More cuts in mining industry

More cuts in mining industry

By Peter Chiltern

The mining industry in NSW has been further hit by closures and cutbacks at Broken Hill and the Illawarra. The city of Broken Hill will lose more than a third of its 1350 mineworkers with the closure of the historic North Mine and cutbacks at the town's only other pit, the South Mine. As well, about 200 jobs are to go from the Illawarra's troubled South Bulli coal mine.

The 500 cutbacks at Broken Hill will cost the city about 1000 jobs as mine-related services and industries are affected. In a city of 24,000, with unemployment already around 20%, this could leave about one in three workers without jobs.

The United Mine Workers union, which represents most of the mine work force, says the company, Pasminco, is wasting a valuable resource by closing the mine in reaction to currently low world prices for zinc and lead. The North Mine has ore reserves to last well into next century, and world prices are expected to rise over the next five years. The UMW has called on the NSW government to award the North Mine lease to another company to prevent wastage of a valuable resource.

Critics of Pasminco, substantially owned by North Broken Hill, whose New Right management was responsible for last year's savage APPM dispute, say the company should take more account of the social consequences of its actions, rather than respond simply and crudely to market pressures.

Similar issues are involved in the South Bulli cutbacks, the latest of several at the pit. Coal companies have been steadily moving out of underground mines in the Illawarra region because of lower costs in newer mining areas, particularly central Queensland.

The South Bulli mine has been a particularly difficult one because of gas in the coal seam, which has caused several fatalities. However, the trend to abandon the older underground mines reflects an irresponsible attitude to resource conservation, as all mines become more expensive to run as they move deeper underground and encounter more complicated geological problems.

The trend to focus on the lowest-cost deposits distorts the long-term cost of coal, a practice future generations will pay dearly for.

From GLW issue 87