Australia’s crucial submarine sustainment and maintenance facility at Osborne, South Australia has been rocked by strikes after workers, angry about wage disparity, walked off the job on Monday. There are ongoing ructions in government-owned enterprises and non-Australian Public Service agencies.
The Osborne sub facility, which is part of the Osborne Naval Shipyard, has been hit by around 350 union staff walking off the job as part of protected industrial action, with the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU) coordinating with the Australian Workers’ Union and the Electrical Trades Union.
The AMWU has taken the government-owned Australian Submarine Corporation (ASC) to task over wage disparities between ASC staff working at Osborne and their colleagues working in Western Australia. The WA AMWU staff are paid 17% better than their South Australian peers.
The Osborne Naval Shipyard services the Collins Class, which has around 20 years left in service and will be a crucial part of the AUKUS submarine build program.
“Hundreds of submarine experts work on the Collins Class submarines which are an essential part of Australia’s current naval capability. It’s a slap in the face for trainers in SA who are being paid less than those they are training. They should be paid more, but they’re just asking to be paid the same. These workers deserve respect,” said AMWU South Australian assistant state secretary Stuart Gordon.
“ASC management needs to get serious about attracting and retaining skilled workers in South Australia so that they’re not losing them to other states like WA.”
Gordon said the SA division of ASC was vital for Australia’s submarine capability because it did a “huge volume of work unlike anywhere else across the country” and was “the only team able to carry out the Collins’ deep maintenance, or Full-Cycle Docking where the boat is completely stripped down and has its massive diesel engines and main motor removed and refurbished.”
“The WA division of ASC only does the running maintenance of the boats and breakdowns. The SA submarine workers are constantly helping and training their WA colleagues, and fixing all the equipment they remove as the SA division has the skills, expertise and knowledge to undertake these tasks.”
The ASC has played a straight bat to the dispute, and acknowledged the “protected industrial action taken by the AMWU, ETU and its members today and recognises their right to take this action.”
“ASC has been in exhaustive negotiations with the Unions and their representatives over the past six months and has made a number of offers, taking into account the economic and environmental cost factors of the two locations,” an ASC statement said.
“The Unions and their members have rejected all of these offers. ASC has also suggested engaging the services of the Fair Work Commissioner to review employee claims and mandate an outcome; however, the Unions and their members have also rejected this.”
It is understood the ASC’s justification for the wage disparity is because of the need to have pay at a sufficiently competitive level against the resources industry for skilled labour in order to maintain the WA docks, a disparity unions say leave their South Australian members financially underwater.
Other unions in dispute with federal employers at the moment include the Australian Federal Police Association, Civil Air, and the United Firefighters Union Aviation Branch.
If UFU Aviation is successful in its negotiations with Air Services, the deal is likely to come in at the equivalent of a 17% wage rise, 6.8% higher than the deal struck between the Australian Public Service Commission and the Community and Public Sector Union.
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