MEDIA RELEASE

15th February 2021
 
MUA Launches Aggressive Industrial Campaign against VICT
 
Despite Victoria’s sharp COVID-19 lock down, the MUA is to dramatically step up its industrial campaign against Australia’s only automated container terminal, VICT, with a series of full shift work-bans and stoppages beginning this Friday.
 
The bans go beyond full shift stop-work directives and include threats to impose old-fashioned over-manning and restrictive work practices on VICT, directly undermining the competitiveness the terminal derives from its automated technology and modern way of working.
 
With no update from the MUA today, Tim Vancampen, CEO of VICT, said he was amazed the MUA would even consider this sort of attack while the Victorian economy was already at a standstill owing to its third lock-down.
 
“VICT accounts for a third of Victoria’s container freight. The union is directly attacking VICT’s unique way of working as a modern, automated terminal. They want to take us back to the past, no matter the cost or the ill-considered timing in the context of the lockdown. 
 
“This campaign won’t produce the extra jobs, massive pay rises and fewer hours the Union has promised our employees. All it will do is undermine VICT’s competitiveness and threaten the benefits of port automation for Victoria and for the Port of Melbourne,” he said.
 
“If the MUA was serious about representing VICT employees’ interests it would seek to protect their modern jobs, not jeopardise them,” he said.
 
Threats and Bans  

• The MUA intends to stop work for a full 12-hour shift on Friday, 19 February, commencing 6:00pm. This follows notification that work at the VICT terminal will stop for a 4-hour period tomorrow, Tuesday 16 February.
• Further 12-hour shift bans are threatened for Sunday, 21 February at 6.00 am, following immediately by a 24-hour ban commencing at 18.00, 21 February - therefore incurring a 36-hour concurrent stoppage of all VICT’s operations and equipment maintenance.
• From Monday February 22, VICT’s control room will be banned from operating cranes unless the operations of each crane is unnecessarily manned by a dedicated quayside supervisor.
  • These restrictive work practices would impose on VICT’s automated technology workplace organisation favoured by the MUA that is still in place at manned terminals around Australia. VICT’s technology and Safe Working Method Statements allows the safe operation of cranes without dedicated supervisors.
• In addition the MUA has imposed an indefinite ban on overtime, various restrictions on communications phone use and bans on interaction with anyone outside Australia.      

At this point VICT operations are assessing options and will inform terminal users of implications for shipping and truck movements shortly.
 

end

 
Contact:
GRACosway
Tim Duncan
M:  +61 (0) 408 441 122
 
Nick Howe
M: +61 (0) 407 183 221
 
About Victoria International Container Terminal Limited (VICT)
VICT was established through a Victorian Government tender to introduce greater competition to the Port of Melbourne, with the winner of the tender, ICTSI, delivering more than $1.3 billion in investment since 2016. The fully automated terminal at Webb Dock won the 2018 Australian Engineering Excellence Award in the infrastructure category and can achieve the loading of a shipping container onto a truck within 35 minutes of the truck entering the terminal, without any people operating the machines from within.
 
VICT is a fully automated container terminal, located at Webb Dock East, in the Port of Melbourne. It delivers a leading global standard in modern container terminal design, innovation and operations. In addition, VICT is the best placed terminal to service the next generation of larger vessels due to its unique location outside the West Gate Bridge.
 
VICT is owned by International Container Terminal Services, Incorporated (ICTSI), a global container terminal operator headquartered in Manila, Philippines with a portfolio of 32 terminals throughout 19 countries, across 6 continents. VICT works with 162 employees with the intention of providing 18 new permanent roles in 2021.
 
In 2021, VICT is expected to commence construction work on a AUD $227 million expansion project that will increase operational capacity by 50%. This investment is in addition to the total audited non-current asset investment of AUD $1.36 billion invested between 2016 and 2019.
 
VICT has incurred significant losses of AUD $296 million since operations started in 2017 through to 2019, and continued threats of unnecessary industrial action will put the project, employment creation opportunities, and the financial viability of VICT and its stakeholders at risk.


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