Wollongong Coal has today sacked and sent home all 36 remaining permanent mineworkers at the Russell Vale coal mine.
The CFMEU said the company has refused to guarantee workers would be re-employed if the mine reopens in the future, and they have questioned the company’s honesty about its intentions at Russell Vale, after it was revealed the company had deliberately planned to axe permanent workers at nearby Wongawilli mine in order to replace them with contractors at lower rates of pay in the future.
CFMEU Mining and Energy Division South West District VP Bob Timbs said the company has continued to refuse to give an undertaking to the workforce that if the mine extension goes ahead they will be re-employed by Wollongong Coal as permanent employees.
“This morning, without giving any notice to workers or the union, Wollongong Coal called in its permanent employees, told them to clear out their lockers and gave them a redundancy letter,” said Mr Timbs.
“The company has repeatedly refused to provide a written undertaking that if the Russel Vale coal mine extension is approved, the retrenched local workers would be the first in line for future jobs at the mine.
“We know that Wollongong Coal has boasted in a report to shareholders that closing its Wongawilli mine and terminating the permanent workforce was ‘paving the way’ for re-opening the mine with a cheaper, casual workforce.”
Mr Timbs said the community’s support for workers affected by the company’s conduct was heartening with Federal MPs Sharon Bird and Stephen Jones as well as NSW MP Ryan Park joining community leaders, the union and mineworkers themselves in calling on the company to commit to permanent, local jobs.
“The company’s refusal to guarantee the use of permanent, local employees all but confirms that Wollongong Coal is deliberately persuing the same approach at Russell Vale as they have admitted to at Wongawilli,” he said.
“We’re concerned that this is another opportunistic attempt to deliberately close the mine, terminate the current enterprise agreement, and then re-open the mine using a contract workforce.”
Mr Timbs said if Wollongong coal continued to refuse to commit to permanent, local employees the company would lose the support of the community and the union.
“There will be no support from the community for this mine to re-open if the company is not committed to ensuring decent pay and conditions for employees under the protection of an Enterprise Agreement,” he said.
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