IT was a winter of discontent but the arrival of summer has resulted in Glencore and its Hunter Valley workforce making peace and signing new Enterprise Agreements (EA).
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Each of Glencore’s coal sites in the Hunter Valley has now reached agreement with its workforce.
These sites include Mangoola Open Cut, Ravensworth Open Cut, Ravensworth CHPP, Mt Owen CHPP, Glendell Open Cut, Liddell Open Cut, Liddell CHPP, Bulga Open Cut and Bulga Underground.
Each EA is now in the process of being registered.
Overall, the workforce at 13 different Glencore coal sites in NSW and Queensland have now voted in favour of new EAs this year.
During the six-month dispute, Construction Forestry Mining and Energy (CFMEU) representatives said their core grievance with the company was increasing use of casual contract labour, redundancy rates, and a “miserable pay offer”.
CFMEU District president Peter Jordan, speaking at a rally in June this year in Singleton, said “it’s quite clear from the amount of our members who attended today that they want security around their jobs”.
“We have contracting members that have been working at some of their jobs for as long as five to six years and they are still in casual positions. This is simply not good enough,” he explained.
“More contractors means we weaken our union and that’s what they want.
“Rio Tinto started this cancer but all the companies Glencore, Rio, BHP and Yancoal – they are all up to the same thing.”