The key issues remain pay – Western Power’s staff are considered to be among the worst paid in Australia’s electricity industry – redundancy, sick leave and long service leave provisions.

Redundancies are a major issue for both unions with state-owned Western Power on track to be broken up on April 1 next year.

Power industry union leaders say the pay differential is drawing workers away to other companies where pay scales are higher. Western Power’s management denies this claim.

The controversial Australian Workplace Agreements clause in Western Power’s offer was withdrawn before the meeting but that had little effect on the outcome.

Union leaders derided Western Power’s offer but the utility’s management has been critical of what it calls the union’s unwillingness to make concessions in the bargaining process

About 400 members of the Australian Services Union and the Communications Electrical Plumbing and Postal unions gathered at Members Equity stadium to discuss, and ultimately reject, the utility’s latest pay offer.

That was down on the 1000 expected to attend but the members commitment to the cause could not be questioned given the cold and wet conditions. One member showed particular enthusiasm, removing his clothes to streak across the playing field holding a union flag.

Western Power has offered a 14% pay rise over three years for white collar members and an increase of between 18% and 30% over three years for blue collar workers.

But the ASU, which represents about 1200 of Western Power’s white collar workforce, wants an 18% increase over that timeframe and a $1 an hour retention and attraction bonus. Based on a 38-hour week that bonus would mean an extra $1976 a year to white collar workers.

The CEPU, which represents about 600 of the utility’s blue collar workers, wants its members base pay to rise from $19 an hour to $25 an hour.

CEPU secretary Bill Game said Western Power’s offer represented a $21 an hour base wage rate.

He said the $25 an hour rate would put Western Australian electricity workers on par with workers in other states.

ASU secretary Paul Burlinson said there was a very real possibility of strikes over the summer period, when the state’s electricity system is operating at its peak, if a new pay deal was not struck by then.

The current pay deal expires in October and when that deadline passes the unions will be able to take “protected” industrial action.

“If we are still dealing with this in the summer, we will have a very big problem,” Burlinson said.

“We encourage Western Power to resolve this long before the summer heat comes along.”

Both union leaders said they were prepared to continue discussions with Western Power and other stakeholders such as the WA government.

Western Power executive manager human resources Graham Monkhouse said the utility was also keen to continue discussion but downplayed any threats of industrial action.

“My reports from the meeting indicate that workers were reticent to take industrial action,” he said.

Monkhouse denied claims that Western Power’s low pay scales were leading to worker’s leaving Western Power.

“Our staff turnover is less than 3%. The industry turnover rate is in excess of 8%,” he said.

Alinta, Western Power’s one-time stablemate in the vertically integrated government-owned gas and electricity utility State Energy Commission of WA, had been seen as a possible seeker of Western Power staff.

The privately-owned gas utility has electricity supply aspirations of its own, which it plans to sate through 10 gas-fired cogeneration units at Alcoa’s WA refineries.

But an Alinta spokesman said it was unlikely that it would be in the market for any Western Power staff.

“The co-gen plants only need a handful of people to run them and they would be supplied by Alcoa,” he said.

Monkhouse said while Western Power had given ground, the unions had not been prepared to give any real concessions on the 40 points of their claim.

He said that claim would add more than $50 million a year to the utility’s costs but could not provide a costing for Western Power’s offer.

Monkhouse said Western Power was keen to have the ability to make workers’ positions redundant if they were no longer required but said this was not in response to the coming break up of the utility.

He said no workers would be laid off as a result of the disaggregation that would split Western Power into separate regional, generation, retail and networks businesses.

The state Government has decreed that Western Power’s generation unit be limited to 3000 megawatts. It currently has a capacity of 3400 MW but that will diminish when units at Muja and Kwinana stations are finally retired, which has led to speculation of job losses.

Monkhouse said the utility had been working towards the 3000 MW cap and did not anticipate there would be any job losses as a result.