Ripping off workers' entitlements
By Jonathan Singer
More than 400 coalminer members of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, led by 45 of the 125 miners sacked from the Oakdale colliery, rallied outside Parliament House in Canberra on June 22. They were supporting the CFMEU's demand for a 10 cents a tonne levy on coal to fund miners' entitlements when their employer becomes insolvent.
The Oakdale colliery is being wound up, but the miners will not be paid the $6.3 million they are owed in holiday and sick leave, or severance and retrenchment payments in lieu of notice. Some miners continued working for two weeks after mining ceased so as to salvage equipment which could be sold to pay some miners.
Roy Lamoon, the CFMEU Oakdale lodge president, told Green Left Weekly that because of low coal prices, no company is interested in reopening the mine, even though there are still 60 million tonnes of coal in the pit. The union is therefore campaigning for government action to get the workers their entitlements.
Union officials have presented their proposals to federal industrial relations minister Peter Reith. On June 23, Reith told the ABC's Lateline that he favours paying out workers before other creditors, such as banks, that currently have priority, but he has not said when he will do anything about this.
Prime Minister John Howard and Reith have also raised the possibility of greater penalties for company directors who manipulate company structures to avoid paying entitlements. However, this was a part of Patrick Stevedores' attack on the Maritime Union last year — which Howard and Reith supported.
ALP leader Kim Beazley told the rally he supported the proposed levy, but failed to acknowledge, let alone explain, why Labor took no such action while in federal government in 1983-96.
The NSW Minerals Council, a mine owners' association, rejected the union's proposal. According to the June 25 Financial Review, the Council's executive director, Denis Porter, said, "Businesses in various industries fail regularly ... If a solution is to be found it needs to be a national one, covering all industries."
While motivated by a desire to avoid this cost for the coal industry rather than by workers' needs, Porters' comments contain some truth. It is not only coalminers who face the problem of companies going bust and not paying their entitlements. Many workers also change employers relatively frequently, and at present lose their accrued sick and long-service leave.
A common national fund should be established into which employers make payments to provide for the leave provisions of their employees. An additional levy, a proportion of employers' payrolls, should also be applied to cover retrenchment entitlements for sacked workers (if union action does not prevent the loss of jobs). These entitlements should be set at the highest existing standard. Workers' accrued leave could then move with them from one employer to the next, with the leave paid for out of the fund.