STEVEDORE DP World Australia has gone to the Fair Work Commission regarding its dispute with waterfront workers.
A hearing involving DPWA and the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (which runs the old Maritime Union) occurred on Thursday.
A DPWA spokesman said they maintained a “go-slow” had been underway at the Port Botany Terminal since last month.
“Yesterday [Thursday] the Fair Work Commission granted an interim order stopping the CFMMEU and their members from organising or participating in unprotected industrial action, which includes ‘go slows’, at PBT,” the spokesman said.
According to DPWA, the FWC hearing was unrelated to the enterprise agreement negotiations or the CFMMEU’s ongoing protected industrial action which is harming our business, customers and employees.
A legal source who spoke with DCN said if bargaining was still ongoing it would likely mean that one or more employees were engaging, or appeared to DP World to be engaging, or were likely to engage in, one or more forms of industrial action “that the Fair Work Commission has not previously authorised”.
The stevedore and the union have been at loggerheads since early this month when negotiations towards a new enterprise agreement for container terminals broke down.
