From "The internet pages of The Australian"Pilbara mining...

From "The internet pages of The Australian"

Pilbara mining workers to strike over claims



Paige Taylor and Ewin Hannan | October 07, 2008

STRIKE action will interrupt Rio Tinto's Pilbara operations for the first time in 16 years, as Australian Workplace Agreements expire and locomotive drivers earning up to $210,000 a year engage their union in a push for collective agreements.

Train drivers who are members of the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union and employed by Pilbara Iron Ore and Hamersley Iron Ore voted late last night to walk off the job for 12 hours on Saturday, and have voted in favour of continued strikes of four, 12 or 24 hours in pursuit of their claims.

The CFMEU believes it can halt up to four of the 16 trains a day that each delivers 30,000 tonnes of iron ore to Dampier and Cape Lambert.

While Rio Tinto and the federal Opposition are worried about a possible return to the industrial nightmares that plagued the resource-rich Pilbara decades ago, Deputy Prime Minister and Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard yesterday played down the workers' decision in favour of protected strike action.

"AWAs are not part of this nation's future because the Australian people voted at the last election to get rid of Work Choices and unfair AWAs," Ms Gillard said, before the workers voted unanimously to strike at the weekend. "Protected industrial action is only available in limited circumstances during enterprise bargaining, and after it has been approved by a majority of employees in a mandatory secret ballot."

Rio Tinto's iron ore chief executive officer, Sam Walsh, told all workers in a memo last week that the threat of strike action was "an important matter that potentially affects us all, and I would like it treated as such".

Just 39 of Rio's 315 locomotive drivers can take protected strike action as a result of the ballot conducted with the approval of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, but the CFMEU believes more workers will join the union as their AWAsexpire, and Rio is bracing for major disruption. The company loses $2million each time a train is delayed.

Rio Tinto has offered the workers a collective non-union agreement and told the CFMEU in writing late yesterday it would not take part in any talks.

"We do not intend to isolate sections of our workplace and treat them differently to others," the company told the CFMEU in writing. "(It would be) inappropriate to enter union discussions."

Rio Tinto Iron Ore told The Australian it would hate to see a return to the industrial nightmare that preceded the unions being driven out of its Pilbara operations. The company said that before 1992, when it implemented a policy of direct negotiation with employees, ships were kept waiting at port for up to five weeks as a result of industrial action.

A Rio Tinto Iron Ore spokesman said: "The Pilbara was an industrial nightmare, and significantly not one day has been lost to industrial dispute since 1992."

Opposition workplace relations spokesman Michael Keenan said industrial action had increased eight-fold under the Rudd Government. "Sensible and balanced right of entry and industrial action laws under the Coalition have been incredibly successful in re-establishing Australia as a reliable trading partner. It is vital that Julia Gillard and the Rudd Government do not water down these laws."
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