June 26, 2024
Our Union is continuing to file more Same Job Same Pay applications including for three of BHP’s Queensland coal mines.
Ten applications were made covering approximately 1700 labour hire workers at Saraji, Peak Downs and Goonyella Riverside, for workers employed by Chandler Macleod, Workpac and BHP’s in-house provider Operations Services.
The orders would lift the pay of the affected labour hire workers by at least $10,000 and up to $40,000 a year depending on skills and rosters. Each application compares labour hire rates to the BMA Enterprise Agreement 2022 to set protected rates of pay for labour hire workers who perform work covered by the Agreement.
BHP, as the biggest player in Australia’s coal industry and a pioneer of the labour hire rort, has vowed to fight the applications in the Fair Work Commission and have hired the employer-friendly barrister Richard Dalton fresh off his unsuccessful defence of Qantas’ illegal outsourcing of ground handlers during the Covid-19 pandemic. The company has flagged its intention to argue that Operations Services workers were ‘service contractors,’ not labour hire, and thus exempt from Same Job Same Pay orders.
The MEU is confident that OS workers will be eligible for Same Job Same Pay orders. BHP OS workers, as well as Chandler Macleod and Workpac, work alongside directly employed workers, performing the same jobs.
Queensland District President Mitch Hughes said: “we expect BHP to throw everything at trying to avoid their same job, same pay applications for workers, they would rather spend money on lawyers than fair wages.
“We will continue working through the process and we are confident that Operations Services employees meet the conditions for the regulated labour hire arrangement orders we have applied for.
“BHP must accept that using labour hire purely to cut pay is out of step with community standards and is now out of step with the law.”
In addition to applications filed at Callide mine in Biloela and Mount Pleasant mine in NSW – which was withdrawn after the labour hire workers were employed directly – the MEU has filed further Same Job Same Pay applications for:
- One Key workers at Boggabri mine in NSW
- Workpac workers at Rix’s Creek mine in NSW
- Workpac workers at Poitrel in Queensland.
Follow our application tracker here. Contact your Lodge or District for more information about Same Job Same Pay applications at your workplace.
