The future of energy generation and storage

[SirRumpole]

There is no doubt in my mind......The CFMEU are behind it.....If they go on strike over a pay deal, the CFMEU could be heavily fined so they have resorted to a newfound tactic of sickness and requests for workers to work overtime who have been advised by the CFMEU not to answer their phones.

The CFMEU are making the company pay a heavy price to get what they want.

If the CFMEU are as bad as you say they are, and I have no evidence either way, the the Federal government should move to de-register them.

We can do without militant unions in this day and age.

 

[overhang]

Maybe the Loy Yang workers need to read up on a bit of history, like the U.K coal miners strikes.
They have knocked back a 20% pay rise over 4 years, what are they thinking of?

My understanding is that AGL wanted to change many of the conditions under the existing EBA in return for that 20% pay rise over 4 years. They wanted to change minimum staffing levels as well as the prohibited compulsory redundancies that existed under the current EBA. And requests had a lot of merit as Fair Work agreed to throw out the existing EBA to revert to the award wages and conditions for the power sector.

Under the agreement, which the Fair Work Commission has now agreed to terminate, workers at Loy Yang were being paid between $70,000 and $180,000 a year on average.

It told the commission it wanted to drastically reduce its overtime bill from $20 million to $10 million claiming 10 workers pocketed more than $100,000 a year in overtime alone.

http://www.theage.com.au/business/w...ssive-pay-cut-to-workers-20170112-gtqk4y.html

It really is wrong that we have workers in these unionised industries so overpaid and then you have young Bakers Delight workers still getting paid under award wages because they're still on Howards work choices EBA.

 

[Tisme]

My understanding is that AGL wanted to change many of the conditions under the existing EBA in return for that 20% pay rise over 4 years.

It told the commission it wanted to drastically reduce its overtime bill from $20 million to $10 million claiming 10 workers pocketed more than $100,000 a year in overtime alone.

Why would workers be so valuable they have to work the extreme hours?

If you have ever tried to deal with AGL in trying to break an unapproved supply connection contract, you would know they aren't a victim organisation, deserving of pity.

 

[overhang]

Why would workers be so valuable they have to work the extreme hours?

If you have ever tried to deal with AGL in trying to break an unapproved supply connection contract, you would know they aren't a victim organisation, deserving of pity.

I would love to know how many hours they're contracted to before they must be paid overtime. With an overtime bill that high I'm not sure why AGL haven't put more workers on, at $20 million they could employ about 110 workers on that $180k annual income level.

I don't pity AGL but I pity the public who has rising energy bills for many reasons including high wage costs , I pity the workforce who are too naive to realize that coal power stations are shutting down at a rapid rate and if they don't work together to lower the overheads that they will be next. Now admittedly they have caught a break because AGL have been fortunate enough that they can name their price given the shutdown of Hazelwood. I imagine this Fair Work application was before the company was aware Hazelwood was shutting down so soon.

 

[noco]

If the CFMEU are as bad as you say they are, and I have no evidence either way, the the Federal government should move to de-register them.

We can do without militant unions in this day and age.

Turnbull, does not have the gutz to deregister the CFMEU for fear of a back lash at the ballot box.

If the disruption at Loy Yang power station continues and the cost of producing power becomes nonviable, something has to give.......The company either passes on those costs to the consumers or shuts the power station down.

I am not sure whether those workers are over paid or not but they all seem to be doing very well.

 

[Smurf1976]

Why would workers be so valuable they have to work the extreme hours?

There's really only two reasons why you need technical workers to work massive hours.

1. You didn't employ enough of them to start with. Or more commonly, management sacks the workers and then realises that they have skills which can't be simply bought "off the street" and then ends up having to pay for serious amounts of overtime.

2. There's some sort of crisis affecting the operation which requires a big effort to overcome. Something broke down usually.

Personally I've been there, done that with working "extreme" hours. But then we had a crisis and for the record nobody actually claimed payment for all the hours worked, just a reasonable amount. But then we don't have management taking a hard line either so it comes down to "give and take" which works pretty well.

 

[explod]

Turnbull, does not have the gutz to deregister the CFMEU for fear of a back lash at the ballot box.

If the disruption at Loy Yang power station continues and the cost of producing power becomes nonviable, something has to give.......The company either passes on those costs to the consumers or shuts the power station down.

I am not sure whether those workers are over paid or not but they all seem to be doing very well.

Seem to be doing well you say, care to clarify that?

 

[sptrawler]

Why would workers be so valuable they have to work the extreme hours?

If you have ever tried to deal with AGL in trying to break an unapproved supply connection contract, you would know they aren't a victim organisation, deserving of pity.

You obviously have no idea of the complexities of running a thermal power station.
We had a similar situation in W.A a few years ago, management said we will just employ more.
They ended up having to import 5 from South Africa.lol

 

[noco]

Seem to be doing well you say, care to clarify that?

They must be if they are earning $100,000 to $180,000 .

 

[explod]

Dont think your commo's on the floor would be getting half that. Anyway time to move on, China is:-


"China's energy regulator has ordered 11 provinces to stop more than 100 coal-fired power projects, with a combined installed capacity of more than 100 gigawatts, its latest dramatic step to curb the use of fossil fuels in the world's top energy market.

In a document issued on Jan. 14, financial media group Caixin reported, the National Energy Administration (NEA) suspended the coal projects, some of which were already under construction"

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-coal-idUSKBN151090

 

[noco]

The Industrial Umpire is awake to the CFMEU tactics as are many people.


http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/vi...g/news-story/54c27c89f0deb4783f5c663d797ccb76

 

[Smurf1976]

You obviously have no idea of the complexities of running a thermal power station.
We had a similar situation in W.A a few years ago, management said we will just employ more.
They ended up having to import 5 from South Africa.lol

Workers as such there are plenty of.

Workers with these sorts of skills and who are worth employing are pretty rare however.

One problem we've got in Australia is a broad culture that could be described as "we learn from out mistakes and move on....". That's incredibly common but as I'm sure sptrawler is well aware, power stations are an extremely unforgiving environment and not a place for making mistakes. Actual competence is required, not trial and error, and the old "you pass or you FAIL" is a far more relevant approach than "every child gets a prize" type thinking.

So that rules out much of the potential workforce. They're also not a good place for anyone who isn't good at becoming an expert on what they're working with and its real world characteristics or who can't stand the constant unchanging drone of machinery. Also need a mindset that does things properly and isn't into "shortcuts" as those tend to end badly.

So that does narrow down the potential workforce quite a bit.

 

[Tisme]

You obviously have no idea of the complexities of running a thermal power station.
We had a similar situation in W.A a few years ago, management said we will just employ more.
They ended up having to import 5 from South Africa.lol

There you go, it must be pretty complex if they had to import "Afrikaners?". I'm guessing it was a merit based mass appointment?

 

[Tisme]

Workers as such there are plenty of.

Workers with these sorts of skills and who are worth employing are pretty rare however.

One problem we've got in Australia is a broad culture that could be described as "we learn from out mistakes and move on....". That's incredibly common but as I'm sure sptrawler is well aware, power stations are an extremely unforgiving environment and not a place for making mistakes. Actual competence is required, not trial and error, and the old "you pass or you FAIL" is a far more relevant approach than "every child gets a prize" type thinking.

So that rules out much of the potential workforce. They're also not a good place for anyone who isn't good at becoming an expert on what they're working with and its real world characteristics or who can't stand the constant unchanging drone of machinery. Also need a mindset that does things properly and isn't into "shortcuts" as those tend to end badly.

So that does narrow down the potential workforce quite a bit.

I think sptrawler's post was tongue firmly in cheek, but your reply was worthwhile nonetheless.

 

[Tisme]

The Industrial Umpire is awake to the CFMEU tactics as are many people.


http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/vi...g/news-story/54c27c89f0deb4783f5c663d797ccb76

There will come a time when an educated population will question or just dismiss the labour cost blame for price of goods and services which is actually driven by profiteering, compliance costs and top heavy administration.

All a bit of a yawn these days, reading media that is trying to maintain the rage against the working class... the same working class that forced equality of gender, universal suffrage, etc ... all the things that allow shallow IQ'd journalists and their families to have an opinion and voice it, unlike a little over 100 years ago.

 

[SirRumpole]

Workers with these sorts of skills and who are worth employing are pretty rare however.

I guess there could be all sorts of reasons for that, but I would put forward privatisation in general and the withdrawal of governments from trade training schemes and apprenticeships.

Private employers are much more likely simply to import workers that have already been trained elsewhere, and our governments are not really interested if their qualifications stack up to requirements.

Maybe it's not good always harking back to 'the old days' but there seemed to be a better realisation then that skills development locally led to a better end product service. You can see this in many industries, we used to be able to service jet aircraft here now it's mainly done OS, apart from the military.

Imo there has been a negligent "not our problem" mindset from many governments over the years.

 

[noco]

I guess there could be all sorts of reasons for that, but I would put forward privatisation in general and the withdrawal of governments from trade training schemes and apprenticeships.

Private employers are much more likely simply to import workers that have already been trained elsewhere, and our governments are not really interested if their qualifications stack up to requirements.

Maybe it's not good always harking back to 'the old days' but there seemed to be a better realisation then that skills development locally led to a better end product service. You can see this in many industries, we used to be able to service jet aircraft here now it's mainly done OS, apart from the military.

Imo there has been a negligent "not our problem" mindset from many governments over the years.

So why are they sending aircraft over seas to get serviced?

 

[explod]

So why are they sending aircraft over seas to get serviced?

To cut costs of course, and in laying off workers to cut costs there is less local money back in the community and so less business and less trips. So we are cutting off our noses and taking everything to the cheapest denominator so that eventually the few rich will have it all and the rest of us may as well lay down and die. You are going to win noco, but what will the prize be????

 

[noco]

To cut costs of course, and in laying off workers to cut costs there is less local money back in the community and so less business and less trips. So we are cutting off our noses and taking everything to the cheapest denominator so that eventually the few rich will have it all and the rest of us may as well lay down and die. You are going to win noco, but what will the prize be????

So they want to cut costs?...If the aircraft were serviced here by one company and the others OS, how long would the former company last in a competitive world?

 

[Smurf1976]

There will come a time when an educated population will question or just dismiss the labour cost blame for price of goods and services which is actually driven by profiteering, compliance costs and top heavy administration.

I'll quote the words of a supervisor working for a large (ASX listed) contracting company.

"The private sector today has more red tape and bureaucracy than the public service did 20 years ago. Can't get anything done without some form of red tape and we end up spending more time on that than doing the actual work, hence why costs have gone up so much. I hate to imagine what it's like in the public service now but presumably that's even worse".

Or words to that effect.

He's hit the nail on the head there. Comparing now to 20 years ago, which isn't that long really, an entire new industry has sprung up which affects basically everything. Compliance.

Related to that is that no CEO or senior manager in their right mind is going to take even the slightest risk, which could well cost them personally if it goes wrong, when removing that risk isn't costing them personally. It's the old "other people's money" problem.

I'm not against WHS (formerly known as OH&S - that's safety in layman's terms) by any means indeed I'm strongly in favour of it. But we've reached the point where certainly some do see that the best way to manage risk is to remove it altogether. In other words, become purely an administrative operation and pay someone else big $ to take on the risk.

That ends with things like having a worker who used to do the actual work now administering some contractor who does that work. And the contractor themselves will have an assortment of overheads and administrative costs which they add on to the cost of the work. Plus profit of course. End result is that everything costs a fortune.

It happens in just about every industry involving physical work to some extent but the power industry isn't too far down that track actually, at least not down here. Think of things done directly by government and funded by taxes if you want to know what has gone a very long way down that track.