Fair Work Australia upholds workers’ rights to appoint MUA representative

Fair Work Australia has ruled that the Fair Work Act does not stop a Maritime Union of Australia official from representing a group of workers outside his union's traditional area of coverage.

William Tracey, an official of the Maritime Union of Australia in Western Australia, has won the right to be the bargaining representative for a group of oil and gas employees, despite the group's work falling outside MUA's purview.

Industrial relations lawyers say Tracey's decision to represent the workers as a private individual, rather than an MUA official, was key to the ruling, as well as the group's decision to seek him out rather than vice versa.

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