District President, Peter Jordan, has confirmed members of the CFMEU employed at Yancoal’s Ashton Underground mine have given notice of their intention to take protected industrial action.
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With two stop work meetings planned for Friday, March 9, and a further 24-hour stoppage from midnight on Sunday, March 11.
Mr Jordan says the protected action is in response to issues that have arisen in the process of trying to “roll-over” an expired Enterprise Bargaining Agreement.
He says while they are seeking a slight pay increase, the main area of contention is related to the right of arbitration.
“The company wants to remove the right of arbitration and wind it back to consent only,” he explains.
“They also want to lower the hourly rate paid to contractors which at present is the same as permanent employees, and there are also issues around the redundancy clause.”
He says the agreement expired over two years ago at a time when the industry was in bad shape.
However, now things have picked up all we are asking for is to roll-over the current agreement with a slight pay increase – and without having these vital conditions taken away.
A spokesperson from Yancaol says negotiations have been conducted in good faith for more than two years in an effort to implement a modern and sustainable enterprise agreement.
“The proposed new agreement will see employees retain their current redundancy entitlements and negotiations related to a proposed wage increase are ongoing,” the spokesperson says.
“Proposed changes to the matter of arbitration are in accordance with modern workplace agreements already established at mines across the Hunter Valley.”
“The Ashton workplace agreement is out of date, unsustainable and requires improvement to support the future of the operation.”
Chinese miner, Yancoal, has been operating the Ashton underground mine since 2009 and after acquiring Rio Tinto’s Hunter Valley assets – Mount Thorley Warkworth and Hunter Valley Operations – in September 2017, are now a significant player in the local industry.
They recently announced that approximately 78 contract crib relief haul truck operators – employed by Programmed – were no longer required at MTW following a restructure of the operation’s current excavator rosters.
