On July 22, a meeting of the 412 striking miners at the Hunter Valley No. 1 colliery voted to return to work on the union leadership's recommendation. The miners had been on strike since June 10. The company, Coal and Allied — a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, has agreed to withdraw the scab labour that was operating the mine and enter negotiations. The workers have given the company 21 days to negotiate a satisfactory enterprise agreement.
Green Left Weekly's REIHANA MOHIDEEN spoke to TONY MAHER, vice-president of the Mining and Energy Division of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, about the reasons for the return to work.
Question: The establishment media is saying the union caved in because the miners lost their resolve to continue the strike. Is that the case?
Absolutely not. The position endorsed by the workers is one they endorsed a month ago. Last Monday [July 21], we repeated to Justice Bolton that we were prepared to go back to work on his recommendation, but the company had upped the ante by insisting that we should resume work, and work side by side with 14 clerical workers driving production equipment. We told the company that if it dropped that claim and accepted Bolton's recommendation, there would be resumption of work and that's what they did. How they can turn that into a back down, I don't know.
We have been saying that we want negotiations. The object is to reach an agreement, not to see how long we can be on strike. We know we can strike for a long time; the Vickery dispute proved that. You have to defend workers, to stand up to international capital, but you also have to provide decent wages and conditions. The strike satisfies the first criteria, the agreement satisfies the second.
What we have proven is that in Australia only union labour moves coal. They made a big stunt out of trying to have non-union labour load a coal train. We prevented them from doing that.
Question: So was it ill timed for the union to call off the strike?
The Maritime Union of Australia has just announced negotiations around an enterprise bargain at the Port Waratah Coal Terminal from which the Hunter Valley coal is loaded. This provides them with the opportunity to legally be on strike around their claim.
It would have been a happy coincidence for us if we had chosen to remain on strike, but it simply didn't suit our tactics. We know that the Maritime Union will support us through thick and thin and whenever we need it.
Question: According to industrial relations minister Peter Reith, the return to work shows that the Workplace Relations Act and the secondary boycott provisions have been successful.
He's wrong. The company made Australian Workplace Agreements an issue early in the dispute by insisting on the right to make them available to workers. We neutralised that by having the workers exercise a choice. We had a rally and presented the company with a petition that 100% of the striking workers had signed saying they had seen the contracts and rejected them. They insisted on a collective agreement. The company lost the battle for individual contracts at that stage.
When they realised that they weren't going to get any more miners to scab, the company then made the issue breaking the strike. It failed to break it. Instead, it has galvanised that group of workers.
If we have to spread the dispute, irrespective of the consequences of the boycott legislation, then we will do so. We've done so in the past. When the Vickery picket line was breached, and our people were arrested, that sparked a national strike.
Now you can't tell me that we weren't vulnerable then to action under the secondary boycott legislation or under common law. We did it, and we weren't sued, and we would have done it again. The existence of the boycott legislation didn't affect the tactics that we've adopted. It simply didn't suit our agenda to have a national strike.
Question: The latest company proposal has some major changes to work practices, such as the right to shift workers to individual contracts even when collective agreements are in place. What common ground do you have in negotiating with the company?
These are standard Rio Tinto draft agreements. The company will get workplace reform. The issue is how much managerial prerogative it gets. We're not shy about reaching agreements that do away with elements of demarcation.
If you look at what has been agreed to elsewhere, the company will get some changes. What it won't get is a wholesale right to manage irrespective of workers views.
Question: One of the bitter lessons of the British miners' strike of 1984-85 was the lack of solidarity from the rest of the trade union movement. Do you think the union can win this dispute on its own?
If at the end of 21 days we don't have an agreement, or if there is no third party intervention, we can stay on strike for a long time. It's possible for us to win this particular dispute on our own. But I am also certain that we have enormous support from the trade union movement. We won't be left on our own.
There is a world of difference between the British miners' strike and this one. That was an industry dispute over sacred cows. This is simply one mine out of a 150 and there aren't any sacred cows. Everything is negotiable. It's not the same stakes.
If it became a national strike in coal, waterfront, transport — virtually a general strike — I'm sure that the trade union movement would stand with us. But I don't think the government will let it because it's simply an enterprise dispute.