Ninety-eight percent of workers at the Gladstone power station have rejected a draft enterprise agreement put on the table by management. The power station, Queensland’s largest, is operated by NRG Energy, a US-based energy giant. Since the plant was privatised by the Goss Labor government in 1994, NRG has shared ownership with a group of companies including Rio Tinto.

Plant management is trying to void all the conditions in the special award that has covered the power station since privatisation. In asserting its “right to manage”, NRG wants its fully unionised workforce to accept increased casualisation, a two-tier pay and redundancy structure and reduced consultation about changes to employment.

“Like chalk and cheese” is how Craig Giddens, ETU central Queensland organiser, described the difference between conditions in the current agreement and the new arrangements proposed by management. “Workers who have spent time ‘on the grass’ are devastated that the conditions they’ve fought hard for are being stripped away”, he told Red Flag.

Since the release of the company’s proposed agreement in late April, the five unions covering the workforce have organised three successful morning protests. The actions have received welcome support from the community.

In a move designed to pressure the workforce to succumb, on 26 May NRG applied to the Fair Work Commission for an order terminating the existing workplace agreement. Workers are now voting to authorise protected industrial action in response.