Labour dispute deal

Patrick Terminals and the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) have agreed a four-year workplace deal just days before Patrick Terminal’s application to end the current agreement was due to be heard at tribunal.

The new arrangement, which includes a 4% pay rise in the first year and 2.5% in the following three years for around 1,000 workers at Patrick’s ports in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Western Australia, is yet to be voted on by members or ratified by the Fair Work Commission.

“The new agreement has achieved the removal of restrictive recruitment conditions and delivered other much-needed flexibilities for our operations across all four terminals,” said a statement put out by Patrick Terminals.

“Patrick Terminals looks forward to the endorsement of the agreement by the MUA members and four years of industrial stability on our waterfront,” it added.

Patrick has now withdrawn its application to tear up the previous deal, which the operator had launched after what it called ‘an unrelenting barrage of ongoing industrial action by the MUA that has impacted all terminal users including importers, exporters and shipping lines’.

Both sides are claiming victory with reports suggesting that Patrick has been able to overturn MUA’s hiring veto whilst the MUA national assistant secretary, Jamie Newlyn, hailed the deal as delivering ‘fairness and dignity for hard-working members’. 

It is hoped that the deal will put an end to industrial action on the docks which has put pressure on supply chains, prompting the prime minister, Scott Morrison, to threaten to intervene in the run-up to last Christmas.