Stevedoring

Wharfie delegates to meet prior to P & O EBA

By Maritime Union of Australia

Members at P & O wharves will be electing delegates to a conference early next year in preparation for the next round of enterprise bargaining.

Deputy National Secretary Mick O'Leary and Assistant National Secretary Jim Tannock report that the current enterprise agreements start expiring in June, 2002.

The delegates' conference will be scheduled before the start of negotiations to set the agenda for the new EBAs, with rank and file representation voted from the floor to be part of the national negotiating team.

This follows the successful Patrick model, which involved xxxx rank and file delegates for the conference of which 50 took part in on-going negotiations, sitting alongside branch and national officials during head to head talks with company executives.

As with the Patrick negotiations, priority issue is to increase permanent jobs and reduce casualisation on the wharves.

Meanwhile Council resolved in October to survey Patrick membership to assess members satisfaction to the union initiative of involving delegates in the last EBA which was implemented in September. Despite broad based rank and file involvement at all times during the negotiations, members failed to overwhelmingly endorse the agreement when it was put to stopwork meetings.

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