After announcing plans to outsource part of the workforce at its Blackwater coal mine, BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA) has refused to rule out contracting out its entire workforce in the region.

In August, BMA – the largest private employer in the coal-rich Bowen Basin region in central Queensland – told workers at Blackwater that 300 permanent jobs would go.

“They want to reduce the workforce by 306 permanent workers and replace them with a cheaper, more compliant, labour hire arrangement”, Stephen Smyth, CFMEU Mining and Energy president, told Red Flag. “These workers could be on anywhere from $10 to $12 an hour less.”

The Blackwater coal mine is a major employer in the town, which has a population of 5,000. “It’s just disgraceful”, Smyth said. “The replacement of permanent employees with labour-hire, hour by hour people.” 

The labour hire workers will be contracted to Downer EDI, which has been brought in by BMA to provide mining and maintenance services. “We’ve made it clear that the only way we’ll find it acceptable is if the company tears up the contractor’s contract, apologises to the workers at the mine and to the community”, Smyth said.

The union says that as well as being paid less, labour hire workers will be expected to work under worse conditions than the permanent workers they replace.

“Accommodation is a big issue”, he said. “The current people there live in accommodation, they live with their families. The new contractor, or labour hire company coming in, will offer only single person’s accommodation.

“Because of the nature of the arrangement they’re on, they’re not in secure employment – you’re not going to move your family to a place like Blackwater if you’re only employed by the hour.”

The changes at Blackwater come as job losses in the industry mount. Across Queensland, mining companies have used the downturn in coal prices as a cover to cut conditions, outsource and casualise their workforces and gut the mining communities that have grown around the region’s mines.

In Collinsville, six hours’ drive north of Blackwater, coal mine owner Glencore Xstrata sacked its entire workforce when it temporarily closed its mine in 2013. When the mine was reopened a few months later, only a handful of permanent jobs were offered, with the vast majority employed casually. The company also refused workers access to company-owned family housing in the town. The union says Collinsville has not recovered.  

“This is an agenda they’ve got … one of de-unionising, removing secure workers and just having a compliant and cheap workforce”, Smyth said of the mining companies.  

 “They’re ruthless”, he said of BHP. “If the employers are allowed to get away with this, that means that they can go into any workplace and suddenly say we’ve got a surplus of 50 workers and because of the economic circumstance we need to lay those 50 off.” Smyth says that the Blackwater coal mine is profitable, but for BMA, “just not profitable enough”.

The union is leading a campaign to save the permanent jobs at Blackwater. A community meeting on 1 September was attended by more than 1,000, many of whom travelled in from other mining towns affected by similar plans. The meeting resolved to send a delegation to visit BHP’s Brisbane office.

Smyth said that the union will likely organise rallies and will target BHP Billiton’s annual general meeting in November. He said that industrial action was also an option it would consider. The CFMEU is also calling on the state and federal Labor Party to “step up to the mark” over the treatment of workers by mining companies.

“This is a fight that we’ve got to have unfortunately, and it’s one that we can’t afford to lose”, he said. “If this rot is allowed to happen, this will change the landscape of industrial relations.”