July 2, 2007

Media Advisory

Coal miners to strike until further notice

Striking coal miners at Solid Energy’s Spring Creek and Terrace mines have met this afternoon and voted to not return to work until further notice.

The miners walked off the job on Friday and stayed away over the weekend and Monday after Solid Energy refused to transport Spring Creek miners to work as punishment for taking strike action.

The strikes at Spring Creek and Terrace are part of an ongoing campaign of industrial action involving more than 800 coal miners nationwide.

This includes a nationwide overtime ban and spontaneous rolling stoppages, which began on Monday following the collapse of negotiations to renew the mining industry multi-employer collective agreement.

In other developments:

- Miners at Huntly took twenty hours’ strike action over the weekend, including 12 hours on Saturday and 8 hours on Sunday night. Rolling stoppages are continuing.

- Miners at Ngakawa, part of Stockton mine, held a series of spontaneous stopwork meetings over the weekend, each lasting up to three hours. These are also continuing.

- Miners nationwide are continuing with a blanket overtime ban.

Miners at Spring Creek and Terrace will meet again on Thursday to review their strike action.

ENDS

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