What really happened, page-504

OT Had dinner with a mate who's been in mining for 20 years or so on the weekend.
We weren't discussing mining, we were discussing unions.

He brought up murrin. Said they needed a part urgently for the plant.
They had a guy drive it out from Perth. From memory it's 9 hours or something.

Got to the gate and they asked him for his union card 'don't have one'.
You can't come in.
They wouldn't even let someone walk out the gate to get it.
They had to get a driver with a union card to drive out of Perth empty, grab it off him at the gate and drive through.

How crazy is that?
I have no knowledge in this area but my mate said something about the plant being in the build phase so the union completely controlled it.