Industrial action will hit electricity transmission and distribution giant Transgrid on Friday, putting at risk progress on the company’s signature $2.3bn EnergyConnect transmission line build between South Australia and NSW.
Electrical Trades Union members will stop work for an hour at 11am across the company’s portfolio of assets, including EnergyConnect, to pressure the company for more pay.
The ETU alleges 83 per cent of eligible Transgrid employees rejected the company’s proposed enterprise bargaining agreement and union is pushing for a 17 per cent pay rise over the next three years.
“Transgrid is hopelessly out of touch with its workers who are simply seeking a pay rise that helps them keep up with the soaring cost of living,” ETU NSW and ACT secretary Allen Hicks said.
“Transgrid can easily afford to pay its workers properly yet refuses to, despite a massive pipeline of lucrative work.”
Alongside the work stoppage, control room workers will pursue six indefinite work bans.
Mr Hicks has threatened to escalate the strike “if the company doesn’t get its act together.”
A Transgrid spokeswoman told NCA NewsWire the company was committed to providing “fair and reasonable” remuneration and benefits to all of its employees.
“We believe the current enterprise agreement, which includes a 13 per cent rise in wages and superannuation over three years, taking the superannuation to 16.5 per cent, as well as numerous other benefits, is both fair and reasonable,” she said.
The union says it has made “binding safety commitments” that ensure that action will not endanger the public or workers.
“All resources are available to meet emergencies or natural disasters,” the ETU said in a statement.
Transgrid has also said Friday’s industrial action would not impact its ability to effectively operate the network.
Transgrid operates transmission lines, high voltage underground cables, substations, switching stations and digital infrastructure to transfer electricity to more than three million households and businesses across NSW and the ACT.
EnergyConnect will connect power grids in South Australia and NSW and it is expected to feed more renewable energy into the National Energy Market. The Australian Energy Market Operator has deemed the interconnector a “required project” to fortify Australia’s eastern energy market.
But the project has been hit with allegations of serious safety breaches, including claims workers are going without toilets, using unsafe harnesses and are at risk of being hit by falling objects.
Photographs from worksites on the NSW side of the build show sites without “exclusion zones”, designed to protect workers from falling material, a high voltage transmission line tower that is open and easily accessible to the public and safety harnesses without any tags or labels showing inspection dates.
The project is being investigated by SafeWork NSW, the state’s workplace health and safety regulator.
The apparent safety breakdown at EnergyConnect and the strike at Transgrid comes as the federal government moves to underwrite 32GW of new renewable energy generation to hit an ambitious 82 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030.
Negotiations between Transgrid and workers recommence on January 15.