A PLANNED strike at the busy Port of Fremantle appears likely unless there's a breakthrough over the weekend, the operator says.
The Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) has threatened six days of industrial action, starting at 5.30am (WST) on Monday and concluding at the same time on Sunday, December 23.
While Fair Work Australia (FWA) intervened last week in a largely pay-related dispute between the MUA and Fremantle Ports, facilitating a compromise between the parties and preventing threatened industrial action, the union is now concerned about the possibility of the port being privatised.
Fremantle Ports chief executive Chris Leatt-Hayter said it was disappointing that negotiations to date, including on Friday, had not reached a positive conclusion.
"An extended interruption to shipping in Western Australia's capital city port at this busy time of the year would deal a severe blow to importers and exporters, with the community bearing the costs of the significant flow-on effects," Mr Leatt-Hayter said.
"Fremantle Ports will continue to negotiate in the hope of averting the stoppage but if it goes ahead as notified, we will endeavour to minimise the impacts."
The dispute involves more than 130 workers.
Services affected by a strike would include mooring of ships, security, quarantine collection in the inner and outer harbours where these services are provided by Fremantle Ports, and stevedoring operations at the Kwinana Bulk Terminal.
Transport Minister Troy Buswell said the MUA was "unapologetically blackmailing WA retailers and consumers again in the lead-up to Christmas", and dismissed its concerns.
Mr Buswell said privatisation "quite simply isn't going to happen".
"Our ports will remain state-owned ports," he told Fairfax Radio on Friday.
"It is a fact there are some private operators that currently operate in Fremantle Port, some of the stevedoring businesses, and that happens in ports right around the state, but they are still public ports and there is no intention to privatise the Fremantle Port."
The MUA's insistence on a clause in the employment agreement guaranteeing permanency of employment for the life of the agreement was "not something that we will be conceding under any circumstance", Mr Buswell said.
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