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15 July, 2005ICEM News release No. 1/2000
Police in Australia are attacking picket lines as minerals and metals giant BHP continues its bid to deunionise parts of its operation there.
Pickets at BHP's Newman site were assaulted by police using batons last night, the mining and allied workers' union CFMEU reports.
And at BHP's Port Hedland site today, 80 police officers broke a picket line. Several people were arrested, including the secretary of the CFMEU's Western Australian Mining & Energy branch, Gary Wood. He has been released on bail, on condition that he does not return to the picket line, and will face court on Friday.
In a hit-and-run incident on another picket line, an officer of the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union was knocked down by a BHP car. John Mossington, the AMWU officer, has been hospitalised. Police are investigating.
The CFMEU and AMWU are two of the unions campaigning against a recent radical policy shift in BHP's Australian iron ore operations. Management there has abandoned its traditional cooperative approach to industrial relations in favour of a hard-line policy that denies its workers the right to bargain collectively.
Last November, BHP issued its 1,000 iron ore workers in the Pilbara, Western Australia, with individual staff contracts, saying it was not prepared to negotiate a new collective agreement. The company had previously operated under a collective agreement negotiated with unions. Legislation brought in by Australia's right-wing federal government has made it much easier for employers to evade collective bargaining.
At the global level, the CFMEU and AMWU are affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM).
"We condemn the opportunistic attempts by various multinationals to use current Australian legislation for purposes of union-busting," said ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs in Brussels today. "The ICEM is very concerned that BHP has joined the ranks of the union-busters. The company must get back to collective bargaining and to constructive relations with the Australian trade unions."
Pickets at BHP's Newman site were assaulted by police using batons last night, the mining and allied workers' union CFMEU reports.
And at BHP's Port Hedland site today, 80 police officers broke a picket line. Several people were arrested, including the secretary of the CFMEU's Western Australian Mining & Energy branch, Gary Wood. He has been released on bail, on condition that he does not return to the picket line, and will face court on Friday.
In a hit-and-run incident on another picket line, an officer of the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union was knocked down by a BHP car. John Mossington, the AMWU officer, has been hospitalised. Police are investigating.
The CFMEU and AMWU are two of the unions campaigning against a recent radical policy shift in BHP's Australian iron ore operations. Management there has abandoned its traditional cooperative approach to industrial relations in favour of a hard-line policy that denies its workers the right to bargain collectively.
Last November, BHP issued its 1,000 iron ore workers in the Pilbara, Western Australia, with individual staff contracts, saying it was not prepared to negotiate a new collective agreement. The company had previously operated under a collective agreement negotiated with unions. Legislation brought in by Australia's right-wing federal government has made it much easier for employers to evade collective bargaining.
At the global level, the CFMEU and AMWU are affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM).
"We condemn the opportunistic attempts by various multinationals to use current Australian legislation for purposes of union-busting," said ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs in Brussels today. "The ICEM is very concerned that BHP has joined the ranks of the union-busters. The company must get back to collective bargaining and to constructive relations with the Australian trade unions."