MARITIME UNION OF AUSTRALIA
MEDIA RELEASE
9 SEPTEMBER 2024
Qube Ports industrial action to commence across Australia
Wharfies at Qube's bulk and general ports across Australia will commence industrial action with bans and limitations this week, starting in Melbourne, Port Kembla and Brisbane.
Negotiations have been repeatedly sabotaged by managers at Australia's largest, vertically integrated stevedoring business, Qube.
Strike actions are now imminent.
The company is guilty of rampant corporate profiteering during and since COVID with a 148% increase in profits during the life of the last four year employment agreement. Over the same period, the real value of wages paid to Qube wharfies has been smashed by the very same inflation that has been caused by the price gouging being led by major Australian corporations like Qube.
The purchasing power of a Qube wharfie has been diminished by 14% due to inflation, with the real value of wages falling year on year as company profits soar.
"This company's profits are delivered by wharfies. We make it, they take it. Well, our message to the bosses is that now it's our turn, and we are going to fight to get our share" said Warren Smith, the MUA's Deputy National Secretary.
While the Union has been seeking early, cooperative negotiations with the management of Qube since October 2023, the last employment agreement expired in June 2024 against a backdrop of Qube managers deliberately stalling and derailing the formal negotiation process.
"This is not a company which respects its workforce or seeks an early, amicable outcome. They are trying to game the IR system with delays and provocation. Qube have picked this fight and we intend to see it through," Mr Smith said.
"Companies like DP World and Svitzer Tugs have learned the hard way that workers' rights and a fair pay rise during rampant inflation are non-negotiable, and the contortions and manipulations they engage in along the way make no difference to the final outcome," Mr Smith added.
Recent Protected Action ballots have delivered near unanimity across Australia, with results of 99.2% support for action in Brisbane and 100% support for action in Melbourne and Port Kembla. It shows rank and file wharfies recognise the need to fight the rampant corporate greed of Qube.
"Our members are leading this from the grassroots, with some of the strongest and most emphatic responses you'll ever see in a protected action ballot," Mr Smith said. "When Qube wharfies vote 100% to take action it is clear they have had enough of their bosses' disingenuous bargaining, disrespect and manipulations," Mr Smith said.
Protected industrial action by MUA members at Qube will include:
- Unlimited 1 hour stoppages
- Unlimited 4 hour stoppages
- Unlimited 8 hour stoppages
- Unlimited 12 hour stoppages
- Unlimited 24 hour stoppages
- Unlimited number of bans on working a ship for at least 8 hours after that ship has been tied up to the wharf
- Unlimited bans on working any shift longer than 8 hours
- Unlimited bans on working any shift that does not commence at either 0700hrs, 1500hrs or 2300hrs
- Unlimited bans on performing a shift extension
- Unlimited bans on performing a shift pre-start
- Unlimited bans on performing shifts that have a start time that has been varied from the ordered allocation time
- Unlimited bans on performing call-ins outside of allocated shifts
- Unlimited bans on performing the duties of another employee who is on a meal or other break
- Unlimited bans on performing work between 2300 and 0700 hours
- Unlimited bans on performing work on any nominated shipping line
- Unlimited bans on performing Grade 5, 6, and/or 7 upgrade work
- Unlimited bans on driving above 15kph on any wharf and on any PCC, PCTC and Ro-Ro vessels
- Unlimited bans on loading or unloading any truck displaying a Qube logo
- Unlimited bans on transferring between berths and sites once allocated to work
- Unlimited bans on using personal mobile phones for work purposes while on shift
The sheer variety of potential work bans now permitted as protected industrial action indicates the flexibility and productivity provided every day by Qube wharfies, with the vast majority of planned work bans representing the withdrawal of everyday goodwill by workers facing a hostile management team.
"Qube's managers are determined to avoid their moral and legal obligations during the bargaining process and have shown nothing but disrespect to their workers throughout the past 4 years let alone the last 10 months that the union has been trying to engage with bargaining," said Mr Smith.
"Well the workforce has had enough of this and the message we are sending the bosses is; 'IT'S OUR TURN'," Mr Smith said.
