PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Oil and gas major Woodside has avoided industrial action at its North West Shelf operations, offshore Western Australia, reaching an agreement with the Offshore Alliance employee representatives.

The Offshore Alliance said in a statement on Thursday that workers were supportive of the in-principle agreement reached during a 15-hour meeting.

The in-principle agreement will now go before an all-member meeting on Thursday evening, which will determine whether Offshore Alliance members support the agreement being rolled out to a vote.

If that endorsement is secured, the Offshore Alliance will work with Woodside to ensure that the proposed agreement is drafted to reflect all matters that have been agreed in principle, and subject to the proposed agreement doing so, will support the agreement at the ballot box.

Offshore Alliance spokesperson, Australian Workers Union WA secretary Brad Gandy said that because the Offshore Alliance is a member-led union, all members will have an opportunity to voice their opinion about the in-principle agreement prior to the agreement receiving unconditional support from the union.

“The Offshore Alliance was instructed by members to secure an industry standard enterprise agreement that met key outcomes. It’s up to the members to determine if the deal brokered this morning meets that. The Alliance is confident that this is the case,” said Gandy.

Meanwhile, US energy major Chevron has rolled out two enterprise agreements to its workforce that did not have the support of the unions, Gandy said.

“Chevron has chosen to roll out agreements to its Gorgon and Wheatstone Downstream workforce that are not supported by the Alliance as they do not address key bargaining claims and do not meet the industry standard,” he added.

“The Alliance will be strongly recommending to members to vote ‘no’ to these non-union Chevron agreements, just as it did when Chevron did something similar for the Wheatstone Platform workforce. 

“The result of the Wheatstone Platform ballot was a 98% ‘no’ vote. Chevron should expect more of the same from these ballots,” said Gandy.

“Protected action ballots of Offshore Alliance members working for Chevron close today, the results of which will give Chevron some insight into how dissatisfied its employees are with negotiations up to this point.

“We do hope Chevron isn’t going down the same road as Shell who reached an agreement this time last year but only after losing an estimated $1.5-billion in lost production due to 76 days of protected industrial action.

“Offshore Alliance members at Chevron simply want an industry standard enterprise agreement, that gives them say on rosters to ensure they’re family-friendly, job security provisions to prevent them being replaced by low-wage contractors, and a transparent classification structure which allows them to progress on objective criteria,” said Gandy.