Members of five trade unions employed at the Port Waratah Coal Services shipment facility for coal exports at Newcastle port in eastern Australia have called a four-hour strike next Wednesday in an escalation of their industrial dispute with the company, a spokesman for PWCS said Friday.
Union-affiliated PWCS employees will stop work for four hours between 10 am (0000 GMT) and 2 pm Wednesday Sydney time, as part of their program of industrial action at the company, said a statement from one of the five unions, the Maritime Union of Australia.
The four-hour work stoppage replaces an indefinite ban on overtime and shift changeover duties that was due to start at 6 pm Sunday and has now been withdrawn by the unions, said the PWCS spokesman.
"They withdrew their notification of a work-to-rule [not performing work outside their job descriptions] and other industrial action including a ban on overtime last night, and their application [for a four-hour strike] has been approved by the Fair Work Commission," said the PWCS spokesman.
PWCS ships the majority of coal exports that flow through Newcastle port, and loaded 106 million mt of coal on to arriving ships in the 2012 calendar year, according to Newcastle Port Corp. data.
The Maritime Union of Australia said in its statement that the decision to hold Wednesday's strike followed a lack of progress in talks with the company this week.
"This step is a carefully considered response to the company's lack of willingness to settle this dispute," said MUA assistant national secretary, Ian Bray, in the union's statement.
LONG PERIOD OF INDUSTRIAL HARMONY: MUA
MUA Newcastle branch secretary Glen Williams said in the statement the dispute related to company proposals to change a contract disputes settlement procedure, health and safety guidelines and the scope of matters for an on-site arbitration process.
"We have enjoyed a long period of industrial harmony where both management and employees have been able to resolve all their issues at the workplace without the intervention of the industrial umpire," said Williams.
The spokesman for PWCS -- the operator of two coal terminals at Newcastle port -- said Friday that the company had contract workers available who could step into some of the roles vacated by union-affiliated workers during the four-hour strike.
"We treat safety as being paramount. It is not our intention to have untrained staff to operate machinery at this stage," he said.
PWCS' proposal to widen the involvement of contractor staff at its coal terminals has been a flashpoint in the dispute, and unions have opposed the training of contractors in the operation of ship loading equipment.
PWCS, whose shareholders include coal producers Anglo American, Bloomfield Collieries, Rio Tinto subsidiary Coal & Allied Industries and Glencore-Xstrata, has offered to meet again with unions involved in the dispute next week.
"We are trying to organize a meeting [with the unions] next Tuesday to continue negotiations over an enterprise agreement," the spokesman for PWCS added.
PWCS has been negotiating with five unions over the content of a new workplace agreement for a period of eight months.
The other four unions taking part in Wednesday's strike are the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union, Australian Workers' Union, the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union, and the Transport Workers' Union which together with the MUA represent around 200 PWCS employees.
