Redemption as unfairly dismissed miner gets his job back

BHP Coal has been ordered to reinstate a veteran mine worker and pay him $44,000 in lost earnings.

BHP Coal has been ordered to reinstate a veteran mine worker and pay him $44,000 in lost earnings after the Fair Work Commission found he was unfairly dismissed for refusing to train a contractor.

In a 572-paragraph decision, commissioner Jennifer Hunt said Gregory Macklin, who had worked at BHP since 1980, could be considered a “workplace dinosaur”, likening him to the ­institutionalised fictional char­acter Brooks Hatlen in The Shawshank Redemption.

She castigated him over two workplace incidents that led to two warnings by BHP. In 2016, he told a female bus driver who asked him to put on his seat belt that “you need to concentrate on driving as you are female”, and last year he made derogatory comments during a training course after a female manager said women returning to work needed breastfeeding facilities.

But Ms Hunt said while Mr Macklin, 60, should not escape his past conduct, he should not suffer the significant detriment of losing his $152,000-a-year job where he was unfairly dismissed.

Mr Macklin’s primary duty was as a grader in BHP’s coalmining department at the BMA Goonyella Riverside Mine in central Queensland. He was also a qualified trainer and assessor of coalmining workers.

In May he was asked by his ­direct supervisor, Phillip Rivers, to train a contractor on a truck. Mr Macklin declined, believing mistakenly he was not required to train contractors. He also said he did not train contractors “that will take my job”, and had never trained a contractor in the decades he worked for BHP.

When he realised he was obliged to train contractors, he apologised to management and said it would not happen again. He said he did not believe he had been formally instructed to conduct the training.

But BHP sacked Mr Macklin. Ms Hunt found that a mine superintendent wrongly believed Mr Macklin had previously trained contractors. She also rejected the superintendent’s belief that a mining union representative had worded up Mr Macklin to give him a convenient excuse.

“In a public decision where the commission has castigated Mr Macklin relevant to the 2016 bus incident and the 2017 training course incident, for which he properly received written warnings, on reinstatement, Mr Macklin is properly advised to get on with his work, follow ­direction, embrace change and above all, be respectful to all he encounters, whether he agrees with them or not,’’ she said.