Union slams NSW government for “lack of oversight” on renewable jobs

Worker with power drill installing windbreaker on solar panel construction - Downer EDI optimised

Australia’s Electrical Trades Union has taken aim at the New South Wales government this week, with claims that its renewable energy transition is allowing foreign companies to “exploit” casuals workers and to pit “backpacker” workers against local job seekers.

In a media statement issued on Thursday, the ETU’s NSW and ACT Branch said that while the Perrottet government had promised renewable energy projects would provide jobs to replace those being lost as coal plants closed, this had not – so far – proven to be the case.

The ETU used the specific example of the state government-backed New England solar farm and big battery project, in Uralla, the construction of which is being led by the local arm of Spain-based Elecnor, Green Light contractors.

The ETU said that Elecnor was currently advertising for casual electrical trades assistants and electricians to work full-time hours on the first 400MW stage of the New England solar farm.

But ETU NSW & ACT Branch secretary Allen Hicks said that qualified local job-seekers in the region were competing with backpackers for the “causal positions” being offered on the project.

“These workers are expected to work 10 hour days, six days a week for around 18 months without receiving any full-time entitlements such as sick leave or annual leave,” Hicks said.

“Once this contract is up, those jobs will disappear from the New England region and the community will be left to pick up the pieces.

“We’ve been warning this would happen since Minister Kean announced this transition plan. The NSW government needs to be held to account to ensure public funding of these projects is in the best interest of NSW residents, not foreign companies.”

As noted above, Green Light is a wholly owned subsidiary of Elecnor Australia, itself a subsidiary of Elecnor, a large Spanish-owned renewable energy group operating in 56 countries around the world.

As Green Light notes on the New England solar farm web page, Elecnor began operations in Australia in 2014 and has since been involved in the construction of four solar farms with a combined power capacity of 372MW.

The company – which is responsible for the detailed design, engineering and procurement of the New England Solar Farm project, as well as ongoing operation and maintenance services in the first two years of operations – told RenewEconomy that it had “no comment” on the ETU’s claims.

This is not the first time the ETU has levelled accusations at the solar industry – and at the EPC sub-sector, more precisely – over labour and hiring practices, including for the alleged use of unlicensed workers, backpackers and labourers.

In early 2021, the Union slammed the “brutal sacking of 230 workers on a Queensland solar farm, as laying bare the ugly and Wild West-like conditions it claimed was plaguing the national solar industry.

The 230 casual workers, many of whom were working 60-plus-hour weeks at the 120MW Gangarri solar project near Wandoan, were informed of the news without notice, and via text message first thing on a Monday morning.

“The solar industry is a bit of a cowboy industry at the moment where … there is a lot of uncertainty,” said Queensland ETU secretary Peter Ong at the time.

“These failures in policy are leading to an influx of overseas-owned speculators who are failing to do the right thing by the owners of the solar farms and their workers.”

Two years earlier, then ETU Queensland state organiser Jason Young called for a halt to all large-scale renewable energy projects in the state, until the government put together a “just transition plan” and a detailed energy policy.

“With the whole world screaming for action on climate change this Queensland government has a real chance to highlight how, when done collaboratively and in conjunction with a proper,” he said in a statement,” Young had said.

“Just transition plan, we can transition to renewable forms of energy and it can be done with minimal impacts on regional jobs and towns.”

In New South Wales, the Coalition government is driving a nation-leading plan to rapidly wean the state off its current coal-dominated electricity supply through the creation of five Renewable Energy Zones.

This process has since been put on the fast track following the decision by Origin to close the biggest coal generator in the state, Eraring, seven years early, and moves by AGL bidders Mike Cannon-Brookes and Brookfield to do the same with Bayswater, the second biggest.

NSW energy minister Matt Kean recently forecast an extra 500 jobs from a $250 million investment over five years for initiatives to boost locally manufactured content for the renewable energy sector such as wind towers, electrolysers and batteries.

This was in addition to previously announced initiatives that will create 500 extra jobs from the $500 million New Low Carbon Industry Foundations element, focused on green hydrogen, and 2,700 direct construction jobs associated with the fast tracked delivery of the main renewable energy zones.

Clearly, however, the NSW branch of the ETU is not convinced that all of the safeguards and standards are in place to protect local workers and create sustainable local jobs as the state shifts to renewables.

“The clean energy transition is already underway but we can’t allow foreign companies, who will send profits built on the exploitation of workers offshore, to run these critical projects with zero consultation with unions or staff,” the ETU’s Hicks said.

“The NSW government and Minister Kean need to have a close look at the labour standards and conditions on these projects.

“The New England solar farm and battery project will be Australia’s largest hybrid solar and battery energy storage facility and the way it is currently being operated, and absence of oversight, sets a very alarming precedent for further clean energy projects,” Hicks added.

“The people of New England and other regional communities across NSW should be extremely concerned about the consequences of this poorly regulated transition plan.”

Minister Kean’s office was contacted for comment on the claims, but had not returned RenewEconomy’s calls in time for publication.

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