April 4, 2025
In a major union win, BHP has confirmed that all Operations Services employees will get Christmas and Boxing Day off.
Meanwhile, BHP is putting a new Enterprise Agreement for its production workforce out for a vote. While important improvements have been made, the Agreement still falls short of MEU standards and the union is urging members to reject it.
BHP has told its workforce they would be guaranteed Christmas and Boxing Day off after a Federal Court judgment agreed with the MEU that BHP has breached Award provisions for OS coal mine workers regarding public holidays and shift lengths.
BHP’s breaches of the Black Coal Mining Industry Award relate to:
· Not meeting the requirement to provide two public holidays each year that are not worked by the whole workforce (traditionally Christmas and Boxing Day).
· Requiring employees to work 12.5-hour shifts without agreement, when the Award requires employee agreement for shift lengths in excess of 10 hours.
BHP has filed an appeal to the decision.
OS workers are covered by Award conditions due to BHP’s long-running failure to develop legally compliant Enterprise Agreements for its workforce.
This week, BHP announced plans to put a new OS Production Agreement out to vote from April 10-14.
Queensland District President Mitch Hughes said the company was seeking to buy a ‘yes’ vote with a substantial sign-on bonus. He said that bargaining had delivered some good improvements, the agreement still falls short in key areas including:
· Work location and the ability for BHP OS to transfer workers to different sites and potentially different states, without access to redundancy payments.
· Wages – the proposed agreement operates on a ‘minimum rates’ rather than ‘paid rates’ basis, giving BHP discretion when setting workers’ annual rates of pay. This leads to unfair outcomes and lack of transparency.
· Lack of enforceability of key conditions by having them covered by ‘policies’ rather than included in the Agreement.
BHP’s proposed agreement puts the Christmas win at risk, said Mitch Hughes. “OS employees rostered on are entitled to have these Christmas and Boxing Day off and still be paid as if at work.
“BHP have made it clear that they are appealing and will revert back to their old practices if they win,” said Mitch.
“The proposed agreement removes this entitlement and would enable BHP to continue its practice of operating every day of the year.
“While negotiations have taken a long time, BHP could have avoided this by simply employing people under the existing Agreements or listening to us over the last six years.
“Instead, they have continued with their arrogant approach, and we have proven them wrong at every step in different courts. For pay, conditions and Christmas with your family – we encourage everyone to vote no to this proposed Agreement.”
