The Australian Workers Union (AWU) and the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) have recently published several statements regarding the ongoing negotiations between Maersk Drilling Australia Pty Ltd (Maersk) and the AWU, for the NAN HAI VI enterprise agreement.
Maersk is concerned with the accuracy of some of these statements. In particular:
(a) The AWU and MUA state that:
“Following the rejection of the collective agreement as proposed by Maersk in June 2009 the union and delegates have been trying to negotiate a new agreement with Maersk. Up to early January 2010 the outstanding issue was annual leave. Maersk up to then had committed paying the agreed annual wage increase of 5% from the 1st July 2009. However in January Maersk management then withdrew the offer of retrospectivity and replaced it with an offer of a $1500 bonus on acceptance of the agreement”
During the negotiations, Maersk did offer back-pay of the increased salary rates to 1 July 2009, conditional upon the enterprise agreement being voted and approved by 31 December 2009. This was not achieved.
Consequently, Maersk has considered alternative options that will meet employee expectations, but are also commercially viable. Unfortunately, back-pay to 1 June 2009 is no longer feasible. Instead, Maersk have put forward the offer of back-pay to 1 January 2010 and a bonus of $1,500 once the enterprise agreement is voted and approved.
The AWU have not put forward any alternative options.
(b) The AWU and MUA state that:
“Maersk continues to show favouritism to workers on the Howard-era individual employee contracts who get longer annual leave and higher pay”.
These statements relate to Maersk’s supervisory staff, who have never been subject to the proposed enterprise agreement and are not directly involved in the negotiations. The supervisory staff is paid in accordance with their contracts of employment.
There is no favouritism or preferential treatment of employees on various industrial instruments. In fact, Maersk has gone to great lengths to try to accommodate the wishes of employees on different instruments.
(c) The AWU and MUA state that:
“Maersk have now advised the Alliance that by rejecting this discriminatory and inferior offer they are refusing to continue to negotiate”.
Maersk acknowledges that the negotiations have been ongoing for some time now. However, Maersk feels confident that the outstanding issues will soon be resolved. Maersk and the AWU are meeting before Fair Work Australia on Wednesday 10 March 2010, to discuss those issues that are still outstanding.
For further information, please contact Christian Gorrissen cgo002@maersk.com Maersk Drilling Australia.