Union representative speaks out at Helensburgh miners rally

Illawarra Mercury

Union representative Mark Jenkins speaks to reporter Nadine Morton about why the Helensburgh miners are protesting at Metropolitan Mine. Footage by Nadine Morton

Transcript

00:00What are the issues that workers and the union have at the mine?

00:03Well the main issues we have with the agreement at the moment is the company

00:07want to remove clause 8 out of the agreement which is a clause around job

00:12security and the use of contractors at the mine. Now contractors have a place

00:17at the mine site but the way the company want to remove the job security clause

00:22we believe will just flood the mine with contract labour. It means

00:27full-time workers eventually could become a thing of the past. The union just

00:31wants Peabody to come to the table and negotiate like these negotiations have

00:34been going on since November last year we've had two section section 240

00:40hearings and we've got another one today and the union basically wants to get

00:44the negotiations over and done with and get these guys back to work as soon as

00:48possible. When the company locks these guys out it's a straight-out attempt to starve

00:53them out into accepting their substandard offer. Like imagine now you're

00:58working full-time one day you take some small industrial action in pursuit of

01:02your EA and then you're locked out for 10 days and you've got to go home and tell

01:07your family that there's there's no income for 10 days.

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