Bechtel revokes GLNG workers’ leave ahead of China FTA protest march
The Australian Financial Review | 10 August 2015
Bechtel revokes GLNG workers’ leave ahead of China FTA protest march
Angela Macdonald-Smith
A protest march planned by five major trade unions over the China free-trade agreement has set on edge management at United States construction giant Bechtel, which has revoked leave and urged supervisors to ensure "full attendance" at the huge Gladstone LNG construction site next Monday.
In an email to supervising managers last Friday, Bechtel deputy site manager for Gladstone LNG Rod Beach said it was "in the best interests" of Santos’ GLNG project not to sanction or authorise any protest-march action on August 17 and to "require full attendance to get stuff done".
The move comes as the $US18.5 billion ($25 billion) GLNG venture is only weeks away from the start of production at the first of two liquefied natural gas production units being built at Curtis Island in Gladstone harbour. The Curtis Island site was threatened with strike action last year that was only narrowly averted after workers voted through a new enterprise agreement on the third attempt.
In the August 7 email, Mr Beach told managers that any rostered day off (RDO) or leave request for Monday, August 17, outside of employees scheduled to take that day off "is to be denied".
"All previous RDO requests that you have already approved for this day have since been unapproved by me," Mr Beach said in the email, which was posted on the Facebook page of the FIFO Construction Workers 3/1 Forum, a group supporting a shift from the four-weeks-on, one-week-off work cycle for fly-in, fly-out workers at Curtis Island to a three-one cycle.
Approved RDOs are usually cancelled only in emergency situations, according to AMWU Gladstone organiser Phil Golby, quoted in the Gladstone Observer.
Bechtel Gladstone general manager Kevin Berg said on Monday that performance of the construction team "relies on having the right numbers of employees at the workplace to meet planned activities for the day", but didn’t directly comment on the protest day.
"We need to ensure work on the project remains uninterrupted to enable timely completion of these world-class facilities," Mr Berg said.
The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, the Electrical Trades Union, the Maritime Union of Australia, the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union and the Australian Workers’ Union have called on supporters to meet at noon next Monday in central Gladstone for a protest march against the Chinese FTA.
"Fight back against Abbotts [sic] dodgy deal," the flyer for the march says, adding "Racism not welcome"!
Unions have been rallying against the FTA with China for the past several weeks, claiming it will kill jobs for Australian workers and jeopardise economic benefits. A march is also planned for this month in Perth.
Mr Smith said the deal would create new Australian jobs and open up new markets for Australian business.
Over in Western Australia, meanwhile, union members working at Chevron’s $US54 billion Gorgon LNG construction site on Barrow Island have started voting on potential industrial action in a dispute over rosters for FIFO workers. The ballot, which closes on August 18, will determine whether workers embark on a campaign of rolling stoppages at the site, under the protection of the Fair Work Act.
Chevron advised late last month that the first cargo at Gorgon LNG, targeted for the second half of 2014 and then revised to 2015, could slip into early 2016.
