BY LINDA HARRIS
SYDNEY, Australia - In the latest development in a series of battles between coal mining bosses and the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, (CFMEU), 160 miners at the Curragh mine in central Queensland voted to end a 15-week strike on August 22. This followed a ruling by the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) that the legal strike period at the Curragh mine be terminated.

The previous day more than 300 miners from Curragh and other nearby mines joined the picket line across the rail tracks. About 30 police moved picketers off the tracks in front of the coal train.

As the train inched forward one striking worker ran in front of it. Cops dragged him from the rail line and he was arrested. The driver then decided to turn the empty train back.

This was the third attempt by the company in a week to break the strike by ordering a coal train to cross the picket line. Strikers had twice stopped trains, when drivers, members of the Australian Federated Union of Locomotive Enginemen, refused to cross the picket lines for safety reasons.

Government strikebreaking role
Queensland Rail, owned by the state government, had applied to the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission for an order directing the train drivers to cross the picket line. On August 19 the commission ruled that drivers should cross the picket line if a supervisor on board the train deemed it safe.

The following day Queensland state Industrial Relations Minister Santo Santoro said he would intervene to end the dispute if a train was again stopped at the picket line. He told state Parliament that the government would not allow the dispute to continue dragging on, "recklessly damaging" the Queensland economy.

The Curragh mine is 60 percent owned by the U.S. mining giant ARCO and 30 percent owned by Coal & Allied, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, the world's biggest mining company.

The AIRC return-to-work ruling followed a CFMEU proposal to extend action to mines operated by ARCO, MIM, Rio Tinto, and Shell shutting down much of the coal industry-Australia's biggest export industry. John Maitland, CFMEU national president, said, "ARCO and Rio Tinto are working together in a campaign to destroy Australian mineworkers' rights and conditions."

At the Curragh mine, ARCO is demanding unlimited use of contractors, no demarcation (flexible job classifications), abolition of seniority for determining retrenchments (permanent layoffs), and 12-hour shifts. In addition, individual contracts and voluntary redundancy packages have been announced.

CFMEU state president Andrew Vickers said, "If Curragh can get away with putting on contractors for less wages and conditions than workers get here now, then the rest of the coal industry workers know they're next."

Two other coal mines-ARCO's Gordonstone mine in north Queensland and Rio Tinto's Mt. Thorley mine in New South Wales-are also in dispute with unions over plans to sack all workers and hire new workers on company terms. Management at ARCO's Gordonstone mine want to sack 360 miners and replace them with 160 on nonunion individual contracts.

Hunter Valley miners fight
The strike at Curragh was the second major showdown in the battle over union control in the coal industry, repeating tactics used by Rio Tinto at their Hunter Valley No. 1 mine in New South Wales. Towards the end of a six-week strike there, two unsuccessful attempts were made to have a train cross the picket line. A major national confrontation had loomed involving solidarity from rail and port workers.

In a July 22 split vote miners accepted a proposal by union officials to return to work and continue negotiations with the company.

Since then Rio Tinto has continued to aggressively push through changes to workplace relations. On August 20, Rio Tinto announced that up to half the workforce of 200 are to be retrenched from the Hunter Valley No. 1 mine. The CFMEU immediately suspended negotiations, saying that Rio Tinto had breached the terms of the agreement reached with the AIRC, in which the company agreed not to take any provocative action while negotiations continued.

In another such a move, Rio Tinto decided to use management staff at the coal preparation plant at its Hunter Valley No. 1 mine to keep continuous production at the shift change-overs. Three workers were suspended for turning off machinery when they ended their shift. They were reinstated following an AIRC ruling.

None of these disputes have yet been resolved. At Curragh, the AIRC also ruled that pre-strike work practices should apply at the mine until September 6 so negotiations between the union and company could resume.

ARCO has protested this ruling saying that the AIRC must allow the introduction of changes which they insist are necessary to increase productivity at the mine.

ARCO and Rio Tinto are intent on driving back the hard- won conditions of mineworkers. They are prepared to take on the unions using new antiunion federal and state Workplace Relations Acts. But as the strikes at Curragh and Hunter Valley show, mine workers are also determined to wage a fight to defend their jobs and their union.

Linda Harris is a member of the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union in Sydney.  
 
 
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