Wage Justice

MUA seafarers employed in the multi-billion dollar offshore oil and gas industry took industrial action over summer demanding equal pay for equal work on support vessels in the offshore construction jobs and a 30 per cent pay rise over four years, winning a heads of agreement with major employers in February. 

“This is a crucial agreement for the industry,” MUA national
secretary Paddy Crumlin told DCN/Lloyds List.
“The bones [of the agreement] are the measured and reasonable
wage increases and payment of a Project Allowance Bonus for
workers on construction projects, which moves with wage increases
from January 1. The allowance will be paid at the completion of
construction projects.
“We fought hard for this payment which now brings maritime
workers closer to parity with other workers, like riggers, doing
exactly the same task on those projects.”
The EBAs will vary from employer to employer but the principle
will remain.
But the victory did not come easily.
Around 400 workers employed by Farstad and Total Marine
Services vessels servicing the Northwest Shelf, Timor Sea and Bass
Strait voted to take protected action in November, the first
industrial action since the oil and gas fields were established.
It came after 12 months of unsuccessful negotiations and 10 months
after their enterprise agreements had already expired.
At the centre of the dispute was wage parity.
‘I’m currently working offshore 12 hours a day, 28 days straight on
$296 a day and I hold 26 certificates directly required for my job,”
one MUA member wrote to The Australian daily. “The guy next to
me is a rigger. He has two tickets – dogman’s and advanced
rigging. He gets $1,400 a day. When he isn’t on board I do the
rigging.
The union initially argued for a $500 allowance to apply to MUA
seafarers on construction projects in the offshore industry, closing
with modest $175-$215 claims. The claim was to achieve wage
parity with workers on existing agreements such as the Brunel
Technical Services at the Pluto offshore construction project
agreement where MUA seafarers were working alongside other
workers, including cooks and riggers on more than $1,000 per day,
(see overleaf)
But employers backed by hard line Australian Mines and Metal
Association and the Australian Chamber of Commerce used the
MUA claim to test the new FairWork laws, calling for government
intervention and arguing the industrial action should be outlawed
and the wage claims were ‘outrageous’
The irony of employer groups representing executives on $6 and
$8m salaries arguing against offshore workers earning over
$100,000 was not lost on MUA members. (see opposite). Or that the
very same employer groups had introduced the high wage packages
to lure people onto individual contracts and into the industry
during a skills shortage.
The Australian Shipowners’ Association also bought into the media
debate arguing that the pay hikes would flow onto the blue water
shipping industry and price Australian ships out of the market.
This was despite the union simultaneously negotatiating enterprise
agreements for coastal ships with relatively modest pay claims.
Also buying into the dispute was the Murdoch media with ACCI,
AMMA given widespread coverage on news and opinion pages and
the union battling to even get a letter published as right of reply.
(Beating up the MUA, see opposite, Truths and Lies, see overleaf)
“We’ve moderated our claims right though these negotiations,”
said Mick Doleman, Deputy National Secretary of the MUA. “We
would have liked to avoid these actions but our members felt they
did not have an alternative to seek a fair outcome.”
KIWI SOLIDARITY
The MUA seafarers had the solidarity of New Zealand seafarers
with MUNZ general secretary Joe Fleetwood arguing in the media
that “striking workers wages were spent in working class
communities, while employers made vast fortunes in profits.
“This is about workers getting their share of the wealth they
create,” he said. “After all, they do the work out on the remote
rigs and vessels in risky heavy industrial environment. Australian
worker have the full support of maritime workers around the
world.