ON Thursday evening, the Maritime Union of Australia gave notice of more protected industrial action at Patrick’s Brisbane AutoStrad terminal.
The industrial action includes one-hour work stoppages at 0330, 1130 and 1930 on 12 and 13 August, and a 24-hour work stoppage starting at 2300 on 15 August.
There are also various bans on working when an employee is rostered “off/avail”, working overtime and working shift extensions between 5 August through the 15 August.
Lingering delays at Sydney
These new PIA announcements came after Maersk and ANL announced their Cobra Service/AAX service would temporarily omit Sydney fortnightly commencing from CMA CGM Moliere.
The companies said the omissions were due to delays resulting from the “ongoing protected industrial action at Patrick’s terminal in Sydney and subsequent port congestions”.
In an announcement to customers about the new PIA notices, Patrick said the average delays at the Sydney terminal across all vessels were 5.3 days.
However, MUA national secretary Jamie Newlyn said claims that shipping delays or port omissions are being caused by industrial action at Patrick’s Port Botany terminal are “absolutely false”.
“There has been no industrial action of any kind at Patrick’s Port Botany terminal since 15 July and no action notified for the coming weeks. What has been causing delays is the fact that one of the four Patrick berths has been closed for more than two months while maintenance work is undertaken, which has greatly reduced shipping windows,” he said.
“Further delays have been caused by catastrophic failures with Patrick’s automated rail project, which has been requiring manual interventions by workers during approximately 25 per cent of container movements.”
“Patrick and the multinational shipping lines are fabricating claims about non-existent industrial action causing delays in an attempt to deflect blame for delays and use subsequent community anger as an industrial battering ram.”
He said, “Maersk and CMA CGM/ANL should be ashamed of themselves for trying to create fear and uncertainty in the community while COVID continues to ravage NSW.
“They are clearly playing politics by blaming the MUA and maritime workers for their decision to omit Port Botany from their schedule, which has nothing to do with industrial action and everything to do with trying to maximise their profits at the expense of the Australian public.”
However, the Patrick spokesperson said the delays at the terminal are due to the industrial action that has been taken by the MUA since May.
“Patrick Terminals continues to work through the cumulative backlog that has resulted from the more than eight weeks of industrial action. The shipping lines are now responding to these delays and taking action to prevent further interruptions to their services,” the spokesperson said.
“The AutoRail operations are now handling all rail volume for the terminal and we are pleased, given that this is still only the first stage of the project, that all volume has been held and we are build capacity for moving freight onto rail.”
Patrick said there were no delays at its Brisbane and Melbourne terminals, but Fremantle was experiencing delays due to recent industrial action, weather and vessel bunching.
