BY ANTHONY BENBOW
AND MELANIE SJOBERG 
Workers employed at BHP operations in WA's Pilbara region must be
feeling a bad sense of d‚j… vu. In January last year, they were
forced to fight to defend their jobs and hard-won conditions when the company
attacked without warning. One year later, another round in the battle is
looming and the potential consequences extend far beyond the Pilbara. The
wages and conditions of workers at BHP sites around the country are at
risk, as is the future of the Pilbara community.
In 1999, BHP had experienced record losses, due largely to bad management.
However, it was the workers, not new CEO Paul Anderson, who suffered.
In September that year, the unions approached BHP to begin negotiating
a new collective agreement. BHP stalled for two months, then without warning
announced that individual contracts (Australian Workplace Agreements —
AWAs) were “available” for workers to sign. Union offers to negotiate a
collective agreement were refused.
The AWAs included paltry improvements and financial inducements, but
working conditions were not spelt out. The contracts stated: “This document
is to be read in conjunction with BHP company policy.” In other words,
conditions were to be set at the discretion of management. Workers' unions
would have no right to challenge decisions and the Industrial Relations
Commission could not be involved.
BHP claimed it needed to save $80 million by introducing the contracts.
The workers responded with a 24-hour strike on December 6 1999. A wave
of solidarity stoppages swept BHP operations across WA, South Australia,
NSW and Victoria.
Baton-wielding police broke a picket line. More than 4000 BHP workers
walked off the job in protest at this brutality. The WA Trades and Labor
Council held a massive solidarity rally and thousands of workers sent solidarity
messages to the strikers in the Pilbara.
Pressure on workers to sign contracts was extreme. Some were told “sign,
or your future with BHP is going nowhere”. The company claimed to have
45% of its workforce signed to the contracts by February, when unions won
a court injunction preventing further contracts from being offered.
In the 12 months since the injunction, there has been a cold war in
the Pilbara heat. Workers who stuck with the union report that everyday
life on the job has become much harder — but not for their colleagues on
individual contracts.
ACTU Pilbara industrial officer Will Tracey told Green Left Weekly
that be believed “at least half of those on the contracts would like to
return to a collective agreement, and those still on the award are even
stronger in their support for collective bargaining.”
The Pilbara is also home to Robe and Hamersley Iron, where individual
contracts have created poorer conditions. This is hardly likely to improve
now that both those companies are owned by Rio Tinto.
BHP is attempting to remove the unions from its operations. Tracey reports
that since his arrival in November, BHP has persistently hounded him and
other unionists from its sites. “First they used the WA industrial laws
to block us. We are currently allowed access under the federal act, but
they are challenging that too. They have also distributed material targetting
myself.”
BHP's goal of a flexible workforce includes the use of “fly-in, fly-
out” contractors. This will be a severe blow to Pilbara communities. As
populations fall in Port Hedland and Newman, jobs will be lost and schools,
health centres and other services will be cut or close. Fewer opportunities
will cuase more young people to move away.
On January 10, the Federal Court upheld BHP's right to offer individual
contracts at a unionised workplace. The unions have vowed to appeal. The
court ruled that BHP was not discriminating against union members by offering
AWAs even though they include a clause dissuading union membership.
While the court's ruling is a blow, Tracey remains optimistic: “A favourable
legal outcome would have been good, but we were never putting all our hopes
into a court decision. The task for us is to achieve a collective agreement
for the workers at BHP. We have to bring BHP to the negotiating table,
campaigning at both the local and national level to achieve this.”
The BHP Pilbara workers were more than geographically isolated in the
past 12 months. The ACTU, under “secretary in waiting” Greg Combet, assumed
responsibility for the campaign against BHP and concentrated on the court
challenge. At a meeting of national union leaders on January 24 last year,
Combet resisted the call from Perth unionists for an immediate 24-hour
stoppage of all BHP workers.
The ACTU has pursued its usual strategy of discouraging militant industrial
mobilisations in favour of a “responsible” legal approach. The futility
of the ACTU method is evident in the outcome delivered by the Federal Court
in favour of BHP.
The lessons should have been drawn from the 1998 maritime dispute when
tens of thousands joined peaceful pickets, cross-union delegates committees
were formed and massive public support was built through speaking tours
and public meetings. The best form of working-class defence is the mobilisation
of the largest number of people.
The protests outside the World Economic Forum in Melbourne last September
showed what is possible when activist and workers break from the legalistic
and defeatist approach of most union officials.
Activists building the May 1 global strike against corporate tyranny
are keen to link up with the BHP workers.
Meetings of BHP workers across the country should be held to discuss
an alternative industrial and community campaign.
BHP reaped a massive $2 billion profit in 1999-2000 while carrying out
its attack on the Pilbara workers and coal miners in NSW, and closing the
Newcastle shipyards and slashing hundreds of jobs in Wollongong.
BHP has made its intentions clear: workers will be forced to sacrifice
to meet the company's goals. If one of Australia's biggest companies goes
to individual contracts it will be all the harder for collective agreements
and hard-won conditions to survive anywhere. This is a fight we all must
support.
[Anthony Benbow is the Democratic
Socialist candidate for the seat of Fremantle in the February 10 state
election. Melanie Sjoberg is the Democratic
Socialist Party's national trade union coordinator.]
