BY LINDA HARRIS AND BOB AIKEN

GUNNEDAH, Australia - Coal miners in Australia struck July 23 in protest at the arrest of eight pickets that day at the Vickery open cut mine near Gunnedah, 260 miles north of Sydney. Some 17,000 miners struck for 48 hours, while 3,000 miners at pits owned by RTZ-CRA, Vickery's parent company, walked out for five days.

The 30 miners at Vickery, members of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), have been on strike since August 15 last year over the company's attempt to impose a 12 hour shift at the mine.

The 11-month strike became the focus of solidarity in the union and is seen by other miners as a test case for the industry as a whole. RTZ-CRA is notorious for its union-busting tactics. A strike for union recognition by 75 workers at its Weipa bauxite mine late last year led to national solidarity strikes by the coal and maritime unions.

Miners on the picket line said they thought the company's action was a provocation. The mine manager had arrived with a fire equipment safety contractor and had tried to take him across the picket line without notifying the union. The police then arrived promptly when they were called, with two paddy wagons, though there is normally only one wagon in Gunnedah.

One of strikers, Martin Faith, said they have had a consistent record on maintaining safety during the strike and that on previous occasions contractors have been allowed to do agreed-on maintenance after consultation with the union.

This time, when the miners refused to let the contractor through without an agreement being reached with the union, eight pickets were arrested and charged with obstruction.

The day after the arrests, busloads and carloads of miners and other workers converged on the two picket camps the Vickery miners have set up. A busload of 40 miners from the Hunter Valley arrived and others were expected from Lithgow, west of Sydney, and Wollongong, south of Sydney.

Members of the Maritime Union of Australia in Brisbane, who had been on a planned visit to the picket line, arrived just two hours after the arrests. They promised to be back, with others, on August 9 for the court hearing.

In May the Industrial Relations Court ruled that the Vickery miners should work 12-hour shifts on a three month trial. The strikers rejected this. An end to the strike at the Vickery coal mine was announced July 28. Workers voted to accept a proposal, negotiated at a compulsory conference called by the Industrial Relations Commission, that includes a three-month trial of an 8.5-hour shift schedule, followed by a three-month trial of 12- hour shifts.

Robert Hobden, a working miner who is the CFMEU lodge president at the Howick open-cut mine, which is also owned by CRA, said the fight by the Vickery miners is important for other miners because if the company could impose 12-hour shifts in at Vickery then they could do this at other mines.

Miners throughout New South Wales are giving a weekly levy to the miners at Vickery to support the strike, he added.

Most of the miners here said that they were planning to go down to the national August 19 demonstration in Canberra that has been called by the Australian Council of Trade Unions. The rally has been called to protest the attacks on unions being proposed by the federal government, under prime minister John Howard, that came into office in March.

Joanne Kuniansky, a member of the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union at F. Muller contributed to this article.  
 
 
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