FIFO bunk-sharing row
Hundreds of angry Gorgon workers have turned on their colleagues, calling them "scabs" for agreeing to share rooms and bunk beds at the $52 billion Barrow Island gas project.
Workers are now being offered an extra $125 a day to share a bunk bed with someone on an opposite shift, with one assigned the room to sleep while the other is at work.
The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union fears resources giants will eventually force the so-called double-bunking arrangement on all workers without any compensation, claiming it is already under consideration at a number of sites.
Hundreds of workers staged a campsite meeting over the growing practice, accusing their colleagues of selling out hard-won workplace conditions for their own financial gain.
Some workers have been targeted on social media with accusations that they are scabs, a derogatory name for strike-breakers and others who act against the workforce.
AMWU secretary Steve McCartney said fly-in, fly-out workers started losing hard-won conditions in 2010 when "motelling" was introduced at Woodside's Pluto site, forcing workers to change dongas at the start of every swing.
"Motelling started this slippery slope and we don't know where it will end," he said. "Multinationals will stop at nothing in their pursuit of extra profits."
Mr McCartney would not rule out industrial action if the practice was forced on workers.
One Gorgon worker has hit back at union anger, writing on Facebook site Jobs in Mining that those who had opted to share dongas were doing so out of financial necessity. "Some of us 'scabs' lost cars, houses and had our families go hungry, standing on picket lines, for you little p.…s to have far more than you will ever realise," the worker wrote.
A spokesman for major Gorgon joint venture partner Chevron said the arrangement was necessary because of a shortage of beds during its peak construction period.
"A proportion of rooms at the project's camp are being converted to dual occupancy, with these rooms being occupied by two people on opposite shifts," he said.
The worker unrest at Gorgon comes as a High Court effectively makes it easier for workers in the resources industry to strike by allowing them to maintain their campsite accommodation when they stage industrial action.
The court yesterday overturned a decision allowing employers to turf out striking workers from their dongas, after an incident at the Pluto project during a 2010 strike over motelling.
