Kestrel Coal Mine: Dispute over employee agreement between Emerald miners and Kestrel Coal Resources

Employees at a Central Qld coal mine are in negotiations for an employee agreement that includes medical benefits and redundancies before the company is sold – as well as equal pay. After 16 meetings and no result, one frustrated miner is speaking out.

A Central Queensland miner who has been with Kestrel Coal Resources for the past 10 years has spoken out after more than 16 meetings between workers and the company failed to delivered a suitable Enterprise Agreement.

Kestrel Coal Resources, which operates the Kestrel Coal Mine near Emerald in the Bowen Basin, has been in EA negotiations with workers since September last year and 97 per cent of the workforce recently voted against a proposed new EA.

The 40-year-old underground miner, who has worked in the industry for 20 years and wished to remain anonymous, said he and his colleagues were ‘frustrated’ over key components left out of Kestrel’s proposed EA.

“It’s frustrating that the company doesn’t want to pay the worker for the quality of the work they’ve done in the past,” he said.

“The workers want something, the company doesn’t want to give it to us …

“We spent 16 meetings with the company and the SBU negotiating and in the end the company just went to a vote for what they wanted and I’m pretty sure the SBU didn’t agree with it as per the workers because there was nothing in it that we really wanted and the vote was 97 per cent no.

“They (KCR) know what they need to do; they need to sit down with the SBU and negotiate fairly.”

When asked what changes he would like to see made to the EA, the miner said, “to include redundancy policies, Medibank health insurance policies, (to have) our incentive bonus policy included in the EA”.

“The employees are frustrated. They do very good work out there, we’re the highest producer of coal, we are one of the safest mines, our injuries have reduced and our production has gone up, yet there is no reward at the end of those three years,” he said.

“The employees have got that company to where it is now and a lot of employees think it is just a slap in the face with the company not coming to terms with some of our requirements in the EA.”

Kestrel Coal Resources proposed an EA that left out crucial entitlements such as medical and redundancy benefits.

There have also been concerns raised over salary inequities between workers doing the same job, but the miner said workers weren’t letting that impact their performance on the job.

Mining and Energy Union vice president Shane Brunker has slammed Kestrel over the ongoing saga, particularly given the company cleared a $100 million profit in December 2021.

“There’s a lot of stress, angst amongst the workforce. They feel like they’ve been let down by the company,” Mr Brunker said.

The Kestrel coal mine is currently for sale, which means that anyone who buys the company can legally leave out redundancies and medical benefits or remove them at any time, Mr Brunker claims.

In response to the EA rejection from its workforce, KCR has decided to conduct an anonymous survey for employees – but workers are already pushing back.

The Emerald miner this publication spoke to said he wasn’t going to be completing the survey, but would rather let the SBU committee represent him and his interests in meetings with KCR.

Mr Brunker’s main worry is for the safety of workers if the EA doesn’t include redundancy and medical benefits before they begin work on an upcoming longwall move in May, which is high risk and labour intensive work.

“These workers are about to perform the most high-risk phase of mining, moving the longwall equipment to the next block, and these delaying tactics from KCR are a distraction stopping workers focusing on the job at hand and that leads to accidents and incidents from my experience,” he said.

Mr Brunker also said because of the uncertainty of the EA negotiations, the workers weren’t able to focus fully on their work and the pay inequality was causing tension.

Industrial action or a bargaining dispute with Fair Work Australia is being considered if Mr Brunker and the workers don’t get a response from KCR.

A meeting with KCR and the workers to discuss the EA is scheduled for April 13.

Public relations for KCR was contacted for comment but had not responded by time of publication.