A decision by the Fair Work Commission (FWC) to force three mining companies in New South Wales into multi-employer bargaining has significant implications for mining operations in the Pilbara.
This change was introduced in 2022 as part of the new Federal workplace laws, but had not been tested until the FWC on August 23 ordered Peabody Energy, Ulan Coal Mines and Whitehaven Coal Mining to collectively bargain with the Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers, Australia (APESMA).
The FWC’s decision provides a pathway for protected industrial action and could shut down all three mines as well as force compulsory arbitration if no agreement is reached.
It could lead to the Commission revoking the businesses’ right to negotiate with their employees, imposing broad industry-wide terms that could disrupt their business operations.
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CCIWA Chief Executive Chris Rodwell says the FWC’s ruling comes amid an alarming union power grab in WA’s mining sector and sets a dangerous precedent for union activity in the Pilbara.
“While this decision is for mining in NSW, it will cut across the nation and into WA’s economic engine room – the Pilbara,” Rodwell says.
“Any attempt by the unions to force multi-employer bargaining in WA’s mining industry would pose a significant risk to productivity and jeopardise future projects.”
Despite promising businesses that multi-employer bargaining was designed for low-paid, feminised industries like childcare, this decision demonstrates that the business community was right all along about the broader risks.
‘Bad old days’ of unionisation could revive
Rodwell says the prospect of union chaos in the Pilbara would have dramatic consequences for the WA economy.
“The union movement is now one step closer to its goal of re-unionising the Pilbara and there are serious concerns that the bad old days of industry-wide wage setting and the ongoing strikes of the 1970s and 80s will be back,” he said.
“The number of Pilbara mining workers who are members of the union is incredibly small. This is a blatant power grab.
“Every West Australian knows our State’s economic fortunes are largely born in the Pilbara. Any attempt by the unions to undermine that should be deeply concerning to all of us.”
Rodwell says the decision would also have implications in other sectors in WA, including manufacturing.
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