Speaking out: Woodside's Don Voelte
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- 'Pluto resolution in sight'
- Pluto strikers go back to work
- Woodside sues over Pluto strike
- Strike action hits Australia projects
- Barnett urges Pluto workers to end strike
- Pluto faces second strike
- Pluto workers vote to extend strike
- Workers dig in as Pluto strike carries on
Pluto strike 'a test of labour laws'
Woodside Petroleum chief executive Don Voelte shrugged off a series of strikes at the company's Pluto liquefied natural gas project, saying they were aimed at "testing new industrial relations laws".
Workers at the A$12 billion (US$10.4 billion) project downed tools for eight days last month after objecting to a new employee accommodation scheme known as motelling being introduced at the LNG development's onshore site.
Under the scheme, workers are moved to a different self-contained unit, or donga, whenever they are flown in under the fly-in fly-out roster system.
The Construction, Forestry, Mining & Energy Union (CFMEU) has said workers protested because they wanted a sense of permanency at the camp, in Western Australia's remote Pilbara region.
But Woodside said the arrangements allowed it to make optimum use of the A$280 million Gap Ridge accommodation camp.
"To keep a quarter of those accommodations empty is a huge cost for us," Voelte told the Australian Associated Press.
"I didn't think the workers were striking against Woodside. I think they were basically just testing the new [industrial relations] laws and seeing ... what the boundaries were.
"I'm not too overly concerned about it," he added.
Voelte said motelling avoided expanding the camp, and therefore increasing its environmental footprint, and was considered world's best practice.
The AAP said that the CFMEU was not immediately available for comment.