ENTERPRISE AGREEMENTS – dispute about matter arising under agreement – ss.533, 739 Fair Work Act 2009 – two applications – application to deal with a dispute in accordance with the Offshore Marine Services P/L Integrated Ratings, Cooks, Caterers and Seafarers (Offshore Oil and Gas) Enterprise Agreement 2010 (SKO Agreement) – application for an order pursuant to s.532(1) of FW Act – respondent in both applications was Skilled Offshore (Australia) P/L (SKO) – SKO provides marine labour services to vessels – SKO was a subsidiary of SKILLED Group Limited – on 16 October 2015 Programmed Maintenance Services Limited acquired all the shares of SKILLED Group Limited – SKO is now trading as Programmed Marine – Programmed Marine P/L (PM) is a subsidiary of Programmed Maintenance Services Limited – PM also trades as Programme Marine – While SKO and PM are discrete and separate legal entities, both trade as Programmed Marine – on 11 February 2016, the General Manager Employee Relations (GMER), sent an email to the MUA advising that ‘Programmed Marine’ would need to make a number of employees in the offshore oil and gas industry redundant – MUA invited to a meeting pursuant to subclause 11.2 of the ‘agreements’ – reasonable to infer that the GMER, when referring to agreements, was referring to both the SKO Agreement and the Total Marine Services P/L Integrated Ratings, Cooks, Caterers and Seafarers (Offshore Oil and Gas) Enterprise Agreement 2010 – Executive General Manager Operations (EGMO) issued a memorandum on 17 February 2016 to all permanent employees that ‘Programmed Marine’ must implement redundancies – on 4 March 2016, EGMO forwarded to employees an email with respect to voluntary redundancies ‘across our offshore business’ – meeting between MUA and Executive General Manager – Programmed Marine (EGM-PM) on 23 May 2016 – MUA submitted that Skilled Offshore was going to make 100% of its employees involuntarily redundant, and that this meeting was the first time that Programmed Marine and SKO had been treated as separate groups – MUA further submitted this was the first time that the MUA was advised that a decision had been made to implement involuntary redundancies – whether redundancies considered major change under clause 55.2 of the SKO Agreement – EGM-PM stated that SKO had complied with its obligations pursuant to the SKO Agreement – MUA in dispute with SKO (and PM) as a consequence of neither SKO nor PM assessing current SKO employees for redundancy together with current PM employees and the failure of SKO (and PM) to consider and transfer employees from SKO to PM – Commission held SKO applied the provisions of subclause 11.2 of the SKO Agreement, to effect the redundancies notwithstanding the MUA’s request for an alternative formula to apply – did not accept that the MUA’s assertion that EGM-PM’s letter of 25 May 2016, regarding the process of redundancies, was a major change – SKO did not make a ‘decision to introduce major change’ pursuant to subclause 55.1 of the SKO Agreement – clear that SKO and the MUA have divergent views on the process of making a number of employees redundant – however, clause 55 of the SKO Agreement provides for consultation and not co-management of the circumstances – satisfied the MUA was notified of the redundancies – satisfied the MUA has been given and has put measures to SKO, to avert or minimise the involuntary redundancies and any adverse effects of those redundancies – both applications dismissed. Maritime Union of Australia v Skilled Offshore (Australia) P/L
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