Pilbara strike: Labor politicians insist Port Hedland strike is not their fault and not their problem to fix

The Albanese Government won’t intervene and won’t accept any blame for looming strike action that could cause chaos in the Pilbara and cost the State’s bottom line millions of dollars. Resources Minister Madeline King said she still hopes a strike slated for next Thursday can be avoided, but didn’t sound very hopeful. “I have to wait and see, like everyone else,” Anthony Albanese’s most senior WA minister said, during an exclusive interview. She declared it “rubbish” to claim that Labor’s union-friendly policies have opened the door to the first major strike action in WA’s Pilbara in three decades, and denied she has sided with the unions in their fight against BHP. “I side with a productive outcome,” Ms King said. “The Government is keen for both parties to keep negotiating.” “If someone says I’m on the side of the unions, well I’m on the side of workers, I really am. They do a lot of hard work. There’s no Pilbara powerhouse without these workers, right? We’ve got to respect the work they do.” Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA boss Aaron Morey has accused unions of leaping straight for the “nuclear option” and preferring conflict to co-operation. He has warned that next week’s scheduled strike could send WA back to the “bad old days” of the 1970s, when WA mine workers walked off the job 12 days per year on average — compared with militant coal workers’ average of 7.5 days. “The Pilbara only became a powerhouse when it stopped being a battleground,” Mr Morey said. “Our future success is now being put at serious risk by unions determined to return to the fighting.” Liberal senator and shadow attorney-general Michaelia Cash blamed Labor’s same job-same pay changes to industrial relations laws. “The Government and Resources Minister Madeline King, in particular, should tell their union mates that holding the State’s biggest iron ore port to ransom is reckless,” Senator Cash said. “Ms King likes to tell West Australians she understands the resources sector because she’s one of us. Well, this is the moment to prove it.” Ms King rejected claims FIFO electricians earning $150,000 to $200,000 are already well paid. The Electrical Trades Union argues they can earn up to $240,000 in city-based infrastructure jobs. “I don’t think they’re overpaid at all,” Ms King said. “I don’t see many people volunteering to go do it that otherwise wouldn’t, it’s hard work and many people don’t do it for very long because of the pressures on being away from family. “People misunderstand how hard the work is and what they have to put up with. You’ve seen, and this is not BHP, but the story in the papers today about Rio Tinto dongas having mould in them. No one wants that and that’s just one example.” Three unions on Wednesday announced plans to strike next Thursday at BHP’s crucial Port Hedland operation — the shipping gateway for all of the mining giant’s Pilbara iron ore and the single largest export hub for WA’s most economically vital commodity. BHP exports more than $100 million worth of iron ore a day from Port Hedland, but production has only peaked in the past decade. Industry leaders argue the wealth has been shared with workers, earning wages 57 per cent higher than the national average. “Free of union interference, the number of jobs on iron ore mines grew seven-fold from fewer than 9000 in 2000 to more than 65,000 today,” Mr Morey said. “Production has grown five-fold, generating more than $100 billion in royalties for all West Australians and billions more in company and income tax.” Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers and WA Treasurer Rita Saffioti declined to comment on the potential impact on their Budgets on Thursday, while Premier Roger Cook also appeared reluctant to weigh in. “I don’t have a role. The State Government’s not in charge of the industrial relations system,” he told reporters. “We continue to do what we’ve always done, which is urge the parties to come together, negotiate, and get an outcome in everyone’s interests”. About 160 to 200 electricians, machine operators, mechanical fitters, boiler makers and ship loaders will down tools for eight consecutive hours next Thursday — a day purposely picked by the unions to maximise the impact of their strikes. “Two shifts come together on the 16th of July to execute planned works, so twice the workforce is on,” Electrical Trades Union WA secretary Adam Woodage said on Wednesday. His union has joined forces with the Australian Workers Union and Australian Manufacturing Workers Union for the landmark strikes. Industrial action on a large scale has not been a feature of WA’s lucrative iron ore industry in the Pilbara since the late 1990s. Edith Cowan University industrial relations lecturer Alexis Vassiley said BHP bowing to union demands could ripple through the industry and herald a return to the past. “I think that a successful union negotiated agreement would be a challenge to the current industrial relations model in the Pilbara, which is a non-union model,” Dr Vassiley said. “If the strike did lead to a good enterprise agreement, one would think that workers at other companies and at other sites would consider doing the same thing.” The unions have a tentative meeting booked with BHP two days before the strikes kick off, but chances of that sit-down yielding an eleventh hour breakthrough are slim. “The unions on Tuesday said that the two sides are very far apart, and the rhetoric certainly coming out of the (mining) peak bodies is very strong,” Dr Vassiley said. “There would have be a significant shift either way, and not just changes around the edges, to avert industrial action.” The unions will not reveal what their wage demands are, but they have rubbished the 16 per cent pay rise over four years that workers at BHP’s two key Pilbara iron ore mines agreed to last week. AMWU WA state secretary Steve McCartney on Wednesday labelled that pay deal, which will cover about 1800 workers, as “undercooked”, despite the majority of workers who voted on it being in favour of the deal. Asked whether WA is at 11.59pm on the strike clock, Ms King said “well put” but insisted the Government should not be the umpire. “There is a framework in place where these things are resolved, and that’s a good thing,” she said. She stopped short of ruling out a last-minute application to the Fair Work Commission. “I’m going to let the parties act in a mature adult way,” Ms King said. “No one likes strikes. But the workforce ultimately only really have one, you know, bargaining chip in the end, and that is a withdrawal of labour. So, I think unions don’t do this lightly, they know it’s not a game. “Equally I respect the work BHP does . . . they just need to keep talking and to find a resolution.”