Vol. 71/No. 25      June 25, 2007

These issues have been brought into sharper focus by the death on April 9 of Jason Blee at Anglo Coal’s Moranbah North mine, also in central Queensland.

With coal prices and exports booming, coal production in Australia has jumped nearly 40 percent over the past decade. The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), the main coal mining union, has charged that imposition of longer hours, growing use of workers hired through contract companies, and the use of contract supervisors, as part of the bosses' productivity drive, has undermined safety standards across the industry. The CFMEU estimates that about one-third of the workforce in New South Wales mines are now contractors.

Productivity in coal mining—output per worker—increased by 90 percent between 1993 and 2003. Over the same 10-year period there were 191 mining fatalities (across both coal and metals mining) in the country.

Blee, a 33-year-old contract worker, was crushed by a shuttle car—the fourth miner killed over the past year in Australia. The results of an inquiry into his death, which involves CFMEU safety officers, have yet to be reported. The Mackay Daily Mercury reported that several hundred people attended his funeral, April 16, including many coal miners.

There were seven potentially fatal incidents at the Moranbah North mine in the last half of 2006, according to CFMEU safety officer Steve Smyth, including a roof collapse that trapped seven miners in September. After Blee’s death, the Minister of Mines in Queensland's Australian Labor Party state government, Geoffrey Wilson, announced that safety audits would be carried out at all coal mines in the state.

Since then CFMEU safety officer Tim Whyte has accused state government mining inspectors of failing to issue official safety warnings twice—over a safety switch fault in some shuttle cars that has been discovered during the Blee inquiry; and over a breathing apparatus failure during a smoke inhalation incident at the Oakey Creek #1 mine May 18.

Workers at the Dawson mine want to retain their current three days on, three days off shift rosters, while the company has proposed an eight days on, eight days off pattern. The company is also demanding only two half-hour breaks over a 12-hour shift. Many miners, particularly those hired by contract companies, also drive up to two to three hours each way to get to Dawson or other mines, on top of a 12-hour shift, making fatigue a serious concern for workers.

Queensland CFMEU vice president Glenn Power told the Militant in a June 1 phone interview that negotiations over a collective agreement at the mine had been going on since last October, and that further stoppages would be organized in June if a settlement wasn’t reached with Anglo Coal. The main sticking point, he said, was the company’s insistence on including a clause that would require workers to undergo a rigorous “fitness for duty” test carried out by company doctors, without union health and safety representatives being involved. “We see it as a termination clause,” Power said. The average age of the workforce at Dawson is 49. Collective agreements between the unions and coal companies exist at almost all coal mines in Australia.

The expansion of coal production is stretching rail transport and coal loading ports to the limit—three-quarters of Australia’s coal production is exported. There are currently around 150 ships waiting off Australia’s east coast to load exported coal. Now, with loading quotas for the coal companies being cut by port authorities, the bosses are threatening cuts in production and layoffs at a number of mines.

Announcements have been made of 79 jobs to be cut at the Austar mine near Newcastle, and 250 at three Coal and Allied (Rio Tinto) mines in the Hunter Valley north of Newcastle. Anglo Coal is threatening to lay off 100 workers at its Bundoora mine, in central Queensland, blaming coal shipping delays.

Linda Harris contributed to this article.
 
 
Related articles:
Minnesota meat packers win union representation  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home