bigger role for the union. We now have the opportunity to sit down and negotiate. We've got the right for the delegate to do his or her job - sort out a problem at the grass roots before something trivial blows out. And if it's not solved on the job, we've got procedures in place to settle a dispute.

"We'll be getting a bit of control back in the workplace. Under the current structure everything has to be done through the branch, national office and at executive level. We had Clayton being phoned up over changing toilet paper. Now we can sort things out on the job."

A week down the track delegates were beginning the long job of establishing a better relationship with management:

"They seem more willing to co-operate," said supp and women's delegate Mich-Elle Myers. "The terminal managers are really trying to break down the 'them and us' barrier. They're working hard at it. We'll wait and see how it goes."

"I think the main achievement is people who want to leave can now go out on a decent redundancy package," said Bruekers. "The negative is it's not for the life of the agreement. But they were only getting 26 weeks maximum and now they're getting 70 weeks. That brings the redundancy package up to around $100,000 for older members. Before they would have had to take around $30,000. That's a huge difference.

This comes after a long disagreement between the union and the company over redundancy payouts in Newcastle of 26 weeks at the base rate. The new agreement covers these Newcastle workers as well.

"We would not have had anyone volunteering to go under the old package," he said. "There was no money in it. The whole idea of retiring is to have your bills out of the way. They couldn't have done it. But by the same token it would have been better if we kept it for the life of the agreement.

The union is still pushing our R&R claim, seeking early retirement on full benefits on salary at 55. And the company has agreed to negotiate an outcome within three months.

"I think the negotiating team did the best we could in the circumstances," said Bruekers. "If we'd rejected the deal the consequences could have been the company just dismissing the labour they don't want.

"The negotiations were long and tough," he said. "But it was great. We had lot of blokes, but there was never a blue. We bounced off each other a bit and never went to the table divided. There are blokes that I'd never met before but now we're the best of mates.

"It was good for the union to get the people together and for blokes to have direct input into an eba. We've never had that before.

"Paddy learnt quick and fast about stevedoring and he's got the gift of the gab," said Bruekers. "He really got the issues across the table. And if you made a blue he let you know. We were quite impressed."