CANBERRA: Australian tug boat workers accepted Friday a revised enterprise agreement from towage firm Svitzer, a union official said, after two rounds of work stoppages in the last week.
“Now that the voting results are in, AIMPE will not be taking any further industrial action,” Australian Institute of Marine and Power Engineers federal secretary Martin Byrne said.
The union had conducted nationwide industrial action on tug boats over Svitzer seeking to bring three unions individually covering deckhands, skippers, and engineers under one enterprise agreement.
AIMPE wanted Svitzer to retain a separate contract for tug engineers. The majority of workers with the other unions covering tug masters and deckhands, however, voted Friday in support of the new agreement.
The work stoppages took place at the ports of Adelaide, Brisbane, Fremantle, Geelong, Kwinana, Melbourne, Newcastle, and Sydney/Botany on January 14, 18 and 19.
