Patrick Terminals Media Statement
Last Updated: 1st October 2020
Patrick welcomes MUA backdown
After a day and half of talks at the Fair Work Commission the MUA announced it would immediately end industrial action at Patrick terminals in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Fremantle.
Patrick CEO Michael Jovicic said he was pleased they had called off the damaging actions around Australia.
Mr Jovicic said the union had inflicted unnecessary pain across the supply chain and had now walked away with nothing.
“Having lost in the court of public opinion they decided to retreat to fight another day.”
During the talks the MUA today rejected a generous offer of 1.5% pay increases for each year for 4 years with no changes to their current conditions or rosters.
In addition, Patrick offered to hire 50 new workers at Port Botany to help clear the backlog of containers and improve productivity. We also offered job guarantees with no forced redundancies for the life of the agreement.
Mr Jovicic said he was amazed the MUA had rejected the offer.
“At least now we can get on with clearing the backlog which exceeds more than 100,000 containers around Australia. My operations team estimate it will take between two and three months to return to normal.”
“Hopefully this means we will avoid shortages of goods at Christmas time.”
Also, this morning we have been contacted by a freight forwarder seeking assistance to locate and move a container containing essential diabetes medication. They advise there is now a critical shortage of these drugs. The ship was delayed by three weeks due to the industrial action.
We have located the container and it will be discharged from Port Botany tonight.
Media contact – Sarah Dennis 0418 653 863
Doorstop with Michael Jovicic at 80 William St Sydney at 4pm