Engineering Union again makes misleading claims

27 November 2009

Engineering Union again makes misleading claims

Claims by the Engineering Union that Solid Energy wants to “reduce miners’ hours (at Huntly East Mine) but not compensate them for the loss of income” could not be further from the truth, says Solid Energy Chief Operating Officer, Barry Bragg.

“It’s deeply disappointing that the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union are once again making misleading statements about Solid Energy’s offer to its Huntly East Mine workforce.

“While we have offered an option for people to work fewer hours under the proposed new arrangements, that would be the worker’s individual choice, not Solid Energy’s. Huntly East Mine has no future unless there are improvements to productivity and clearly we are not going to achieve that by staff working fewer hours. Our preference is clearly to have staff work the equivalent of a 40-hour week and to receive the appropriate compensation. To suggest Solid Energy proposes to cut workers’ hours and pay is blatantly wrong and deliberately provocative. We cannot imagine why the union would think it is appropriate or useful to them to mislead our workforce by telling them that.”

Mr Bragg confirmed that Solid Energy had offered a 10-hour shift working arrangement for the miners and to retain the existing 12-hour shift roster for the maintenance teams. When taken over a 16 week cycle miners would actually work 63 10-hour days (630 hours) compared to 80 8-hours days (640 hours) and would be paid an additional 6.5%. Put simply, over each roster cycle they would work 10 fewer hours, and 17 fewer days, yet get paid 6.5% more.

“Solid Energy’s preferred miners’ roster is a “4 days on, 4 days off; 5 days on, 3 days off” pattern. This means that the staff would work on average 39.5 hours per week. Some staff expressed a preference to work only “4 on 4 off”, and we’ve agreed to make this available as an option.

“This concession by Solid Energy to a worker request is what the union has now turned around and said is our demand. Where a person elects the “4 on 4 off” option they will only be working on average 35 hours a week and their take home pay will be less, but this is not our preferred option.”
• Miners will earn $85,600 (for working an average of 39.5 hours per week) under the proposal compared with $78,832 (for working 40 hours per week) under the current agreement. This is equivalent to an 8.5% increase (the national offer of 2% plus a 6.5% increase for moving to the new roster arrangements.) This will increase by a further 3%, to $88,156, from April 2010.
• The tradesmen who currently work 12-hour shifts have not had their roster altered at all and their annual earnings will increase by 2% (as per the national offer) from $88,299 to $90,054. This rate will increase by a further 3% to $92731 from April 2010.

Solid Energy has offered its unionised employees across the country a 2% increase in base remuneration in year one and a 3% increase in year two. An additional 3% lump sum payment (about $2000 gross) was also offered in recognition of the company’s record profit in the 2009 year.

We have also offered, as another option for the workforce to consider, an alternative 7-day roster. This comprises 5 8-hour shifts Monday - Friday and 3 12-hour shifts on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. This would have no impact on the existing miners but would require tradesmen to work 8-hour shifts rather than the current 12 hour shifts. The 3 x 12 hour shifts would be staffed by volunteers, contractors and new recruits

“The cost of mining Huntly East is already very high and far above any comparable mine anywhere else we know of. We simply cannot afford to increase labour costs further than the current offer, particularly when this workforce is already by far the highest paid in the country. To improve productivity the mine must move to a seven-day roster, which is already in place at our other mines. The mine is marginal and has not achieved its production targets in any of the past five years.”

Last night 500 miners at Stockton Opencast Mine voted to strike in support of the Huntly East Mine, while 180 miners working for contractor HWE Mining Ltd at nearby Rotowaro Opencast Mine also remain on strike despite accepting a revised offer yesterday.

ENDS

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