GREG BETTS is Queensland state secretary of the FEDFA and assistant district secretary of the CFMEU (the amalgamation of these unions is not yet complete on the state level). He was interviewed about the Mt Isa struggle by ANDREW WATSON.
What are the fundamental issues at stake in the Mt Isa dispute?
Essentially, there are two issues running concurrently. We have to go back to the start of the dispute, in 1993, when the enterprise bargaining procedures, through the Industrial Relations Commission, were put in place.
To get an enterprise bargaining agreement for workers at Mt Isa the five unions — the Australian Workers Union, Metal Workers Union, Federated Clerks Union, Electrical and Plumbing Union and our union — were required to form a single bargaining unit. So at an official level here in Brisbane, we attempted to set up that bargaining unit.
However, when we got to Mt Isa, we were notified by the AWU that they weren't willing to have the other unions participate in the enterprise bargaining discussion. They wanted to act as our agents. Obviously that wasn't acceptable to us.
As a result, the company, through section 45D of the state act, sought to exclude unions from Mt Isa, ostensibly because of the inability of them to reach agreement on the single bargaining unit. The AWU applied for single union coverage.
After a protracted legal argument in the state Industrial Relations Commission, which took about a year and a half, the company was partially successful in its application. The IRC ruled that there should only be two unions in Mt Isa: the Australian Workers Union and the Metal Workers Union.
Even though the AWU was unsuccessful in its application for single union coverage, the MWU lost a significant amount of its membership to the AWU. This not only alienated the MWU but also the other three unions, because we were totally excluded. Under orders from the IRC, we were supposed to purge all our members at Mt Isa.
AWU officials then negotiated an enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) with the company. But the AWU members didn't accept it. So another agreement was negotiated, this time also with members of the MWU and members of our union. In February that agreement went to a mass meeting of all workers at Mt Isa and was totally rejected.
Since then the question of union representation has been put to one side because the unions from the ACTUQ [Queensland branch of the ACTU] group have lodged an appeal with the IRC over its decision on union coverage.
The present dispute is over enterprise bargaining — the wages and conditions of the workers at Mt Isa. In all of the discussions we've failed to reach an agreement. MIM has refused to reinstate the airfares and the medical benefits that the workers of Mt Isa lost in 1992. MIM gave a commitment that those conditions would be restored once the base metal prices rose and Mt Isa was back in a position where they were making money.
The unions up there now believe that the company is in that position. So the industrial action, which began in February, has continued by way of bans and limitations throughout MIM's Mt Isa operations. We've done that legally under the conditions of the Industrial Relations Act. But the company, on May 12, locked the workers out. That's the entire work force, they've just shut them out.
How has the CFMEU responded to the lockout?
There's a total stoppage in the coal mines where MIM have part of their operation [the Collinsville, Newlands and Oakey Creek coal mines].
They're on strike to support the locked-out members at Mt Isa. They're not on strike over the inability of the unions and MIM to reach a successful EBA. They've gone out for the sole reason that MIM have chosen to lock the workers out, which we believe is a hostile action of any company to take against workers who are trying to win wages and conditions through legal means.
But that's not what's being portrayed by the MIM management. They claim that this is just further evidence that the CFMEU is trying to drive their way through the operations at Mt Isa and take over the mine. The coalies are out for every worker at Mt Isa, not just the members of the CFMEU, because they believe every member has been harshly dealt with by the lockout.
What action has been taken by members of your union to support the Mt Isa workers nationally?
We've got a resolution that's gone to the membership nationally. At this stage the disputation in the coal industry has been confined to the MIM operations. But if MIM see fit in the future, if the dispute continues, to take legal action under sections 45D and 45E of the Trade Practices Act and seek damages from the CFMEU, then a national coal stoppage will take place.
Currently, all coal miners who are covered by the CFMEU and the other associated bodies of the CFMEU mining division in Queensland have levied themselves quite substantially, which will give relief to some of the workers at Mt Isa.
On a recent edition of the ABC's 7.30 Report, AWU officials accused the CFMEU of "stealing" members of the AWU in Mt Isa. What's the situation there?
There's been dissatisfaction among AWU members, especially with AWU officials based in Brisbane, with the way they've treated their members at Mt Isa for quite a few years.
That was clearly shown by the results of the ACTU ballot that took place at Mt Isa recently, where members were asked which union they would prefer. More than 500 AWU members chose to vote in that ballot in defiance of their union's directive not to vote. The vast majority of them, in excess of 80%, showed they wanted to join the CFMEU.
They believed it was a better union to service them because of our past record in relation to wages and conditions, which are vastly superior to the AWU's. In the last couple of weeks they've demonstrated that in practice by moving en masse to join the CFMEU.
Despite the differences between the AWU and the CFMEU, are the two unions working together in Mt Isa?
I would be lying to say that there weren't problems within the trade union movement, because everybody in the labour movement knows that there have been difficulties between the left-wing unions and the right-wing unions, mainly in the blue collar area.
There are still problems between the two unions, but I think that's mainly at the official level. Currently at Mt Isa reports are that the union membership is totally solid as a bloc, irrespective of what union they are currently in, to take this battle to MIM and follow it through to the end in a combined, united group of workers.
The politicians and employers have been hammering on the question of the Mt Isa workers going to a secret ballot on the dispute. Why have workers at Mt Isa rejected that option?
The main reason is because certain unions have got certain politics about how their members vote. I don't think there's one union in Mt Isa which is not willing to go to a mass meeting to get the views of its members. It's just that they are not going to be bludgeoned into doing what the Goss government or any government wants them to do.
We've got our own rules, and we are going to abide by our own rules. I don't think we've got a hesitancy to go to a mass meeting because I'm convinced if we do go to a mass meeting, it is going to reinforce the membership's resolve to follow this dispute through to the end.
How can other people support the Mt Isa workers?
I think that ordinary working-class people who have watched this dispute come to where it is now should be aware and frightened of the outcome if the unions aren't successful, because I'm sure the big coal companies and the big multinational companies are looking at the outcome of this.
I think working people should show their support both morally and financially if they can, and I know things are hard for working-class people in this country, but it would certainly be a boost to workers there if faxes were received from unaffected unions and just workers generally who support the workers' cause in Mt Isa for better wages and conditions.