By Alex Bainbridge and Reihana Mohideen
The Industrial Relations Commission on July 17 instructed Public Transport Union (PTU) train drivers to cross the striking mineworkers' picket line in the Hunter Valley.
However, the IRC ruling also stated that the train drivers have to take safety conditions into account. Previously, PTU train drivers had refused to cross the picket lines on safety grounds because police couldn't guarantee that the tracks would be kept clear.
FreightCorp has interpreted this to mean that it will now be free to take trains across the picket line when the company, Rio Tinto, orders them.
Meanwhile Rio Tinto, in what the union has described as "negotiation through the media", has made a new offer — a voluntary redundancy package amounting to around $46,000, a wage increase of $175 a week and further "benefits" in return for a number of work practices.
Key work practices have been targeted in an attempt to "single stream" the work force: i.e., employees (including staff) can be forced to do any job provided they have some level of "qualification". According to union sources, this latest offer is also "a publicity stunt" aimed at winning public support for the company's union-busting drive.
However, the company was forced to give some ground and has agreed to negotiate while the strike is still on, which it had previously refused to do.
The stakes are high. Rio Tinto is well known for its aggressive union-busting campaigns, ranging from the Pilbara to Weipa. It's no coincidence that the principal strategist for the company is Mike Angwin, who was a part of the Howard government's three-person task force to draft the Workplace Relations Act.
Hunter Valley No. 1 could become the battleground chosen by one of the world's most powerful mining companies to launch its attack on the coal industry. Its weapon is the Workplace Relations Act, which encourages union-busting through the replacement of collective bargaining with individual contracts.
The company also has the active support of the Howard government. According to union sources, federal industrial relations minister Peter Reith has been on the phone to mining company executives urging them to test the WRA.
The NSW Liberal Party opposition has been running a media campaign calling on Labor Premier Bob Carr to use the police and even troops to break the picket and transport coal.
If they succeed in breaking the picket, the battle moves to the wharves and attacks on the powerful Maritime Union of Australia. The bosses and the government are itching to have a go at the MUA, trying to find a shipping company prepared to take the union on.
The MUA has refused to load scab coal. Rio Tinto, a major shareholder of the Port Waratah Coal Terminal, from which the Hunter Valley coal is loaded, has threatened to charge the union under the secondary boycott provisions of the Workplace Relations Act.
However, the company faces a strong and well-organised union — the CFMEU. The work force in the Hunter Valley is solidly pro-union. Every one of the 412 striking miners has signed a petition calling on Rio Tinto to recognise their right to be collectively represented by the union. Only seven workers have signed the individual contracts.
But one union acting alone in the face of aggressive and determined attacks by the bosses and the government is not enough to avoid defeat. The 1984-5 British miners' strike is a bitter example of this.
We need to be wary of any attempts to isolate the miners. Federal ALP industry spokesperson Bob McMullan, for instance, told the July 15 mass meeting, "It's not in the interests of any worker in Australia for this dispute to spread".
This framework is a recipe for defeat. The fact is that it's not in the interests of any worker in Australia for the dispute to be lost by the unions. The union movement has to be prepared to do whatever is necessary to defeat these attacks.
This means being prepared to take industrial action in solidarity with the miners and being prepared to defy secondary boycott legislation. If the ACTU isn't prepared to take this position (and there is no indication that it is), then powerful unions such at the PTU, the MUA and the AMWU do have the strength to decide collectively to take the initiative.
With the Howard government urging on Rio Tinto, there is even less room than in the Weipa dispute for legal manoeuvres. That lesson of militant unionism is still so relevant: if you don't fight, you lose.