Productivity of Australian Container Terminals: Some Critical Issues

Abstract

Terminals: a Review which was prepared for the Western Australian Department of Transport and which was completed in April 1996. The Department was concerned at the continuing low levels of stevedoring productivity at Australian container terminals generally - despite an intensive waterfront reform program - and at terminals in the Port of Fremantle more particularly. The conventional wisdom was that low productivity was a function of a number of factors - inadequate infrastructure, poor equipment, bad work practices, poor labour relations; but in our view the central issue was, and remains, the inadequacy of the policy framework erected on Enterprise Based Agreements (EBAs) and set in place under the WIRA arrangements by the end of 1991. The initial Report focused on this issue with specific reference to the EBA framework adopted by P&O Ports; and to the new Productivity Employment Proposal or PEP scheme mooted by the company. Specific reference was also made to the Port of Fremantle where both major stevedoring companies - P&O Ports and Patrick - were operating under EBAs. In 1996 the industry is still some way off an appropriate framework and mechanisms for achieving higher stevedoring productivity - the PEP scheme is still under scrutiny; Patrick, despite a prolonged and often acrimonious debate with its Union counterpart, found it necessary to resort to arbitration to revise its EBA; and the proposed Australian Workplace Agreements of the new coalition Government will enter into law in 1997. Not surprisingly, our research is continuing!