But deputy president Melanie Binet rejected all of the company’s challenges to unions’ majority support determination.
“Woodside tried every trick their lawyers could think of to frustrate their employees’ desire to bargain for a collective agreement and in the end they only delayed the inevitable,” he said.“This application should not have been so complex, but it stands as a powerful example of how the Alliance will do whatever it takes to represent its members interests.
The Alliance “will now hold Woodside to account on every issue and every bargaining claim until we secure an EBA outcome which satisfy the bargaining claims of the Woodside Platform workforce”.“It’ll be a learning curve for the Woodside HR bosses who have never once had to collectively negotiate with their workforce. In over 30 years …”
It accused the unions of misleading staff into signing by pointing to partisan Facebook posts attacking Woodside managers, such as reposting a photo of a manager posing with an inflated “doll” in a sexually suggestive position .After delaying the case through multiple unsuccessful legal challenges, Woodside argued six months later that the case had gone on so long the petitions were “now stale”.
When Woodside asked staff if they had reversed their support for bargaining, just two out of 127 emailed to say they had changed their minds. Mr Walton said Woodside had filed four applications, two full bench appeals, a stay application, a Federal Court application, and an application for an injunction – “all lost”.