why it is hard to do business here

with our friendly unions in the Pilbara.





“You have a situation here where you have a whole supply chain — thousands of people employed, hundreds of thousands of people indirectly employed — being impacted by in essence 56 individuals and one union. That whole thing does not make any sense and the demands they’re placing are completely unreasonable.”

The tugboat workers last week voted to endorse protected industrial action in response to unmet demands for better pay and leave provisions. Any strike would need to be held in less than four weeks.

The workers, who are members of the Maritime Union of Australia, are employed by Teekay Shipping, which runs the tugboat operations at the port.

The workers are currently paid about $140,000 a year and work six months a year.

Mr Wilson said they were demanding a 40 per cent pay rise over the next four years, and a reduction to 4.5 months a year of work.

“At the end of the day Australian wages are reasonably high vis a vis the rest of the world, and we need to counter that by being more productive. This ensures we’re being less productive, we’re paying more for less time,” Mr Wilson said.

“This is the opposite direction to what the state wants to go, the country wants to go, and the companies want to go.”

While BHP said Port Hedland’s deckhands were the highest paid in the county, the MUA’s assistant secretary in WA, Will Tracey, said that was not the case when measured relative to the wages of tugboat skippers.

“In other ports around Australia, a tugboat deckhand is paid 70 per cent of the wage that a tugboat skipper receives. In Port Hedland, a deckhand receives only 62 per cent of the wage that a skipper receives,” Mr Tracey said.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/bhp-to-ask-feds-for-help-in-row/story-e6frg8zx-1226926219139