Fair Work ombudsman asked to rule on union’s ‘same job, same pay’ claim in iron ore industry
The Minerals Council of Australia accused the Electrical Trades Union of making false and unlawful claims in an email sent to multiple employers using labour hire workers.
Miners have lodged a formal complaint with the Fair Work Ombudsman accusing a trade union of making false and unlawful claims as part of efforts to re-establish unionised labour inside Australia’s iron ore industry.
The complaint stems from emails sent to multiple miner employers by the Electrical Trades Union (ETA). The emails accused companies of using labour hire workers to do the same jobs and tasks as employees, thus breaking the ‘same job, same pay’ law, and included threats of legal action.
The Minerals Council of Australia claims the ETU misrepresented worker rights and made claims that are “clearly false” and potentially unlawful under the Fair Work Act, in its complaint to Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth.
Section 345 of the relevant legislation states no one must knowingly or recklessly make a false or misleading representation about the workplace rights of another person.
The formal complaint dials up the tensions between miners and unions in the Pilbara region of Western Australia that is home to the economy’s biggest export, and comes as resources minister Madeleine King prepares to meet union leaders to discuss productivity.
Earlier this month, unions scored a landmark victory against BHP when the Fair Work Commission approved the application of ‘same job, same pay’, clearing the way for average pay rises of $30,000 for about 2200 labour hire workers in the Queensland coal industry.
The ETU is one of the unions at the forefront of a membership drive in the Pilbara, where iron ore heavyweights BHP, Rio Tinto and Fortescue fear an end to decades of industrial peace.
The row between the ETU and Minerals Council centres on the claim of flouting ‘same job, same pay’ in the email.
“As these two groups (workers from a labour hire firm and company employees) are qualified equally and are tasked to do same tasks they should be on same rates of pay as per new legislation which has passed through parliament,” the email stated.
“The ETU will vigorously defend members pay and conditions and use the full force of our legal team to do so if need be.”
The mining lobby counters that there is no basis for the ETU to assert that because ‘same job, same pay’ obligations can only apply if the Fair Work Commission has made a regulated labour hire arrangement order that applies to a specific workplace.
No such orders have been made in relation to the WA mining industry so there are no obligations on any employer.
Minerals Council chief executive Tania Constable, who lodged the complaint last week, rued the Albanese government’s first term industrial relations changes.
“This is further evidence of some unions misusing the vast new powers within the legislation to bully their way into the Pilbara,” she said.
“This has nothing to do with workers or wages, it is solely about expanding union power. The actions of the ETU in blatantly misrepresenting the law shows the lengths that certain unions will go to in order to abuse such powers.”
ETU WA state secretary Adam Woodage hit back at the Minerals Council, saying it had made no effort to talk to the union about its concerns before complaining to the ombudsman.
“It’s extremely disappointing that the MCA haven’t reached out to me as the point of contact for the Electrical Trades Union of WA, and this is the first I hear of it,” Mr Woodage said when contacted by The Australian.
“The ETU has been around since 1906 and they can’t even give me the common courtesy of a formal letter, a phone call, a request for a meeting … it speaks volumes to where they are at in their view on working class people.”
It is understood the ETU is considering hiring a fourth organiser for the Pilbara and looking to bed down its presence in Newman, a town of about 7000 people where BHP operates mines producing about 78 million tonnes of iron ore a year.
The Mining and Energy Union hailed the Fair Work coal industry decision on July 7 as a “nail in the coffin for BHP’s sham labour hire model”.
BHP tried to defeat the union claim against its in-house labour-hire companies by seeking an exemption for service contractors.
Ms Constable said the Commission’s decision was “incredibly disappointing” and a threat to thousands of specialised contractors in the mining industry.
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Originally published as Fair Work ombudsman asked to rule on union’s ‘same job, same pay’ claim in iron ore industry
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