An agreement reached between CRA and the mining division of the CFMEU on July 27 ended the nearly year-long strike at CRA's Vickery coal mine near Gunnedah in NSW.
Green Left Weekly's JENNIFER THOMPSON spoke to Vickery CFMEU lodge president Derek Lucas and the union mining division's general vice president, Tony Maher, about the deal that ended the strike.
The agreement, said Maher, involved trialing both the 8½-hour shifts supported by miners and the 12-hour shifts CRA's Novacoal wants. According to media reports, the mine management had dropped its insistence that 12-hour shifts begin from work start-up position, making them 12½-hour shifts.
Two pay rates had been negotiated for each three-month arrangement, said Maher, but a $5000 annual increase had been agreed by CRA for the 12-hour shifts, compared to the 10% wage decrease they'd tried to impose on the work force a year ago. At the end of the six-month trial period, agreement would be reached on which arrangement was best. The union, he said, would be supporting the workers' preferred arrangement at the end of the trial.
The final vote to return to work, taken at the end of a three-hour discussion by the workers, was carried 27-3. According to Lucas, "everybody realised it was a compromise, but that's what we wanted". After 12 months on the picket line and two years of struggle with CRA, it took some adjustment to the idea of returning to a normal life, he said. "After the meeting no one was giving victory signs or cheering", but the strikers seemed "quietly relieved".
The merits of each shift arrangement will be assessed by a committee of two CRA management representatives, two workers' representatives and one independent. There are "no guarantees", Lucas said. CRA might say that neither arrangement was profitable, but the workers are taking one step at a time.
Charges of obstruction were brought against Lucas and seven other picketing miners on July 23, as they blocked an attempt by contractors and mine management to cross the line. Lucas said they were working on having CRA drop the charges, but were to appear in court on August 9 after the return to work. He added that "it would be difficult to keep the other 22 at work" if the company was still pursuing them on August 9.
Summing up the dispute so far, Lucas said that awards were becoming a luxury, but workers had to be able to defend them. The Vickery workers have managed this so far, by maintaining the award provision that any shifts over 8 hours be by agreement. The most outstanding thing about the strike, said Lucas, had been the overwhelming support the miners had received from all over Australia. n