The Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) has committed to the Fair Work Commission (FWC) to not organise or notify of any industrial action against Patrick Terminals before 1 December 2020.
Both parties, Patrick Terminals and MUA, have mutually agreed to meet for three days each week before this date in an effort to negotiate on the new enterprise agreement.
Given this agreement, Patrick Terminals has withdrawn its application to the FWC as of Friday 23 October 2020.
Patrick Terminals says “Given the commitment from the MUA to both withdraw their protected industrial action and make undertakings to not organise or notify any industrial action before 1 December 2020, Patrick Terminals’ has withdrawn its application from the FWC.”
For some background context, Patrick Terminals had lodged an application to the FWC seeking to suspend or terminate the campaign of protected industrial action organised by the MUA. This matter was set to be heard by the FWC across a two-day hearing on the 26 and 27 October 2020.
Looking to the future, Patrick terminals says “Our focus continues to be to clear the backlog of container cargo in Sydney and Melbourne as a result of the MUA industrial action and work towards resuming normal operations,”
“We can confirm that our Brisbane and Fremantle Terminals are operating as normal. Delays in Melbourne have reduced to approximately 5 days.”
“Delays in Sydney are also reducing as a result of shipping line customers removing the Sydney port call from their shipping service.”
We will continue to monitor the landscape and provide updates where necessary.