Three-week sit in ends as crew faces potential for expensive legal action.
The Tandara Spirit has left Melbourne, after a 20-day sit in by workers was called off yesterday.
The fuel tanker will travel to Singapore, where the 18 remaining crew have been told they will be made redundant.
Those workers say they are not just worried about their own livelihoods, but also the environmental and safety of the foreign ships and crews that are now set to transport fuel around Australia.
“Australia is increasingly allowing an international race to the bottom on shipping,” an open letter signed by 16 of the crew reads.
“Companies that pay their crews $2 an hour invariably tend to be equally sloppy when it comes to environmental and safety standards.”
The Fair Work Commission judged the sit-in to be unprotected industrial action.
“The industrial action that is the subject of the application relates to employees refusing to work as directed so as to enable the vessel named Tandara Spirit, to weigh anchor and commence a sea-bound journey,” it surmised on November 14.
“The Commission must order that the industrial action stop.”
Victorian Branch secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) Kevin Bracken says the crew had been placed at legal risk as individuals as a result of carrying on the protest.
“They’ve been threatened with legal action; that actually could see the loss of their houses,” he told a press conference in Melbourne today.
“They’re already out of a job, you feel like you could lose your own house through a principled stand.”
ATN was unable to get in contact with representatives of Teekay Shipping, employer of the crew, or Viva Energy, which will end its contract with the Tandara Spirit when it arrives in Singapore.