ESCALATION of an industry dispute on Australian ports is already affecting red meat exports, contacts in the logistics sector have told Beef Central.

A dispute between the Maritime Union of Australia and stevedore DP World that started in the Port of Melbourne last year, is now affecting other ports where DP World operates, including Port of Brisbane, Sydney and Fremantle.

Port of Brisbane is easily Australia’s largest departure-point for chilled and frozen beef exports, accounting for almost 70pc of overseas trade last year.

DP World is one of the largest container freight service providers operating out of Australia, responsible for around 40pc of all incoming and outgoing trade movement, sources said.

The dispute, which started at Port of Melbourne in October, has gradually intensified and spread to other ports. Melbourne attracted most of the initial media attention, because it is the biggest import arrivals port for Australia.

The current DP World dispute is already the largest waterside disruption since the infamous Patricks Stevedoring event in 1997-98, which paralysed agricultural and other exports for months.

The Howard Coalition Government, with the support of the National Farmers Federation and others, eventually succeeded in reducing manning levels and employment costs in Australian ports. Despite that, Australian ports remain some of the more inefficient in the world, on a container movements per hour basis.

Since the Patricks dispute, there have been waterside EBA negotiations leading to go-slow actions, but nothing like the current action, Beef Central was told by a logistics manager working in chilled and frozen red meat exports.

The current dispute centres on the renewal of DP World’s Enterprise Bargaining Agreement with waterside workers. Other stevedores including Patrick and Hutchinsons are not affected, as their EBAs are not due for renegotiation for some time.

The MUA claims to be asking for a 16 percent pay increase over two years. DP World has said the union is after 27pc, claiming MUA’s request includes back play, termed a sign-on fee, from the expiry of the previous EBA last year.

The union’s protected industrial action has seen various stoppages and disruptions including container terminals being shut down on certain days. Certain shipping companies have apparently been targeted, for maximum effect.

Stevedores at DP World returned to work on Monday after stop-works on Friday. Terminals in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Fremantle are exposed to two-hour work stoppages this week and a 24-hour ban on loading and unloading trucks and trains at all ports on Friday.

DP World has estimated the protected action is already costing the nation more than $80 million a week. Thousands of containers have now been delayed across Australia as a result of the action.

Trade impacts being seen

A logistics manager working in red meat exports told Beef Central that like all disputes of this type, the longer it goes on, the greater the likely impact.

“It’s been happening behind the scenes for some time now, but has come to people’s attention more recently because of interest from mainstream media,” he said.

While there was not yet any signs of boxed beef building up in cold storage near the Port of Brisbane as a result of the union actions, the process of getting loaded containers onto ships was definitely being impacted, he said.

Some shipping lines had cancelled certain vessels’ loading visits to Brisbane, if they were likely to coincide with scheduled periods of industrial action.

Delivery times for some containers to Asian and North American ports were also being affected, the trade source said.

“It doesn’t matter whether it’s beef, sheepmeat or goatmeat, whatever we are trying to move out of Australia at the moment is going to be affected,” he said.

“It’s creating a lot of angst amongst shippers, and some overseas beef customers are keeping a very close eye on developments.

Slow progress

Roundtable discussions involving the MUA and DP World in December, and again last week, failed to make progress over the dispute.

Federal industrial relations minister Tony Burke will meet with DP World tomorrow, as the Government takes its first steps to progress a resolution.

DP World, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and importers/exporters have called for either the Federal or State governments to engage the Fair Work Commission for mandatory arbitration, but this has not yet taken place.

The Australian yesterday reported that the escalating ports dispute put front and centre the conflict between a union-backed Labor government that wanted to support workers’ rights, and the productivity of Australia as the cost-of-living crisis escalates.

The Prime Minister’s office on Monday said the two parties needed to work together.

“The government will continue to closely monitor the impact of the dispute and urges the parties to increase their efforts to reach a negotiated outcome,” a spokeswoman from the Prime Minister’s office told The Australian on Monday.

Adding to recent workplace problems, DP World Australia was hit with a serious cyber-security incident in November last year, impacting stevedoring activities for a period.