Sept. 8 (UPI) — Hundreds of workers at Chevron’s liquified natural gas (LNG) plants in Western Australia have initiated work stoppages on Friday due to unresolved union pay and working condition negotiations.
About 500 workers have commenced work stoppages, scheduled to last up to 11 hours per day, at 1 p.m. local time at Chevron’s Gorgon and Wheatstone facilities.
“Chevron is demanding special concessions during bargaining, a demand that we have firmly rejected. Their confrontational, unyielding, and arrogant behavior lies at the core of the agreement stalemate between them and the Offshore Alliance (OA) and its members,” commented the Offshore Alliance union alliance on Facebook.
The OA intends to continue the work stoppages until Thursday. If the impasse in negotiations persists, the union alliance plans to implement a series of rolling strikes lasting up to 24 hours per day for a potential duration of two weeks.
“Unfortunately, despite multiple meetings and conciliation sessions before the Fair Work Commission, we have been unable to reach an agreement on key terms,” stated a spokesperson for Chevron Australia.
OA spokesman Brad Gundy expressed in a statement that, “Offshore Alliance members are engaging in protected industrial action in response to Chevron’s obstinacy in rejecting an industry-standard enterprise agreement that would cover these facilities.”
Chevron asserts that the union alliance is requesting terms that go beyond the industry-standard enterprise agreement.
Australia is one of the largest LNG exporters globally. Any disruption in supply could lead to price increases. Upon the commencement of the work stoppage by Australian Chevron workers, European gas prices rose on Friday.
Considering that Japan utilizes roughly 45% of the gas from the affected Australian facilities, an extended supply disruption would have a particularly severe impact on Japan.
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