Australian Financial Review http://www.afr.com.au/content/000113/news/news4.html Thursday, January 13, 2000 BHP workers escalate dispute By Nina Field Unions are turning up the industrial heat in their dispute with BHP, with thousands of steel and transport workers yesterday engaging in illegal strikes against the introduction of individual contracts in Western Australia. BHP iron ore workers at Mount Newman in WA also hardened their resolve against the company's attempt to abandon collective bargaining in the Pilbara, with a meeting of union workers yesterday voting to take four days off work from Monday. "This is a decisive resolution," Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union mining president, Mr Tony Maher, who was at the meeting, said. "They've voted for a substantial escalation of the dispute." Planned industrial assaults are spreading across BHP operations, with steel workers in Queensland and dock workers from the hard-line Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) the latest to join the action. BHP coal workers are also expected to initiate industrial action in the weeks ahead, both in support of the Pilbara workers and to wage their own battle against the company's attempt to change work practices in their industry. More than 5,000 workers at Port Kembla steelworks in NSW defied State industrial tribunal orders gained by BHP and walked off the job for 24 hours last night. Around 150 MUA workers also defied anti-strike orders and brought the docks to a halt in Port Kembla in support of the steelworkers' action. The 24-hour strike at Port Kembla will cost BHP $3 million. The action by Mount Newman workers next week is not expected to cause much financial pain to BHP, however, with the company saying it will continue to operate the site with more than half of the 500 workers already signed onto the individual workplace agreements. BHP chief executive Mr Paul Anderson said last night he was not concerned about potential short- term financial damage caused by the dispute, but about what it might do to the company's ability to work with unions to accomplish business outcomes down the track. Workers at Port Hedland in WA will vote today on whether to join their colleagues at Mount Newman in the four-day strike, with union officials saying yesterday they were confident Port Hedland would also go out. Workers across BHP steel operations are planning action in the weeks ahead, with Queensland workers joining the campaign yesterday, announcing a stopwork was planned next Wednesday to vote on strike action. On Friday, workers at BHP's mini-mill in Rooty Hill in Sydney will strike for 24 hours. Steel workers at Western port in Victoria have also voted in favour of a 24-hour strike planned for an unspecified day next week. Mr Maher and the WA branch secretary of the Australian Workers' Union, Mr Tim Daly, argued yesterday that the strong support of Mount Newman workers for the four-day strike showed the tide was beginning to turn against BHP. But BHP iron ore spokesman, Mr John Crowley, said yesterday the union action at Mount Newman was a "desperate act". Mr Crowley predicted the hard-line action was likely to drive more workers onto the contracts, rather than win over employees to the union cause. He said the four-day strike would not alter BHP's course "at all". Mr Maher said the attempt to get the 1,000 contracts in place in the Pilbara had been poorly managed by BHP, with the company picking "the easy option" and having it backfire on them. "To put it in the vernacular they couldn't get one in a brothel with a hundred pound note," he said. Unions claim BHP has only signed up around 40 per cent of workers to the individual contracts, including a large number of apprentices who were not given any choice. BHP has argued it has between 450 and 500 of the 1,000 contracts on offer signed, or around half. ************************************************************************* This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
