Australian port strike to cost $300mln
West Australian port workers striking for a roster comprising four days work followed by six days off will cause more that US$300 million in delays and lost business by the end of the week, Fremantle Ports estimates.
Yesterday, 136 members of the Maritime Union of Australia's WA branch began the first of four days of protected industrial action at Fremantle and Kwinana, south of Perth, blockading the entrance to a bulk terminal and halting the unloading of a ship containing clinker, reported The Australian.
Fremantle Ports chief executive Chris Leatt-Hayter said an average $3 million in trade passed through the port every hour.
He said the stoppage was extremely worrying because of its direct and flow-on impacts at the industrial hub of Kwinana, which exports grain, and at Fremantle, Australia's fourth-largest container port.
The workers currently have 12-hour shifts and are rostered four days on, four days off.
