A multinational resources company will not remunerate offshore employees until they accept negotiated pay and conditions.
Shell Group recently decided to stop paying workers at the Prelude Floating Liquefied Natural Gas facility, 475km off the shore of Broome.
The company – which jointly owns the facility with Inpex, Korea Gas Corp and a Chinese Petroleum Corp subsidiary – accused its workforce of extended industrial action about an enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) dispute. Since it failed to redeploy staff and contractors it will bar them from entering the facility altogether.
“We will be resorting to lock outs as the mechanism available under the Fair Work Act. Once the lock outs are in effect, people will no longer be paid if they are not mobilised to the facility,” a Shell spokesperson said according to Reuters.
The Australian Workers’ Union (AWU) claims it tried to reach a mutual agreement for the past 19 months. However, Shell management behaved obstructively, confrontationally and arrogantly after being asked to match Inpex pay rates. The union still wants Shell employees to receive a base salary ranging between $125,000 and $258,000 plus allowances.
“Instead of genuinely engaging we have been met with nothing but stonewalling and unnecessary aggression and escalation,” AWU national secretary and Offshore Alliance spokesperson Daniel Walton said in a public statement.
“Industrial action was a last resort … [and] we cannot fathom why Shell disdains its workforce.”
Walton warns preventing personnel from entering the work site will unnecessarily risk staff health and wellbeing.
“If Shell is actually serious about a lock out, it will significantly increase the chances of breakdown and endanger the safety of workers on site,” he said.
“If a lock out comes to pass it will be a catastrophic failure of management and an indictment on Shell as a company.”
The remarks came after weeks of industrial action since June 10. The Fair Work Commission has already approved peaceful resistance to Shell’s EBA.
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Ironic that the union claim that management behaved obstructively, confrontationally and arrogantly? Pretty sure that’s the MO for most unions!