Fair Work Commission is not convinced that the stoppages will cause significant economic disruption
The Fair Work Commission (FWC) has dismissed Inpex's attempt to halt industrial action at its onshore and offshore facilities in Darwin, rejecting the Australian energy giant's claim that it would damage the economy.
In his decision, FWC deputy president Michael Easton disagreed that production stoppages would be a "significant disruption" to the economy, the ABC News reported.
Easton based the ruling on the assumption that the value of Inpex's gas production was in the vicinity of $15 million to $22 million per day, citing the Australian giant's decision not to disclose in court its value.
The FWC deputy president agreed that the strikes and worker bans would "threaten to cause a full production stoppage" for at least a week from Tuesday, ABC reported.
But he disagreed that a full stoppage of production would significantly damage the Australian or Northern Territory economy.
"Planned and unplanned production stoppages occur relatively frequently, and it was not said by any of Inpex's witnesses that lost production time cannot ever be made up," he said as quoted by ABC News.
"It may well be that production and loading of product to ships is delayed during the shutdown, which the economists would regard as a disruption to the economy, but I do not regard this to be a significant disruption."
Work strikes at Inpex
Inpex's move comes after unions threatened eight-hour strikes and disruptive work bans at its Ichthys onshore and offshore facilities in Darwin, which were later scaled back to two separate, two-hour stoppages each day.
The proposed work strikes are a part of escalating industrial action carried out by workers since the beginning of June, as they call for better working conditions and a three per cent annual pay increase.
In a statement, Inpex senior vice president Bill Townsend described the outcome as "disappointing."
"We continue to actively engage in enterprise agreement negotiations in good faith, having shared a range of agreement options – all of which result in improvements to overall terms and conditions and the opportunity for substantial pay increases," Townsend said in a statement quoted by ABC News.
"An updated offer is being/has been prepared, following continued interest-based bargaining."
Meanwhile, the Offshore Alliance, the union representing the workers, commented on the legal victory in a statement.
"Today's legal victory cannot be overstated," it said in the statement posted on Facebook.
"The INPEX application to stop members exercising their legal rights to take PIA (Protected Industrial Action) was never about the broader Australian economy or power supply to Darwin. It was all about protecting the corporate interests of INPEX and their bloated profits."
The union said PIA will continue on all three Inpex facilities "until a benchmark industry standard EBA is agreed."
