Read this article in:
20 June, 2011
Negotiations resume today and tomorrow, 20-21 June, for 4,000 Australian coal miners employed by the BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA), the world’s top exporter of metallurgical coal. Union allies, led by the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), conducted successful stop-work meetings last week that saw broad agreement among miners that they want job security and an end to work practices of Australia’s bygone WorkChoices era.
The union alliance, called the Single Bargaining Unit and consisting of CFMEU, the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU) and the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union (CEPU), met yesterday to prepare for this week’s pivotal talks.
The six-hour and longer stop-work meetings, held across seven BMA mines of the Bowen Basin, Queensland, from 14-17 June, saw miners vent frustration at BMA intransigence that has stalled bargaining, and company arrogance inside those talks. The two sides have been bargaining since December 2010. See ICEM InBrief No. 182 report on this enterprise bargaining dispute here.
Stephen Smyth
Union members are “sick and tired of the same rhetoric being spat out of the company’s PR machine,” said CFMEU District President Stephen Smyth to the Central Queensland News. Miners and export facility workers voted in May for lawful industrial action by better than 92%. They are vehemently opposed to BMA proposals on changes in work rosters and moves toward subcontracting that will cost jobs and equitable incomes.
The stop-work meetings were attended by between 300 and 1,000 miners each in forums at BMA’s Broadmeadow and Saraji mines on 14 June, Blackwater and Gregory Crinum mines on 15 June, Goonyella Riverside and Norwich Park mines on 17 June, and Goonyella and Peak Downs mines on 18 June. BMA is a 10-year-old joint venture between two of the world’s industrial titans that produces 58 million tones annually of coking coal.