SVITZER maritime workers in the coming weeks are taking more industrial action, including work stoppages and work bans at various ports across Australia.
The Maritime Union of Australia, the Australian Institute of Maritime and Power Engineers and the Australian Maritime Officers Union have issued notices of protected industrial action through the end of November.
The announcements come on the heels of previous PIA announcements last week. The series of industrial action is tied to protracted negotiations for a new enterprise bargaining agreement. The previous agreement expired in 2019.
These latest rounds of PIA notices include Work stoppages on Thursday (3 November) by tug masters at Geraldton (for four hours), Fremantle/Albany (for 24 hours) and Kwinana (24 hours).
Also, according to a statement from Svitzer, the PIA notices include “bans on the performance of work on certain shipping line vessels at ports across Australia”. DCN understands the shipping line named in this work ban is Maersk.
There are also bans on a variety of work at many Australian ports.
A Svitzer spokesperson said the company “continues to do all it can to minimise the disruption to our services and the ports we operate during the industrial action”.
We sincerely regret the impacts the action is having and thank our customers for their patience and understanding,” the spokesperson said.
“As of 31 October 2022, the unions have collectively notified of more than 180 instances of protected industrial action.”
