Hunter Valley miners continue to fight
By Alison Dellit
Workers at Rio Tinto's Hunter Valley No. 1 mine voted on February 2 to continue their fight against the company's attempt to de-unionise the mine.
The three-hour stop-work meeting followed a decision by the full bench of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission to uphold an appeal by Rio Tinto, which resulted in arbitration ceasing, leaving resolution of the dispute to the "law of the jungle".
The meeting resolved unanimously to elect a team to negotiate with Rio Tinto, to give the union leadership a mandate to call industrial action at any time and to pursue a High Court challenge to force Rio Tinto back into arbitration.
Union leaders met with Rio Tinto managers on February 5. The company identified two main issues to be "resolved": the process of retrenchment "selection" and "deselection" (referring to the company's attempt to ignore the "first on, first off" rule), and "demarcation" of union coverage.
Hunter Valley No. 1 has been fully unionised for most of its existence and the miners, having seen their working conditions improve through collective struggle, went on strike for more than 100 days last year to defend the right of their union to exist.
Rio Tinto has retrenched 190 workers, and there are rumours that a further 200 of the remaining 380 workers may be sacked.
Mick Kelly, vice-president of the Northern Districts branch of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, told Green Left Rio Tinto is "out to destroy the union. They have kicked us out of arbitration because they see this struggle as all or nothing. We are happy to talk about demarcation issues ... but Rio Tinto will accept nothing less than no union influence at the mine.
"They want the power to sack the union militants and John Howard's legislation may allow them to do that. Rio Tinto and the Howard government are seeking to destroy the union movement to make it easier to push wages down and abolish conditions", he said.
Kelly pointed out the hypocrisy of the current attacks. "The government can't have it both ways. On the one hand they say we can't negotiate on this, that we have to strike to resolve it. On the other, the are lambasting the maritime union for not 'behaving themselves'. The union movement as a whole has to come behind the wharfies and the miners. This is the only way we can win."
A motion supporting the wharfies was carried by acclamation at the meeting. After moving speeches by two members of the Free West Papua movement fighting the destruction of their land by Rio Tinto, the 450 workers rose to their feet chanting, "Workers of the world unite, dare to struggle, dare to fight".