Workers at BHP Billiton Ltd. ‘s coking coal mines in Australia, the world’s largest exporter, will strike for seven days from February 15, after rejecting the company’s latest offer. Representatives of the unions inform BHP of collective action today after workers voted to strike that first started last year to resume construction, forestry, mining and energy Union said today in a statement. “BHP is a huge profit from the coking coal operations in central Queensland, but it will not listen to its employees,” Stephen Smyth, district president of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, said today in an e – e-mail statement. “We must ensure that the mining boom will not compromise the safety of workers and the interests of our mining communities.”
Approximately 3,500 employees in BHP’s mines in Queensland Bowen Basin have kept rolling strikes since June over pay and conditions for suspension of collective action in December to resume contract talks. Unions worldwide are stepping up demands for higher wages and better conditions as the recording commodity prices swell earnings at mining companies.
The workers of BHP’s Goonyella Riverside, Broadmeadow, Peak Downs, Saraji, Norwich Park, Gregory Crinum and Blackwater mines will be involved in the strikes from next week, the statement said.
“We are very disappointed when we consistently have our commitment to constructive negotiations with the unions to show” BHP said today in an e-mailed statement. BHP “can not and will not reduce our rights and obligations to our company site, nor will we accept in productivity destroy arrangements as now proposed by the unions.”
The BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance, the mines in Queensland monitors, is the world’s largest exporter of coal and steel production equally owned by BHP and Mitsubishi Development Pty Almost all coal mined in the BMA sites, with an annual capacity of 58 million tonnes, shipped for steel production, according to its website.
source:businessweek
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