BHP stand downs unvaccinated miners without pay

Mt Arthur miners stood down without pay could lose their jobs after the CFMEU lost a bid to suspend BHP’s mandatory Covid vaccination policy.

The Fair Work Commission ­rejected a bid by the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union to delay BHP’s jab policy.

Almost 80 unvaccinated miners at BHP’s coalmine at Mt Arthur in NSW have been stood down without pay and could lose their jobs after the mining union lost a bid to suspend the company’s man­datory Covid vaccination policy.

The Fair Work Commission ­rejected a bid by the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union to delay BHP’s jab policy – which requires staff to have had their first vaccination by November 10 – until a commission full bench ruled on the union’s legal challenge next month.

Highlighting the “potential significance” of the full bench case, FWC president Iain Ross said last week that Industrial Relations Minister Michaelia Cash, the ACTU and peak employer bodies would be granted leave to intervene if they wished to do so.

BHP said on Wednesday that it had stood down without pay ­almost 80 workers at the Hunter Valley open-cut coalmine who had not provided evidence of their Covid vaccination status. However, it pledged not to implement any further disciplinary action, including termination, until after the full bench decision, which is ­expected in early December.

A BHP spokesman said “the science is clear that widespread vaccination saves lives” and the company undertook a thorough assessment prior to making vaccination a condition of entry for its Australian workplaces.

“This is a necessary health and safety control to help protect our people, their families and communities – including remote Indigenous communities – while also continuing to safely run our operations,” the spokesman said.

“We will continue to work with our people as we implement this change, and we have plans in place to manage the transition.”

CFMEU northern mining and NSW energy president Peter Jordan said the FWC decision to deny interim orders was “disappointing and unfair”.

“We maintain our strong view that industry-based vaccine mandates are a matter for government, based on public health advice, not individual employers,” Mr Jordan said, adding: “The NSW government does not consider mandatory vaccinations necessary in the mining industry.

“Mining companies should be striving for high rates of vaccination through education and incentives, not starving workers into submission.”

BHP announced on October 6 that it would introduce vaccination as a condition of entry to its Australian sites and offices effective no later than January 31, 2022.

It moved to introduce the ­requirement at Mt Arthur in ­advance of any other BHP mine, ­citing “local risk factors”.

FWC deputy president Tony Saunders said granting the union’s application would have resulted in unjabbed miners exposing workers to increased risk to their health and safety by “removing a control measure that Mt Arthur wishes to put in place to reduce the risk of ­serious illness or death to them”.

He said he accepted the risk was small given that Mt Arthur was an open-cut coalmine where miners were often working on their own or a reasonable distance from other workers; that a range of measures had been put in place to address the risks associated with Covid; that there had been no Covid cases detected at the mine; and that vaccination rates where the employees lived were high and continued to increase.

“But the relaxation of hard controls by the NSW government has resulted in greater freedom of movement of people within the state and it is not possible to operate a large open-cut coalmine such as the (Mt Arthur) mine without workers coming in reasonably close proximity to at least some other workers on their way into the mine or during their shift at the mine,” he said.