Union to challenge Fair Work Commission’s approval of BHP’s in house labour hire workforce agreements
Mining union claims the non-union deals will freeze ‘substandard’ wage rates for four years.
The mining union will challenge the Fair Work Commission’s approval of two agreements covering BHP’s in house labour hire workforce, claiming the non-union deals will freeze “substandard” wage rates for four years.
Following a series of undertakings by BHP, the commission on Thursday approved two agreements covering its Operations Services coal mining workforce in central Queensland and the Hunter Valley in NSW.
The agreements, effective from Boxing Day, were originally voted on by 50 workers, a small fraction of the 1500 workers employed on the agreement, and an even smaller portion of the total number of people that work on its mines. They will cover thousands of workers across the two states.
While the commission rejected the Construction, Forestry, Maritime Mining and Energy Union’s challenge, the union said on Friday it would lodge an appeal to a commission full bench. The tribunal is yet to publish its reasons for approval.
Tony Maher, the union’s mining division national president, said the two agreements contained pay and conditions far worse than current union-negotiated agreements covering directly-employed BHP coal workers.
Mr Maher said the two four-year deals had pay rates of $30,000 to $50,000 a year below union agreements, had no provision for pay rises, and allowed workers to be transferred to any company operations nationally, including coal and iron ore, at any location at any time.
“It’s disgraceful that mining giants like BHP are simply able to sidestep existing union-negotiated agreements and introduce new non-union agreements to cut pay and conditions,” he said.
“Shame on the Big Australian for treating its workforce like mugs. They say Operations Services employees ‘are’ BHP and give them a BHP shirt, but people know when they are being treated like second-class citizens.
“We know that Operations Services workers are voting with their feet and turnover is high. This arrogant approach will come back to bite BHP.”
Incoming BHP boss Mike Henry has championed the Operations Services model, and the Fair Work Commission’s registration of the agreements avoids an early embarrassment for the company’s new chief executive.
Mr Henry argues the internal contracting model is the best way to reduce BHP’s reliance on external labour hire companies, improve safety standards and productivity and give employment security and certainty to regional workers.
BHP says the model is not designed to replace workers covered by existing enterprise agreements, but to convert its contract and labour hire workforce to permanent employees, while retaining workforce flexibility.
About 1500 workers are now employed by the arm, with 30 to 50 per cent coming from existing contract roles on the same site, according to BHP. The rest have been recruited from mining contractors operating within the same region and from related industries with complementary skills, BHP says.
A spokesman for BHP said the company was pleased with the Fair Work decision.
“However our focus is not on this decision, it is on finding and then developing our great people who are delivering real results through their permanent employment with Operations Services,” he said.
“Operations Services has already delivered stability to our workforces around the country, with over 1500 people now enjoying the security of permanent employment after joining the organisation, which also provides certainty and sustainability for BHP’s operations.”
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