End of coal strike close

Issue 

Ron Perkins, Perth

After almost two months of strike action, maintenance workers at Wesfarmers' Premier Coal in WA's south-west appear close to winning their demands for better conditions.

A sudden change in attitude from the company has broken the stalemate after state development and energy minister Alan Carpenter drew into question Wesfarmers' chances of winning further Western Power coal supply contracts if the situation was not quickly resolved.

The dispute began on March 1 after maintenance workers in the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) walked off the job over stalled enterprise bargaining negotiations with Premier Coal, and quickly spread to include 160 miners employed at the site.

During March, mine workers refused to cross the maintenance workers' picket line for four-and-a-half days, only returning to work after a Coal Industry Tribunal ruling. On April 4, the dispute rapidly escalated when Premier Coal brought scab labour on site to repair broken conveyor belts. This led to a complete shutdown of operations when miners walked off the job. Citing safety issues arising from working alongside contractors whose skill and safety training levels were unknown, the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union requested Premier Coal supply the union with this information. The company ignored the request.

On April 8, the CFMEU refused to obey return-to-work orders after the company continued to disregard the union's concerns over safety and its requests for information regarding the contractors. Premier Coal managing director Stewart Butel told the West Australian on April 9 that claims by the union that miners were on strike over safety were "fabricated" and that the company was losing $500,000 a day.

CFMEU official Gary Wood told the West Australian on the same day, "Quite understandably the guys are very upset that a company that tries to say it is safety conscious is showing a complete disregard for safety". He added that although the return-to-work order had been made against the union and not its members, the company had sent letters to miners threatening Supreme Court action against individuals.

On April 12, Wesfarmers revealed it had launched multi-million dollar legal action against both the AMWU and CFMEU over damages incurred during the dispute. Wesfarmers managing director Michael Chaney also waded into the dispute with threats to sack striking miners if they did not return to work by April 14. After emergency talks at the Coal Industry Tribunal, miners voted to return to work. However, Wesfarmers refused to withdraw writs against the union.

AMWU state president Colin Saunders compared Wesfarmers' tactics to those employed by mining giant Rio Tinto in the early 1990s, when legal action against four unions continued for nearly a decade.

Wood told the West Australian on April 15 that he believed Wesfarmers was trying to do away with the last fully unionised mining workforce in WA. "They [Wesfarmers] don't care about fixing the problem, they just want to smash the union movement."

From Green Left Weekly, May 4, 2005.
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