Australian mine strike relaunched; Rio Tinto scuppers truce. Profits and coal supplies at risk?

ICEM Update, No 51, 11 September 1997

Strike action resumed at Australia's Hunter Valley No. 1 coalmine on Monday (8 Sept.) after global minerals giant Rio Tinto spurned official efforts to broker a continued truce.

A protracted dispute at the mine was put on hold this July after the company reversed its previous stance and agreed to negotiate with the miners unions. The firm had previously tried to end collective bargaining and impose individual employment contrac ts, but the Hunter Valley miners went on strike over the issue and signed a petition indicating that they wanted their unions to continue bargaining on their behalf (see ICEM UPDATE 46/1997).

The truce brokered by the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) began to break down when Rio Tinto started ignoring key AIRC recommendations.

In a bid to prevent a new outbreak of hostilities, the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) placed before the AIRC two recent company actions that threatened to rekindle the conflict. One involved a management employee driving a truck o n the site at the end of August - a breach of earlier AIRC directions. The second bone of contention was managements ordering truck drivers to do labouring tasks at a separate coal washing plant. The drivers refused, whereupon Rio Tinto suspended them without pay.

The AIRC told the company to put the drivers back to work and negotiate with the CFMEU.

The issue of allocating staff from the mine to the coal wash plant was on the company's list of points for the negotiations. The union agreed to continue the negotiations and have the truce extended for a further week.

But Rio Tinto refused to extend the truce, and said it would introduce the changes regardless of negotiations.

On 5 September, the CFMEU notified management of a one-week strike, to begin on 9 September. But when workers at the mine were told on Monday morning (8 September) that the company intended to press ahead with directing mineworkers away from their usual t asks to the coal washing plant, they walked out immediately.

This was not the first time that Rio Tinto had tried to scupper the truce. Last month, the firm announced that it planned to retrench 100-200 Hunter Valley workers - a breach of the companys commitment to the AIRC that the status quo would be respected du ring the negotiating period.

The company obviously want this dispute to move back to confrontation, commented John Maitland. He is President of the CFMEU and Vice-President of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers Unions, to wh ich the CFMEU is affiliated at the global level.

The standing down of employees is simply provocative, Maitland said. The workers see no alternative but to take industrial action to remind the company that they are serious about their genuine claims in the enterprise bargaining process.

He warned that the strike, initially declared for one week, may well go on for some time.

Rio Tintos profits, and its credibility as a coal supplier, could be seriously hit by a renewed major conflict in Hunter Valley. During the strike this June and July, the multinational was forced to buy coal from its competitors in order to fulfil its supply contracts.

The companys provocations in Australia are by no means unique. Rio Tinto is known for its anti-union stance in various parts of the world. For that reason, it is a priority target for the ICEMs global union networking programmes.