Ann: Appendix 3Y - Mick McCormack, page-6

Lead on front page AUST today (extract):
Miners battle IR darkness
RESOURCES GIANTS UNITE IN TEST CASE CEOs WARN ‘DANGEROUS PRECEDENT’ RISKS ’70s-STYLE STRIFE
EXCLUSIVE - GEOFF CHAMBERS - CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
Mining giants Whitehaven Coal, Peabody and Glencore are launching a joint appeal to overturn a Fair Work Commission decision compelling the companies into multi-employer bargaining, warning the nation is on the brink of reliving the “dark days” of the industrial disputes of the 1970s and 1980s.
The three NSW coalmining companies on August 23 became the first miners hit with a FWC ruling applying the Albanese government’s multi-employer bargaining rules, which the resources sector this month warned would bring “conflict to every workplace”.
Ahead of Federal Court appeal proceedings, the miners – who between them employ thousands of Australians – have hit out at federal Labor’s “continued attacks” on their industry’s competitiveness and sustainability.
Anthony Albanese and Workplace Relations Minister Murray Watt are refusing employer demands to abolish multi-employer bargaining and offering no compromise on the government’s union-backed laws including same job, same pay. In a landmark test case for the Prime Minister’s industrial relations laws, The Australian can reveal Whitehaven, Peabody and Ulan Coal Mines, a subsidiary of Glencore, are filing an application to the Federal Court seeking to overturn the FWC’s decision forcing the companies to participate in joint bargaining.
After Labor’s 2022 amendments to the Fair Work Act, the FWC last month sided with union representations in declaring that competing businesses mining the same commodity in the same state had a “common interest” requiring them to enter multi-employer bargaining negotiations.
Mining companies, which are propping up federal and state budgets, are warning Labor’s multi-employer bargaining laws will encourage strikes and shutdowns, reduce competitiveness and have dire consequences for the economy, regions and jobs.
”…..This decision effectively turns back the clock four decades and could unwind the historic movement from industry-wide wage fixing to enterprise-based terms and conditions that … until recently, had bipartisan support.”