May 24, 2017
Oaky North miners sat through the night and will continue to protest today as Glencore continues its war on workers which aims to significantly reduce workers conditions and entitlements in their enterprise agreement.
CFMEU Mining and Energy Division District Vice President Chris Brodsky said the mining company’s proposed Agreement would remove workers’ access to workplace representation in some cases, among a range of other issues.
“This affects hundreds of workers in our community and thousands of their family members,” said Mr Brodsky.
“Glencore’s position would deny employees fair and reasonable representation and set a dangerous precedent for pay and conditions across the mining sector.”
Mr Brodsky said the work stoppages would continue this week until Glencore took a more productive and cooperative approach to negotiations.
“Workers have dug in now. We will stand firm and will not be bullied by this big corporation.”
Glencore’s proposed agreement would:
Limit workers’ access to workplace representation Allow them to unilaterally change rosters against the wishes of employees Pay workers based on profit, not hours and work Increase the cost of company’s accommodation for workers Limit the ability of employees to have some matters determined by arbitration “Glencore cries poor about coal prices but continue to make billions of dollars from our community’s natural resources,” Mr Brodsky said.
“It’s time the company agreed to provide workers with the basic conditions and entitlements being sought by the union.”
The CFMEU also condemned the company for bringing in a replacement workforce instead of sitting back down at the bargaining table and negotiating reasonable terms and conditions.