CFMEU Mining and Energy Division South West District vice president Bob Timbs said the company has an obligation to its workforce and we hope to work with them on redeployment opportunities elsewhere in the company, as well as retraining and other support.

“Clearly Glencore has made huge profits from this coal mine and now it is time to give back to the workers who underpinned those profits,” he said.

“It is disappointing the company could not repay that loyalty by keeping the mine going longer, but at the very least there needs to be a comprehensive plan for worker transition and we will work with the company on what that looks like.

“Given we are faced with forced redundancies, we will ensure that all entitlements owing are paid.”

Timbs said the union and wider community would pull together to support miners affected by the decision.

“As always, the union will be there to support the hundreds of miners affected by this disastrous decision.”

Glencore said the decision has been made as a result of continued low prices in global coal markets, which has meant the economic return from reserves still available at Tahmoor are not sufficient to warrant the investment required to mine them, Glencore said in a statement.

Glencore has a policy of reducing production output during periods of low prices.

The mine, which has been operating since 1979, last year produced 2.1 million tonnes of saleable metallurgical coal.

The workforce of 350 will be gradually reduced over the next 18 months as development work at the mine is completed, Glencore said. All mining is expected to end by early 2019.

A number of options to continue operations were examined, including the proposed Tahmoor South and Tahmoor North projects, but current market conditions do not support these projects, the company said.

“We appreciate this will be a difficult time for our employees and we will be putting support services in place to assist them, including investigation of opportunities for redeployment at other Glencore coal operations,” it said.