Attempts to overturn desal pay bonanza fail
The Age
Monday March 29, 2010
ATTEMPTS to derail the "sweetheart" desalination wage deal have failed, with Fair Work Australia rejecting a bid to reverse its decision covering Victoria's biggest infrastructure project.The decision by the workplace tribunal comes as it has approved a swag of other contractor agreements on the project that have locked in similar or identical conditions and wages to the main agreement involving five unions and Thiess Degremont.The Age reported last week that builder and designer Thiess Degremont will pay building workers as much as $150 million above industry standards in its bid to meet the deadline for water to flow from the plant by the end of next year.Thiess Degremont refused to comment on the issue, while the government has claimed it will not "pay an extra cent" from the agreement as it has a fixed price contract. Leighton Holdings boss Wal King, owner of Thiess, has also declined to comment.But Fair Work Australia, in a full bench decision published last week, said two opponents of the agreement did not have the right to appeal the decision after the tribunal had approved it in January.The requirement that a party be "aggrieved" in order to appeal depended on more than "general opposition by concerned members of the public", the tribunal found.President of the anti-desalination group Watershed Victoria, Stephen Cannon, who tried to appeal the decision, said the agreement was not in the public interest as it would drive up water bills and affect other public projects."When the public purse is rorted by sweetheart deals like this, others in the public sector and beyond are affected, others relying on public funding receive lower wages, and other services relying on public funding suffer," his submission said.Institute of Public Affairs productivity and employment unit director, John Pesutto, said the wage agreements at the project would drive up costs.
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