The bans will not affect Aurora’s operations during normal business hours ,but there could be delays in the restoration of power supplies to customers affected by a major after hours fault.
Ted Bradshaw, Aurora’s general manager for people and culture, said that safety of customers and employees would remain the company’s top priority.
Mr Bradshaw said: We are hopeful that in normal events, our operations will continue to run smoothly despite the industrial bans the Electrical Trades Union (ETU) is putting in place. We have small response teams rostered to attend after hours faults and emergencies. However, the ETU is refusing to make additional crews available to assist in the power restoration effort if there is a large incident requiring back-up resources.
Mr Bradshaw called on the ETU to drop the industrial bans so that negotiations could continue in good faith. He said Aurora had put forward a fair and reasonable package to employees for a 14% pay rise over the next three years and a range of additional benefits, including an increase in parental leave from 12 to 15 weeks.
