About 30 permanent blue collar jobs at Esperance wharf are likely to disappear after the closure of several mines, according to the Maritime Union of Australia.
MUA assistant secretary for the WA Branch Jeff Cassar said negotiations over redundancies had stalled.
“There is a simple framework around what we are doing and it has been agreed cooperatively and collaboratively between the union and the port authority,” he said.
Mr Cassar said “approximately 30 operational jobs” would be affected, for workers covered by several Enterprise Bargaining Agreements, but he was unable to say how many administrative jobs were in jeopardy.
Arcadium Lithium’s spodumene mine is the third closure to be announced, following earlier statements from iron ore miner Mineral Resources (Yilgarn) and nickel miner FQM (Ravensthorpe) who all ship ore out of Esperance.
Southern Ports chief executive Keith Wilks confirmed the authority was seeking expressions of interest from its own workforce for voluntary redundancies and flexible work arrangements to mitigate the significant trade losses they faced.
“While it is too soon to know how many voluntary redundancies may be offered, it is clear that our labour demand in operations and maintenance will need to reduce in line with our adjusted trade volumes as we prepare for a new trade outlook in 2025,” he said.
“We will continue to work closely with our workforce and union over the coming months to plan a way forward.
“We are continuing to explore new trade opportunities and remain optimistic in the medium to longer term about our capacity to open and support new customers and trade for our regions.”
