Submarine workers strike over pay
More than 100 workers here at the Osborne Naval Shipyard walked off the job this morning to take industrial action, calling for pay parity with their Interstate counterparts from government owned submarine builder ASC. Australian Manufacturing Workers Union SA say members want to get paid the same on average as their fellow employees in WA and have rejected ASC’s recent offer, which was 7% short of this. Currently, it says ASC workers in WA receive 17% more on average than workers here in South Australia. And the union says this is despite the fact that some Western Australian workers are being trained in South Australia, effectively meaning those being trained are earning more in the process than the actual trainers. The union is urging ASC to address the discrepancy with wages, which it claims has been ignored during enterprise bargaining negotiations since November. The union’s assistant state secretary, Stuart Gordon, spoke to ABC News Breakfast a little earlier and said government interference has been keeping wages low. Let’s take a listen. Previous government had restrictions with ASC about wage increases and so they were achieving wage increases below 2% probably on the average of the last three years which just above 6% wage increases where in Adelaide cost of living around that time reached 9% to 7%. We’re open to for discussions around the time frame at the the company is just is just short on that 7% and the reason behind that is because of the they say is post code where you live in South Australia you deserve 7%. Less in WA now, the union says that ASC should be prioritising, attracting and retaining skilled workers in SA, especially the maintenance crew which will be responsible for keeping future Orcas nuclear powered submarines in operation. Only a couple of months ago, ASC was announced as one of the main builders alongside BAE Systems for the new SSN ORCAS submarines which will be assembled here in Adelaide. ASC has been given responsibility of maintaining Australia’s Virginia class submarines. While the new Australian built ones are scheduled to arrive in the early twenty 40s. But the union says if pay conditions don’t improve then SA could lose tradespeople crucial to the future of August.