Svitzer Industrial Action Set to Cause Big Disruptions
An indefinite lockout of critical port workers in response to damaging strikes is set to grind the country’s major ports to a halt, threatening the supply of consumer goods, supermarket produce and farm exports.
Tugboat giant Svitzer, whose services are critical to hauling container ships into and out of ports, notified 582 striking workers across the country it will bar them working from Friday as a way to short-circuit a lengthy industrial dispute.
The lockout will mean no shipping vessels will be towed into or out of 17 ports serviced by Svitzer from Friday in NSW, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia. Major stevedores have warned the lockout will bring their terminals to a standstill, raising the prospect of third parties or the federal government intervening in the Fair Work Commission to stop the industrial action due to the threat to the economy.
The port shutdown would come just six weeks before Christmas and as farmers are preparing to harvest winter crops for the export market. Patrick chief executive Michael Jovicic said Svitzer’s lockout would disrupt the handling of 10,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit containers coming into its terminals each day or about 40 per cent of all containerised freight into and out of Australia.
“Industrial action that prevents vessels arriving and departing our terminals will quickly bring our terminals to a standstill,” Mr Jovicic said. “We strongly urge for the two parties to come to a sensible and sustainable resolution that supports the needs of the Australian economy.”
DP World, which has reported significant disruption from tugboat stoppages in the past fortnight, said Svitzer provided towage services to almost 70 per cent of its vessels around the country.
NSW Transport Minister David Elliott flagged potential intervention by the state government and said he would meet with Svitzer on Tuesday about the dispute. “The NSW government is committed to providing whatever support necessary to those affected by this union thuggery,” he said.
“Our supply chains and international trade are the economic lifeblood of this state and this action by the combined maritime unions will threaten to prolong our economic recovery by months, if not years.”
Tugboat crews have taken more than 250 instances of protected action at Svitzer since October 20, totalling almost 2000 hours of stoppages, and maritime unions are notifying fresh actions almost daily challenging the shipping industry as we head into the final stretch of the year. We will continue to keep you updated as further information becomes available.
Rail derailment – Regional Victoria
In recent updates, it has come to light that the SCT rail service which departed Adelaide at 4PM on Sunday 13 November 2022 (bound for Altona, Melbourne), derailed west of Geelong in between Inverleigh and Geringhap at approximately 5.30am yesterday morning.
No staff were injured in this incident and all locomotives remained upright on the track. Several rail wagons which were hauling containers derailed. SCT has an incident response team on site along with the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) and other regulatory bodies.
At this stage the cause of the derailment is unknown. Initially, SCT is assessing which wagons and containers have derailed. The incident response team is also working on the recovery plan. Weather conditions are making it difficult to access parts of the derailment site.
The mainline rail track is closed. SCT have committed to provide regular communication concerning potential opening times.