INDUSTRIAL ACTION – termination of protected industrial action – s.424 Fair Work Act 2009 – two applications made by the Minister for Industrial Relations for the State of Victoria (the Minister) that orders be made terminating protected industrial action notified by The Australian Workers’ Union, the Communications, Electrical, Electronic, Energy, Information, Postal, Plumbing and Allied Services Union of Australia and the “Automotive, Food, Metals, Engineering, Printing and Kindred Industries Union” known as the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU) (the Unions) against Esso Australia P/L (Esso) – industrial action notified by the Unions related to employees who would be covered by the proposed enterprise agreements to replace the Esso Gippsland (Longford and Long Island Point) Enterprise Agreement 2011 (the Gippsland Agreement) and the Esso Offshore Enterprise Agreement 2011 (the Offshore Agreement) – parties have been negotiating for over two years – intention was to take industrial action in the form of 24 consecutive one hour stoppages on the performance of all work by the employees commencing at 6:00am on 9 December 2016, and repeated from 6:00am on each day thereafter, until 6:00am on 1 March 2017 – applications were brought on the basis that the industrial action has threatened, is threatening, or would threaten to endanger the welfare of the population or a part of it and cause significant damage to the Australian economy or an important part of it – Commission satisfied that protected industrial action as described in the Notices was threatened, impending and probable – found industrial action would immediately threaten gas supply to each of the regions and industries currently supplied with gas through the Esso production facility – inevitable that that the protected industrial action threatened to endanger the welfare of the population in various regions of South East Australia – no doubt that the industrial action would cause significant damage to the Victorian economy and additional damage to other parts of South East Australia – termination of the protected industrial action will move the negotiating parties from the extended impasse in their negotiations to an alternative path of conciliation and arbitration – Commission decided to terminate the protected industrial action. Minister for Industrial Relations for the State of Victoria v Australian Workers’ Union, The and Ors
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