Patrick Stevedores reaches agreement with the Fair Work Ombudsman on unlawful industrial action.
Patrick Stevedores will write to its employees in Western Australia putting them on notice that they will not be paid if they take unlawful industrial action.
A similar letter will be sent to the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) as part of an agreement Patrick has struck with the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) after the company admitted it paid 160 employees who took unprotected industrial action against it in Fremantle.
Patrick has admitted it breached the Fair Work Act by making payments to employees who engaged in unlawful industrial action in November and December last year.
The Act makes it unlawful for an employer to make payments to employees for certain periods of unprotected industrial action and for a person to accept or ask an employer to make a payment for those periods of industrial action.
As part of its agreement with the FWO, Patrick will implement improved monitoring of productivity and organise and pay for workplace relations training for its Fremantle employees so they understand their obligations under the Act.
The agreement between the FWO and Patrick is known as an enforceable undertaking, which is a measure available to the agency to help it achieve outcomes against companies without the need for court proceedings.
Ombudsman Natalie James says it is important to remind Patrick that an employer who chooses not to deduct wages from workers who take unlawful industrial action threatens the integrity of the Act.
“For this reason we have entered into this enforceable undertaking with Patrick to put the stevedore industry on notice, as inaction on our part would only encourage repeated use of such industrial action as a pressure tactic when industrial disputes arise,” she says.
“We use enforceable undertakings where we have formed a view that a breach of the law has occurred, but where the employer has acknowledged this and accepted responsibility and agreed to cooperate with us and fix the problem.”
The payments to workers were made during industrial action at Patrick’s Fremantle terminal.
The stevedore on December 4 last year wrote to the Fair Work Commission (FWC) claiming the industrial action had cost the company about $600,000.
It told the FWC the action led to a significant decrease in the number of container movements per crane gang and that the MUA organised employees to put a cap on the number of container movements.
The FWC ordered the MUA to cease industrial action.
In its ruling, it found that Patrick failed to stop paying or make deductions in respect of employees who had engaged in the industrial action.
The FWO subsequently began discussions with Patrick and determined the company breached the Act.
James says it is not in the public interest for the FWO to seek retrospective deductions from the wages of those workers who engaged in unlawful action.