BHP Coal Mine Workers Vote in Favor of Right to Strike

By Jason Scott - Jun 3, 2011 10:33 AM GMT+0530

BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP), the world’s largest mining company, may face the first strikes at its Australian coal mines in a decade after workers voted in favor of the right to take industrial action.

The union remains in talks with the BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance after members today voted to support the right to take industrial action, Stephen Smyth, president of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union’s mining and energy division in Queensland, said in a phone interview. There’s no possibility of a strike until after a workers’ meeting on June 10, he said.

About 4,000 union members at all seven mines in the Bowen Basin in Queensland state owned by BMA, the world’s largest exporter of steelmaking coal, are lobbying for improved working conditions. Unions in Australia are stepping up demands for job security and wage rises as surging commodity prices have mining companies including Melbourne-based BHP forecast to report record annual profit.

“BMA is continuing to meet with unions to complete negotiations around the remaining points of a new agreement,” BHP spokeswoman Samantha Stevens said today by phone. “We continue to make progress and as such we believe any industrial action would be premature. BMA and the unions have scheduled further meetings through to the end of July.”

Should negotiations break down, the union will give workers the option of taking industrial action, including strikes, Smyth said. The union would need to give BHP three days notice before any strikes could legally start, he said.
Output Threat

Any stoppages may further cut output at BHP, which reported a 14 percent drop in production last quarter as torrential rains in the early part of the year flooded mines. The nation’s coking coal exports plunged to 7.9 million metric tons in February, the lowest monthly volume since February 2009.

Almost all of the coal produced at the mines, with annual production capacity of 58 million tons, is shipped overseas for steel production, BHP said on its website. BMA is equally owned by BHP and Mitsubishi Development Pty. It directly employs more than 4,800 people, according to the website.

The union has been in negotiations for better job security for more than five months, Steve Pierce, a vice president of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union in the state, said yesterday. One of the sticking points is a demand by workers to have a bigger say in a new “extended roster system” that the company plans to introduce, he said. (sourced Bloomberg)