Billionaire mining giants slash jobs
Despite making profits of $20 billion combined in the past year, mining giants BHP Billiton and Xstrata announced on September 10 they would axe 900 jobs.
BHP Billiton, which announced an annual $14.8 billion profit last month, will scrap 300 jobs when it closes its 33-year-old Gregory mine in Queensland next month.
Xstrata, which announced a record profit of $5.41 billion in February, said it would cut 600 jobs but has not said at which mines.
Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU) general secretary Andrew Vickers said neither BHP nor Xstrata consulted the union before revealing the job cuts. He told AAP the mining giants’ actions were a ruthless response to a temporary slump in profits.
Vickers said: “They sack our people, our members and get rid of jobs, that's their answer to every problem.
“They don't sack CEOs when they make multi million if not billion dollar cock-ups like [BHP CEO Marius] Kloppers has done with BHP in his reign.”
Jerry McCall, a sacked sub-contractor in BHP Billiton’s Gregory mine in central Queensland, told ABC Capricornia the company told him there would be “three years of solid work and we started about eight months ago and then all of a sudden, she’s gone”.
Despite the lay offs, Xstrata said its growth and expansion projects in NSW and Queensland would go ahead.
The BHP and Xstrata layoffs come on top of other mining cuts, including Fortescue Metals recently axing 1000 jobs. The Australian says more than 3500 mining jobs have been slashed in the past six months.
O'Farrell to gut NSW education
The NSW government said on September 11 that it would slash $1.7 billion from the NSW education budget.
The cuts will hit public education hardest, slashing 1800 jobs, including 800 TAFE positions. TAFE fees will rise by almost 10% and the government has cut support for Fine Arts, stranding 4000 students who will not be able to finish their courses.
Non-government schools face a four-year funding freeze, with the Independent Education Union saying that sector will lose up to 1000 jobs.
The Barry O’Farrell Coalition government said its cuts “not effecting frontline teachers”, but the cuts savage support staff — from reception staff at schools to workers that support students with disabilities.
Joan Lemaire, senior vice president of the NSW Teachers Federation (NSWTF), told ABC News the “cuts will affect every public school community in NSW” and will “impact on the learning provisions of students”. She said: “Cuts like this will impact not only on our students today but our students into the future.”
NSWTF president Maurie Mulheron said on September 14: “This will rip billions of dollars from public schools and TAFE budgets at a time when our nation spends less than the OECD average on education and the proportion of education spending in the state budget has declined from 28.4% in 1989-90 to 22.4% currently.
“Federation will be working with other unions, public education groups and local communities across NSW to defeat this attack on our students’ right to a quality public education.”
The NSWTF and the IEU say they are considering strike action to stop the cuts. NSW public sector unions will hold a statewide stop work and protest for October 8.