CBH’s Kwinana terminal is one of Australia’s biggest departure points for wheat. Photo: CBH Group

UNIONS and CBH Group have agreed to a temporary suspension of industrial action at the Kwinana Grain Terminal.

This follows a tense five days, beginning with union members launching 24-hour rolling stoppages on Monday and followed by CBH locking out all staff covered by the enterprise agreement still under negotiation.

Workers represented by the Maritime Union of Australia and the Electrical Trades Union met with CBH Group last Friday for a formal bargaining meeting.

This coincided with a conciliation conference in the Fair Work Commission held that afternoon.

CBH Group chief people officer Jacky Connolly said the parties agreed to the recommendations of the Fair Work Commission.

“All parties have agreed to the commissioner’s recommendation of a two-week cooling-off period where all industrial action on both sides will be temporarily suspended,” Ms Connolly said.

“This means the lockout that was in place was suspended from 7am on Saturday, 6 September 2025.

“All parties have agreed to regular bargaining meetings over the next two weeks.

“We appreciate this has been a difficult time and we continue to work for a resolution with our plant operators and maintenance employees, and the unions, for a fair and reasonable agreement to be in place as soon as possible.”

The scheduled maintenance shutdown continues this week at Kwinana with no impacts seen to the grain supply chain in Western Australia.

Despite the temporary suspension of industrial action, there is no indication that the parties are closer to reaching an agreement.

CBH’s current offer of an annual wage rise of 2.5 percent over three years remains well below that sought by the unions at an annual 6pc increase over three years.

Unions and CBH are also at loggerheads over a range of entitlements, with the co-operative bulk handler asserting that unions have demanded “approximately 70 additional claims”.

In response, the MUA said it has been bargaining in good faith with CBH since negotiations commenced in March.

In Facebook posts, the MUA said it was seeking to be paid the same as workers on comparable CBH sites.

“Even with CBH adding extra payments to the Kwinana maintenance workers, this has still left them behind other CBH sites by up to 10pc,” the post said.

“MUA and ETU members are committed to go the full distance with CBH.”

The Kwinana Grain Terminal is WA’s largest grain-export facility, shipping more than half of the state’s total grain production on average each year.

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