AUSTRALIA

Unions march, industry condemns

INDUSTRY groups have hit back after unions marched to the Chevron office in Perth yesterday demanding more jobs for Australians, saying their demands were unrealistic.

Unions march, industry condemns

Construction and maritime unions accused the US giant of not training enough Australians to work on its Gorgon project in the state's northwest.

It pointed to figures which indicated the WA training rate dropped from 15.3% in 2008 to 11.4% last year.

According to The West Australian, UnionsWA president Meridith Hammet said contractors working on the project were relying on imported labour as a temporary solution to the skills shortage, a trend which had created pockets of youth unemployment as high as 24.5% in some parts of WA.

The unions also flagged the possibility of weekly rallies outside the Chevron building, with construction union chief Kevin Reynolds leading the calls.

Chevron disputed the charges, saying in a statement it had 40 apprentices and 120 university graduates among its 2700 local workforce, and hundreds more trainees would be employed through contractors on Gorgon.

The rally came as the state's commerce minister Simon O'Brien tabled the second Local Content Report, which showed more than $8 billion of publicly announced resources industry contracts had been awarded to local businesses from July to mid-November 2011.

Chamber of Minerals and Energy chief executive Reg Howard-Smith said the unions needed to stop shouting and start talking to resources companies about how to solve a crippling skills shortage with a multi-faceted solution, including the import of overseas labour.

The chamber said the resources sector was committed to employing locals first, but this wasn't always possible, and played down concerns foreign labour would drive down wages in the sector.

"It is completely wrong to suggest people coming to work in WA from overseas are driving down wages," Howard-Smith said.

This fear has been highlighted by cases of Filipino workers being chronically underpaid, the latest case coming last week as about 100 workers walked off the job at an East Perth development after it revealed was the workers, on 456 visas, were being paid in board and food.

At the time CFMEU WA Assistant Secretary and union heavyweight Joe McDonald said at the time that it was just another example of how visas were being misused in Australia.

Earlier this year, Maersk was left red-faced over a similar incident, when it emerged three people working on its Discoverer rig as painters, hired by a sub-contractor, were being paid less than $3 an hour.

The sub-contractor in SurveySpec was subsequently charged by the Fair Work Ombudsman.

Howard-Smith said this certainly wasn't a trend, with the fact that skilled labour from overseas were entitled the same pay and conditions as their local counterparts meaning the import of labour was an expensive exercise.

"Industry's first priority is employing local people. Skilled migration is actually an expensive last resort when you consider overseas recruitment searches, relocation expenses and paying Australian wages and conditions," he said.

"It's good economics and good business to utilise Australian employees first."

Meanwhile Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive James Pearson chipped in by blasting the unions' divisive approach.

"It's time the union movement started working with business rather than against it," he said.

"WA is experiencing a massive pipeline of private investment flowing into the state, but we simply don't have enough local workers with the skills required to build and run those projects.

"Instead of taking to the streets and making more demands on business, the union movement should be working with employers to make WA a more attractive place to construct and operate internationally competitive projects."

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