ASU meets with federal govt on power station workers

http://www.asu.asn.au/media/utilities_energy/20111013_power.html Recently, the ASU and ACTU along with other electricity generation unions met with Federal Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency Greg Combet. The purpose of the meeting was to outline ASU and the broad union response to the Federal Government's "Clean Energy Future" package around base load power stations and the introduction of a carbon price in Australia. Targets involving the closure of around 2,000 megawatts of very highly emissions intensive brown coal-fired generation capacity are well known. The package announced by the Government will allow many of the base load stations to pass costs on through the system, however our immediate and medium term concern is around the older base load brown coal stations.
Although the Federal Government has promised to phase these changes in over a number of years starting in 2016 and up to 2020, the ASU is seeking further undertakings to protect affected workers, their careers and to keep the skills in the industry.
Primarily, the ASU, ACTU and other unions are seeking to be involved in consultation throughout the process, from design to implementation through the years. We are seeking guarantees of the following:

• The ASU is seeking support for regional redevelopment programs, that will build new industries and ensure high level skills are maintained
• Offer power station workers the opportunity to transfer to other power stations in the same area, even if owned by other companies
• Government incentives to fast track low emissions power stations in regions where high emissions power stations currently exist
• No forced redundancies
• Redundancies being offered that allow transfers to and from other power stations
• Assistance offered to power stations should be conditional, eg. on acceptance of worker protection programs
• Specific measures for brown coal regions are also being sought

The next step in the process is for the ASU to meet with Ministers Simon Crean and Martin Ferguson who are both responsible for administering parts of the Federal Government's assistance packages in relation to the introduction of the carbon price. There are hundreds of millions of dollars available to safeguard jobs and regions.
We will be seeking undertakings and funding from both Ministers to ensure the introduction of our preferred processes for protecting power station workers. The ASU will make sure our members' voices are heard in all the negotiations.