Northern Mining NSW Energy District

The Mining and Energy Union remains determined to give members a say on their future in the Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union despite a Federal Court decision today disallowing an initial application for a demerger ballot on technical grounds.

In the July 2022 issue of Common Cause:

Permanent jobs win at Grosvenor

Raw chicken, green calamari and mouldy sandwiches?

Analysis of five coal mining electorates has found a stunning $989 million has been lost from local economic activity due to aggressive wage cutting-strategies by mining companies.

Assertions made by the Minerals Council of Australia this week about rates of permanent mining jobs are misleading and cover up the rampant use of insecure labour hire across the industry, the Mining and Energy Union said today.

ABS figures on rates of casualisation in the mining industry don’t tell the full story because they exclude the large proportion of the workforce employed through labour hire companies.

Australia’s biggest thermal coal producer – Glencore - made loads of money in 2021 on the back of high coal prices in particular, and is forecasting another great year in 2022. But it still plans to be out of coal entirely by 2050, and winding back production well before then.