Read this article in:
14 December, 2009
The coal-mining dispute in Australia between the Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union (CFMEU) and Peabody Energy at the North Goonyella mine intensified when the US-based company used the country’s new Fair Work law to lock 280 miners from their jobs in central Queensland. Just as CFMEU was to ratchet up industrial actions in protest to a radical Peabody overhaul to an enterprise labour agreement, the company imposed a 10-day, unpaid lockout on 9 December.
The very next day, some 20 CFMEU miners from Mackay, Queensland, flew to Brisbane where they were joined by 100 others in a protest at Peabody’s Australian offices. The Brisbane protest happened while police and private security 800 kilometres away in Mackay erected barricades at mine gates, expecting the protest there.
The dispute started in early November (see InBrief No. 144 article here) when strike actions began following Peabody’s intransigence over a CFMEU proposal to again extend the enterprise agreement, while giving a long overdue pay raise.
Miners at North Goonyella have been without a pay increase since May 2008. The labour agreement expired in March 2008 and was extended for one year. The two sides then began bargaining toward a new agreement but seven months later Peabody’s steep concessionary demands brought forth a formal dispute.
The mining company is seeking a radically changed work shift structure, one that would negatively impact pay grids. CFMEU members are concerned about fatigue and work safety, and also have grievances over living conditions in on-site housing.
A Peabody spokeswoman termed the lockout an employer protective action under the Labour government’s Fair Work law, which took effect 1 July 2009. It is one of the first defensive lockouts used by bosses under the Labour government’s new law.
At last Thursday’s manifestation in Brisbane, CFMEU District Vice President Glenn Power said, “We are here to protest and send a clear message to Peabody that their corporate greed and bullish attitude around the negotiating table needs to be reconsidered.”
The two sides were to meet today, 16 December, for further talks. Peabody mines coking coal from the underground mine at North Goonyella that is exported from Dalrymple Bay, Queensland, and used in steel-making. The mine and the adjacent open-cast Eaglefield mine produce three million short tons of coal per annum. Peabody bought the mines from Germany-based RAG AG in 2003.