News 
 National News 
 National 
 General 
 Electricity workers warn of more strikes 

Electricity workers warn of more strikes

22/05/2008 3:50:26 PM
Queensland electricity workers are set to hold another 24-hour strike after a break down in wage negotiations between unions and Energex.Electrical Trades Union (ETU) representatives today walked out of a meeting with the energy provider, frustrated they could not reach agreement on an expiry date for a new enterprise agreement.The union has been negotiating new enterprise bargaining agreements with Energex and its regional counterpart Ergon, as well as Powerlink, all of which are owned by the Queensland government, for more than 12 months."The frustrating thing is the government telling the press and everyone that they just want further negotiations to finish this off, whereas the government are telling Energex, Ergon and Powerlink not to negotiate," ETU assistant secretary Peter Simpson said."It's getting to the hypocritical stage and we've just had a gutful of it."The ETU will meet with Energex again in a fortnight, however, the union has scheduled a meeting of its members for May 27 to discuss further industrial action.Workers launched a 24-hour rolling strike across the state last Wednesday in protest against the stalled negotiations, with about 600 workers marching on parliament house in Brisbane.They also had implemented overtime bans, resulting in an expected backlog of about 15,000 new power connections by the end of this week, Mr Simpson said."We're looking at another 24-hour stoppage in the not-too-distant future," he said."We'll do that again for sure." AAP
Send to a Friend
Print
Increase Text Size
Decrease Text Size

4/07/2008 | Farewell to the Clouseau of foreign ministers: pompous, slightly ridiculous and self-important.
Penrith Valley Tourism