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The CFMEU must allow employees not involved in industrial action onto the Yallourn site to do their jobs, following the union’s announcement it would establish a protest camp outside the power station.
Group Executive Manager, Operations and Construction, Michael Hutchinson, said EnergyAustralia was doing everything it could to continue to support jobs at Yallourn through the current industrial action, returning to service two units following an incident on Friday that caused the units to go offline.
“Through the extraordinary efforts of qualified EnergyAustralia employees we have been able to stabilise the generating plant at Yallourn and safely bring two units back on line,” Mr Hutchinson said.
“These efforts are critical to ensuring we can continue to support the other 425 jobs at the Yallourn Power Station.”
Mr Hutchinson said the CFMEU must not prevent other employees from entering the Yallourn site to do their jobs for the duration of the dispute.
“We have two units up and have arrangements in place to work around flooding at the site so coal can continue to be mined and transported,” he said.
“If workers at Yallourn were unable to access the site or we did not have the support of other qualified EnergyAustralia employees, we would be unable to run any units at Yallourn.
“This would mean standing down the majority of the workers at site.
“It is our strong preference to keep running at least two units at Yallourn while we continue to seek to resolve the EBA for the Yallourn operators and maintenance employees.”