By Alex Bainbridge
It is well worth the trip to Gunnedah to visit the miners who are now 10 months into their strike at CRA's Vickery coal mine. These strikers are a living demonstration of how to build the solidarity that will be needed to defeat the attacks of the new federal government.
I visited the miners on May 25-26 with others from Newcastle, including the People's Chorus, Hunter Workers' Theatre, Poets at the Pub and representatives of Trades Hall Council, who went to entertain the picketers and to extend solidarity.
Only a few weeks before, a bus load of waterfront workers from the Maritime Union visited Vickery, as did construction workers from Canberra. Miners from other towns are visiting every week, some from as far afield as north and central Queensland. "We have been overwhelmed with solidarity", the CFMEU Vickery lodge secretary, Derek Lucas, told me.
The miners at Vickery need our support to win their dispute. While the strike began last August, the dispute really began in December 1994, when Novacoal (a CRA subsidiary) imposed a 35% pay cut on the workers. When the company then demanded that the miners work 12½ hour shifts, it became clear that the company aimed to starve the miners into submission.
Consequently, between December '94 and August '95, 22 miners and their families left Gunnedah to seek employment elsewhere. The strikers have erected a memorial and white crosses for each of the departed miners.
In the period of "conciliation", a proposal was put to the miners which both required them to work 12½ hour shifts and dropped the hitherto existing clause guaranteeing employment preference for union members. The proposal was rejected twice by the workers. Then began the process of "arbitration".
While the Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) did not order a return to work, it did order the workers to try the 12½ hour shifts for six months, at the level of pay proposed in conciliation (less than the pre-December '94 level). That decision is currently being appealed by the CFMEU. Meanwhile, the company has been interviewing potential strikebreakers.
The Vickery strikers argue that the arbitration process disadvantages them. Because the company is on the offensive against workers' conditions and the IRC aims to reach a "compromise" somewhere between the company's and the union's positions, the workers, in the long run, always lose, they say.
But the Vickery workers are determined to win. The miners' award specifies that shifts longer than eight hours must be agreed to by the workers. Shifts of 12½ hours, on top of sometimes considerable travelling time, are bad for workers' health and their family lives. In this case they would also come with a pay cut — this after no increase in their base rate of pay since 1991. While CRA claims that the introduction of 12½ hour shifts isn't intended to allow a reduction in the size of the work force, it is already talking about employing fewer than the 22 miners who've left when production resumes.
In the coal industry especially, the question of working hours is fundamentally one of safety. The day after our visit to the mine, several miners travelled to Cessnock to add yet another name to the list on the CFMEU office wall of workers who have died in the coal industry in NSW. There are 1500 people on that list. If 12½ hour shifts become the norm, the list will inevitably grow.
The Vickery miners are acutely aware that theirs is a test case. CRA is on a concerted push to de-unionise its work force and to drive down pay and conditions. It is only in the remotest regions that CRA has been successful (in Weipa and northern WA, for example, where most of the miners have accepted individual contracts). This is the company's first serious attack on workers' rights in the main NSW coalfields.
But the Vickery miners have made it clear that they are also serious. When it was seen that CRA wasn't going to back down, the miners dug in. Beginning with a small caravan, the miners have gradually built "Fort Vickery" into a sizeable, permanent structure with all the amenities they could need. They have even constructed a major golf course on the site.
The Maritime Union has promised not to load CRA coal onto ships if CRA attempts to use scab labour, and the strikers can expect support from miners throughout NSW and Queensland. CRA is facing a strong, united and militant union. Lucas told me that the workers have been asked many times how long they can hold out. Their answer: "One more day than them".
The Vickery miners are pleased to have visitors. Messages of support and donations can be sent to the strikers c/- Vickery lodge secretary, Derek Lucas, 6 Andrews St, Gunnedah 2380.