Shipping Australia: It’s time for the MUA to return to the negotiating table

Shipping Australia today expresses its support for DP World in its enterprise bargaining dispute with the Maritime Union of Aus-tralia. We call for the MUA to resume negotations.

The average daily value of the container trade is about AUD$724.14 million. About 1-in-5 jobs depend upon logistics. About 99.92% (or more) of everything that is imported or exported from Australia travels by ship. So, it follows that anything that dis-rupts our international trade will harm Australia and everyday Australians.

There has been a series of rolling industrial actions at the DP World terminals around Australia. And there’s more to come with a wide range of industrial action, including strikes, bans on different kinds of work, delays to work, bans on overtime, and bans on the loading and unloading of trains, among many more.

It now takes up to seven or eight days to unload cargo, when it normally takes two days. This causes harm. It causes harm to our members – who are not parties to the dispute – as it can cost tens of thousands of dollars a day (or more) for a ship to just sit there. Strikes harm the trucking industry, as truckies cannot get their trucks loaded in good time. Strikes harm warehousing com-panies, distribution centres and everyone up and down the supply chain. Strikes hurt small businesses who rely on imports of much needed goods and equipment.

Strikes hurt exporters and, especially, famers who need to ship perishable goods to market. Because ocean shipping underpins all economic activity in Australia, the MUA’s industrial action harms Australian businesses – large, big, and small. It harms Australi-an importers and exporters. It harms Australian jobs. It harms Australian families. It harms everyday Australians going about their normal business.

It harms you.
Australian businesses, everyday Australians and Australian families don’t deserve further harm. It’s time for the Maritime Union of Australia to stop harming the people of Australia and to come back to the negotiating table with DP World, to strike a deal, and to go back to work.
Source: Shipping Australia