Pickets are currently being held to support 100 stevedores & maintenance workers in Sydney and Brisbane who were sent a text by their employer Hutchison Ports last midnight to immediately check emails saying they were sacked.
The Maritime Union of Australia has lodged a injunction in the Federal Court and are holding pickets to support the workers. You can read more about the developing situation here: http://ab.co/1MeoVdg
Union pickets are taking place here:
SYDNEY: Gate B150 Sirius Rd, Port Botany.
BRISBANE: Berth 11, Curlew St, Fisherman's Island
With yesterday’s jobs figures showing that for the first time in twenty years there are more than 800,000 unemployed Australians, Prime Minister Tony Abbott cannot sit back as job losses mount.
It's time for Tony Abbott to show some leadership and call out this disgraceful behaviour from Hutchison Ports.
We stand in solidarity with these workers.
The Maritime Union of Australia has lodged a injunction in the Federal Court and are holding pickets to support the workers. You can read more about the developing situation here: http://ab.co/1MeoVdg
Union pickets are taking place here:
SYDNEY: Gate B150 Sirius Rd, Port Botany.
BRISBANE: Berth 11, Curlew St, Fisherman's Island
With yesterday’s jobs figures showing that for the first time in twenty years there are more than 800,000 unemployed Australians, Prime Minister Tony Abbott cannot sit back as job losses mount.
It's time for Tony Abbott to show some leadership and call out this disgraceful behaviour from Hutchison Ports.
We stand in solidarity with these workers.
Hutchison Ports Australia has laid off dozens of workers via text message.
Brisbane port workers woke Friday morning to discover they had been sacked overnight, with Hutchison Ports Australia alerting them to the news via text message.
Hutchison Ports Australia, which operates as Brisbane Container Terminals in Queensland, sent out a message to more than 40 workers just before midnight, stating the worker had been sacked and there would be "no redeployment opportunities".
"You are not required for your allocated shift, please disregard your most recent work orders, you are not required on shift until further notice," the text message sent to 41 Brisbane workers said.
It pointed affected staff to an email which went into further detail.
"The intended last day of your employment will be Friday 14 August 2015," the email read.
"I realise that this is a lot of information to take in. Accordingly you are will (sic) not be required to attend work effective immediately.
"We will of course pay you your normal salary to your last date of employment."
The Maritime Union of Australia has rejected claims from the company that a lack of competitiveness is driving it to reduce its Australian workforce.
Nearly 100 workers were sacked in a similar fashion overnight, nationwide.
Maritime Union of Australia Queensland state secretary Bob Carnegie said he believed the company was attempting to de-unionise the ports and the remaining workers in Brisbane were staging a "sit-down occupation" in protest of the sackings.
Mr Carnegie said Hutchison had sacked the union's senior delegates with plans to move towards an automated workforce.
"We are prepared to fight these people," he said.
"There will be nothing moving in the terminal and nothing will move in the terminal until they sit down and talk to us."
The union is attempting to seek a Federal Court injunction against the sackings.
Hutchison Ports Australia has been contacted for comment.
Port workers form picket line at Port Botany after almost 100 employees sacked by email
Updated
Dozens of port workers have formed a picket line at a wharf at Port Botany in Sydney after 97 workers from Sydney and Brisbane were sent text messages telling them not to turn up for their shifts, and to check their emails.
The emails, sent by Hutchison Ports, said their positions had been made redundant, there were no re-deployment opportunities and their personal belongings would be couriered to them.
Workers still rostered to work on Friday joined their sacked colleagues on a picket line outside the terminal in Port Botany.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten offered his support and visited the angry workers on the picket line outside the Hutchison Ports terminal.
The Hutchison gates are being blocked by hired security guards and trucks are having to turn away instead of delivering their containers.
An altercation flared after a security guard apparently told a sacked worker he could not enter and that his gear would be cleared from his locker and sent to him.
Extra police intervened to keep the security guards and picketers away from each other while border security officers kept a watchful eye.
Crane driver team leader Craig Hancock said he was yet to tell his family he had been sacked.
"I've got three kids and a wife and a mortgage," he said.
"I don't know what we're going to do, like everybody, very sad."
Shift leader Paul Wallington has been in the industry for 18 years and said it was devastating to receive the text message and email last night.
"It's looking bleak at the moment...my wife's upset, my kids are upset...it's going to be tough," Mr Wallington said.
"Today's the first day and I don't think it's going to get any better unfortunately."
The maritime union said the 97 employees - 40 in Brisbane and 57 in Sydney - were sacked by an email sent at midnight.
In the email, the company blamed the redundancies on a number of issues including the downsizing of its offerings to Australian customers.
New South Wales assistant branch secretary Paul Garrett said the union rejected that claim.
"It's clear that the company's got a move to automate and this is just one of the steps along the way to automating but there shouldn't be any automation without negotiation and they certainly should enter into meaningful discussion with the workers and their union, not just sack them at midnight," he said.
Holly Mathewson, a stevedore, said she was the first female employed by the company.
"[I'm] shattered. My dad works here, my sister works here, we're all gone," she said.
"I was proud to be a female on the wharves and it just destroyed it.
"I've been here since it was dirt, helped build the place and this is what they do."
Martin O'Daly a maintenance shift leader, said he has a wife, a mortgage and had just bought a new car.
"I got the email turned over and spoke to my wife at 3 o'clock this morning, first thing she done was burst into tears crying," he said.
"If this company today get away with this, is this the sort of Australia we want to live in? It's just heart wrenching."
Mr Hancock claimed the company had earlier threatened to close down without notice.
"Bottom line is we bent over backwards, we tried our hardest we're a really good workforce...but they're trying to pick on us all the time," he said.
"They've got nastier and nastier...we don't really know why we've been sacked.
"They started threatening us a while ago about 'we'll close down whenever we like', or 'we'll make you redundant for no reason'... they kept saying stuff like that but we kept battling away.
"Then last night I get an email at 12 o'clock."
Hutchinson Ports has not responded to repeated requests from the ABC for comment.
The Maritime Union of Australia is this afternoon seeking an application for the Fair Work Commission to deal with the dispute.
Meanwhile, the Sydney International Container Terminals and Brisbane Container Terminals is seeking an order that the industrial action be stopped.
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