Sue Bolton
Kevin Quill, a member of the Electrical Trades Union and a Pilbara Mineworkers Union activist at Hamersley Iron, described what happened when individual contracts were introduced in the Pilbara in the early 1990s.
"Individual contracts came in after a dispute over a worker who refused to join the union", he told Green Left Weekly. "The dispute left a lot of people disgruntled with the unions and 85% of the workers signed individual contracts. Robe River and Hamersley Iron were the first to put workers on individual contracts.
"We were told that we'd be paid a lot more than under the award, but when we got our pay packets, there was only a $500 [per year] increase over the old award. And there were no penalty rates in the individual agreements, just an annualised salary for 40 hours a week plus overtime.
"The worst thing about the individual contracts iss that the company threw the rule book out the window. Everything is at the company's discretion and there are different rules for different workers."
Quill said that under the individual contracts, conditions have been slowly eaten away. "First, the company introduced 12-hour shifts. Now 12-hour shifts are gone and the standard in the inland mines is 12.5-hour shifts.
"We lost our smoko, then lost the right to a meal break. The people who drive the machinery in the mines often start work at 5.30pm and get no meal break until 1-1.30am. That never happened when we were under the award.
"And they force people to work on Christmas Day for a day in lieu. That means you're only getting single time."
Under the individual agreements, said Quill, "the company can do whatever it likes, such as making roster changes. In one roster change, I dropped $15,000 [per year] in pay overnight.
"Before the roster changes we used to get 24 days' annual leave. Then they claimed we were only entitled to 21 days' and deducted days from our accrued leave."
Before the individual contracts came in, "Hamersley Iron workers were on the best wages in the Pilbara. Now we are on the worst wages. BHP workers are about 15% better paid for the same work. Most people at Hamersley are under individual contracts, but at BHP it's only about half the workforce."
From Green Left Weekly, August 3, 2005.
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