The conciliation comes after months of tension between the energy provider and unions over working agreements that, according to union claims, could see significant job losses around the region. 

The ETU’s Steve Butler spoke with Fairfax Media last week.

“Management has put out an offer to members through a management-initiated ballot. There was no agreement with the unions or the delegates about what’s going out, and that had a number of elements in it that concerned the union and the delegates and, subsequently, members,” he said on Friday.

“Those concerns were opening up the capacity for forced redundancy with unlimited forced redundancy at the end of the agreement – 500 until 2018 and then unlimited after that – the change to the contract for provision to allow more contractors into the organisation, a reduction in consultation requirements and changes to the disputes procedure which took the status quo out of disputes.”

Mr Butler said “the company looked like it was seeking to set up a shell company that had very few employees and simply conducted contract management”. He said, if true, the intention could have a considerable knock-on effect in regional communities across the region.

“What it would mean is that there would be an immediate reduction of about 15 per cent of numbers of employees there, and then over time all the rest could be replaced by contractors,” he said.

“It would mean a change in the way our local economy is structured when you get good-paying jobs moving out of the local economy [with] the knock-on effects for businesses and schools and services when a community starts to lose people.”

He said 2697 eligible Essential Energy employees voted on the proposed agreement last week, with 87 per cent voting to reject it.

“It is certainly, in our view, a clear win for workers in that the company was trying to establish very mean provisions that meant jobs were at great risk. But this doesn’t end the debate,” Mr Butler said.

The matter will go to a court of conciliation this week, before moving to arbitration in which Essential Energy management and unions will present their case and a new agreement will be delivered independently.

“One way or another there will be an end to this, it’s just ultimately what that end provides,” Mr Butler said.

“You will find, most times, it is not all of what one side wants and it is not all of what the other side wants.

“The stress and anxiety it has put workers through in regional NSW is something I have never seen before in my life and for that single purpose alone, it will be good.”