About 160 permanent employees at the Metropolitan Mine in Helensburgh, New South Wales, have been locked out without pay from Wednesday, 18 June, to Thursday, 26 June, after taking limited industrial action over wage negotiations.
The Mining and Energy Union said it would lodge a claim for a 15 per cent wage increase over three years, a one-off market rate increase of $1.50 per hour, and a $4 increase to crib payments. Union vice president Mark Jenkins said Peabody, the mine's owner, was punishing workers for exercising their industrial rights.
"The workers enacted their industrial right and took some limited one-hour stoppages across their shifts," Mr Jenkins said. He noted that the lockout was announced about an hour and 45 minutes after a bargaining meeting on the day it began.
A Peabody spokesperson said the company implemented employer response action after employees engaged in industrial action and the union notified of further action. "In response, Peabody implemented employer response action, with a lockout of employees commencing night shift Wednesday, 18 June and continuing until day shift Thursday, 26 June," the spokesperson said.
The lockout follows a Federal Court decision last year ruling that 22 Peabody Energy crew members unjustly lost their jobs before being replaced by external contractors at the same mine in June 2020. The court found that replacing full-time employees with labour hire did not constitute genuine redundancies.
Meanwhile, the nearby Tahmoor mine, owned by British industrialist Sanjeev Gupta and linked to the Whyalla steelworks, has not mined coal since February due to unpaid bills. About 560 mineworkers are still being paid but have lost their regular bonuses, and the mine's future remains uncertain.
