Farmers again face new export handling slugs after what has been described as a "calamitous" dispute between Patrick Stevedores and the maritime union that has seen many rail freight 'windows' closed at Port Botany.
Port Botany faces "gridlock" with exporters being the "sacrificial pawns in calamitous negotiations" between Patrick and unions, according to the peak Australian shippers' body.
The Land understands that because of the ongoing wage dispute, Patrick has retaliated against union action by closing many rail freight windows (at least a quarter) to Port Botany that take a large part of the state's agricultural exports to the port.
Instead, a large amount of rail freight will have to be unloaded at three already congested intermodal freight handling depots in suburban Sydney and then placed back on trucks for transport to Port Botany - increasing freight handling charges to exporters and farmers.
The dispute escalated late last week and Patrick have indicated the lockdown of rail freight may continue for up to three weeks - just when NSW has been plunged into a two week lockdown due to the spread of coronavirus.
Patrick says it became impossible to run the rail freight windows at the Port because the MUA was conducting stop work meetings for up to an hour three times a day that made it impossible to meet train schedules. It acknowledged that the dispute would largely affect agricultural exporters because most of those goods came by train from country NSW.
In a stark warning, a company spokesperson said it only expected the dispute to escalate. It had received up to 30 notices on industrial action by the Maritime Union of Australia since May.
Delays to vessels at Port Botany have increased by seven days, The Land understands.
Average delay "on-window" vessels is 3.3 days and average delay "off-window vessels" is 10.5 days at the Port.
The MUA currently has a ban on working subcontracted vessels from other operators.
A similiar dispute erupted during last year.
Paul Zalai, Director of Freight & Trade Alliance (FTA) and Secretariat to the Australian Peak Shippers Association (APSA) said during the last quarter of 2020, escalated industrial action faced by all three stevedores responsible for loading and unloading container vessels had crippling effects on the international trade sector resulting in many vessels by-passing Port Botany.
"As well as resulting in additional time and cost to move imported goods back across state borders, the events left commerce scrambling for supplies and our regional producers with the dilemma on how to reach overseas markets with limited shipping services.
"Rather than seeking compensation on contracted stevedores for failing to meet service requirements, salt was rubbed into the wounds of exporters and importers who paid an estimated $330 million in congestion surcharges to recover vessel operational costs. This resulted in significantly diminished returns for manufacturers, farmers and regional communities whilst contributing to record high, multi-billion dollar profits by several foreign owned shipping lines.
"The impasse between stevedores and workers was broken with separate 11th hour deliberations before the full Fair Work Commission (FWC) hearings resulting in both Patrick and DP World agreeing to continue out of court negotiations with the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA).
"DP World subsequently successfully implemented an Enterprise Agreement with their employees. While Hutchison has experienced periods of ongoing industrial action, they have more recently reported that they too are close to resolution.
"Unfortunately, unlike their competitors, Patrick and the MUA still have unresolved matters causing major disruption, noting their critically important operation handles more than 40% of overall containerised trade volume via Port Botany.
"Over recent weeks the MUA re-instigated a series Protected Industrial Action (PIA) restrictions in what appears to have been designed to cause enough pain to Patrick to force their position in negotiations without taking extreme industrial action measures that would see the parties straight back to the FWC.
"In a formal notice to rail operators accessing Port Botany, Patrick executive stated that they written to the MUA seeking an exception of certain roles from the industrial action within the rail operations to enable trains to access/ingress the terminal during the period of disruption."
Mr Zalai said "Patrick has made the unilateral decision to cancel a significant proportion of rail windows from 24 June to 15 July 2021. "This action, conducted without any consultation with exporters, will have devastating economic impacts on the New South Wales economy. We remain uncertain how much suffering is required before this action can be the pre-requisite trigger required to again take proceedings before the commission."
"The immediate result will mean that regional exporters reliant on rail to move goods to the port will again face additional logistics costs. Rail operators will be forced to terminate their journey at Sydney intermodal terminals with secondary road movements to be made to the port."
Mr Zalai warns "The additional cost is one factor, however a critical concern for the entire import and export supply-chain is that with a bumper season for the agriculture sector, container volumes will quickly mount at these transition points with the intermodals and empty container parks likely to very quickly become heavily congested."
"Despite constructive engagement with government and port representatives there are no obvious, workable contingency measures in an environment whereby Patrick are maintaining their position of cancelled rail windows. We are now seeking an urgent meeting with Patrick executives, but we do not expect that they will deviate away from their position, nor are we confident that that they and the MUA are likely to settle their differences after what has been an extensive and prolonged negotiation."
"In line with its recommendation in a formal submission to the Productivity Commission's Inquiry into Vulnerable Supply Chains, FTA and APSA informed members today that the peak industry alliance is escalating its advocacy to the Attorney General for immediate FWC intervention and for the Federal Government to initiate a broader review on waterfront industrial relations."
Comment was being sought from the MUA.
In a release from Patrick it said that:
- Sydney AutoStrad now incorporates one hour stops each shift at 0500, 1300 and 2100 in place until Thursday 15 July 2021. When combined with refusal to work through meal breaks, (general standard practice to enable operational continuity) operational working time has been reduced by approx. 25% due to the industrial action.
- This industrial action is impacting and will continue to impact the Sydney rail service as the timing of the stoppages mean that available operations within rail windows is limited. For example a window of 5am - 7am will only have one workable hour.
- Patrick Terminals has made adjustments to rail windows including reducing capacity allocated from 4300 lifts per week to 3200 lifts per week during this period (with cancellation of 12 of 56 windows). Patrick will seek to re-instate the rail windows as soon as possible.
"As a result, rail capacity will be reduced by approx. 25 per cent," the company said.
"We have engaged with all rail operators early to provide notice and assistance to work through the disruption, however, there will be an impact on customers. Patrick Terminals will continue to work closely with rail operators to minimise disruption and provide options to maximise throughput during this period of industrial action by the MUA.
"Patrick Terminals continues to engage with the MUA in an effort to provide relief to the onerous impacts of the industrial action, without success to date."
Michael Jovicic, CEO, Patrick Terminals said, "Patrick has held formal meetings with the MUA over the past 18 months in an effort to come to a mutually acceptable agreement. We believed that we were close to agreement when the MUA launched this completely unnecessary industrial action last month. I am concerned that one of the biggest harvests in recent years is now being threatened. We are doing everything that we can to reach an agreement but the MUA seems determined to disrupt the supply chain at this critical time in pursuit of their own demands."
A partial list of union action action includes:
A ban on the performance of overtime at Port Botany (Sydney) from 6am Thursday 20th May 2021 for 14 days finishing 6am Thursday 3rd June 2021.
A ban on the working of shift extensions at Port Botany (Sydney) from 6am Thursday 20th May 2021 for 14 days finishing 6am Thursday 3rd June 2021.
A ban on the performance of upgrades and/or work in higher levels at Port Botany (Sydney) commencing at 10pm Friday 4 June 2021 until 10pm Sunday 6 June 2021.
A ban on the performance of upgrades and/or work in higher levels at Port Botany (Sydney) commencing at 10pm Friday 11 June 2021 until 10pm Sunday 13 June 2021.
A ban on the performance of overtime at Port Botany (Sydney) from 6am Thursday 3rd June 2021 for 14 days finishing 6am Thursday 17th June 2021.
A ban on the working of shift extensions at Port Botany (Sydney) from 6am Thursday 3rd June 2021 for 14 days finishing 6am Thursday 17th June 2021.
A ban on the performance of overtime commencing at 6am Thursday 17 June 2021 for a 14-day period finishing at 6am on Thursday 1 July 2021
A ban on the performance of shift extensions commencing at 6am Thursday 17 June 2021 for a 14-day period finishing at 6am on Thursday 1 July 2021.
A ban on the performance of work on vessels that have been subcontracted to or outsourced to Patrick Terminals by another stevedoring company from 00:01 on Thursday 24 June 2021 until Thursday 15 July 2021.
Stoppages of work of 1-hour duration at 0500, 1300 and 2100 each day commencing on Thursday, 24 June 2021 for a 21-day period until Thursday 15 July 2021.
Meantime, the MUA says it has reached a groundbreaking wage settlement with another stevedore- Hutchison, one of the world's biggest stevedores.
In a release it said: "After three years of negotiations, the Maritime Union of Australia has reached a ground-breaking workplace agreement with the world's largest stevedoring company, setting a new industry standard at container terminals in Sydney and Brisbane.
"Workers will receive five 2.5 per cent wage increases over the four year agreement once certified by the Fair Work Commission.
"The agreement with Hutchison Ports Australia will see the introduction of 20 days paid domestic violence leave, the creation of permanent rosters, and the addition of a clause that gives the workforce the ability to find alternatives to redundancies in the event of an economic downturn."
MUA Deputy National Secretary Warren Smith said the negotiations had been among the hardest seen in the industry.
"This agreement will see job security strengthened at the terminals, with protection against job losses due to the implementation of automation, technology and contractors, along with a move to address insecure work with a cap on casual employees and an emphasis on rostered permanents and guarantee workers," Mr Smith said.
"This agreement not only brings to an end three years of hard-fought negotiations, it sets new industry standards, not only for Australia, but around the world.
"The introduction of 20 days paid domestic violence leave is a significant victory that will reduce the financial hardship suffered by people dealing with the challenges of violence in the home.
"Nothing in this agreement was handed to us. It took three years of unwavering determination and united action from members at the Sydney and Brisbane terminals to achieve this victory.
"These negotiations were among the hardest ever seen in our industry, with new claims from management threatening to derail discussions right until the end, but despite all these obstacles we have managed to achieve a ground-breaking agreement.
"We could not have achieved this outcome without the sacrifices of MUA members who were united in exercising their lawful right to undertake industrial action in defence of a fair agreement.
"Nothing was given to us for free, and while negotiators spent countless hours working towards this outcome it was made possible by the efforts of every rank and file member at Hutchison."
