Wollongong Coal told International Coal News yesterday that it had made the “hard decision” to inform its employees of a 44-person reduction in the Russell Vale Colliery workforce as part of the 80 positions announced on September 1 when the mine was placed on care and maintenance.

This followed a completed voluntary redundancy process and included staff and workforce positions.

While the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union put the latest number at 36, it is understood it was only counting its own members.

The move represents further fallout over the company failing to gain approval for expanded underground mining operations earlier this year, after Wollongong Coal recently announced that the mine was to be suspended with the loss of about 80 jobs.

Having had its request to extract 4.7 million tonnes of coal from eight new longwall mines over five years knocked back, the company said it would put the mine on care and maintenance and continue to seek approval for the mine’s expansion.

An approval of the expansion would allow the mine to reopen.

Yesterday, the CFMEU said Wollongong Coal, formerly Gujarat NRE Coking Coal, had refused to guarantee workers would be re-employed if the mine reopened in the future.

Wollongong Coal management has been conducting ongoing consultation meetings with employees and their representatives since September 1, including direct crew talks with management.

While the company said all options to reduce the impact on employees had been “carefully considered”, the external factors detailed on September remain unchanged, including:

• a cessation of longwall coal mining operations
• continued uncertainty in gaining planning approvals for the Underground Expansion Project, and
• ongoing significant financial losses since 2013.

“Wollongong Coal will continue to work with affected employees through this process of transition and has continually attempted to avoid this unfortunate situation by undertaking a series of workforce restructurings,” the company said.

“Wollongong Coal remains committed to the region for the long-term, having already invested more than $400 million over the past two years.

“Speculating about the specifics of future arrangements at the mine is unhelpful given ongoing uncertainty about the operating environment and approvals time frame.”

However, CFMEU Mining and Energy Division South West District vice-president Bob Timbs said Wollongong Coal continued to refuse to give an undertaking to the workforce that if the mine extension went ahead it would re-employ them as permanent employees.



“This morning, without giving any notice to workers or the union, Wollongong Coal called in its permanent employees, told them to clear out their lockers and gave them a redundancy letter,” Timbs said.

“The company has repeatedly refused to provide a written undertaking that if the Russel Vale coal mine extension is approved, the retrenched local workers would be the first in line for future jobs at the mine.

“We know that Wollongong Coal has boasted in a report to shareholders that closing its Wongawilli mine and terminating the permanent workforce was “paving the way” for re-opening the mine with a cheaper, casual workforce.”

Timbs said the community had thrown its support behind the affected workers, with Federal MPs Sharon Bird and Stephen Jones and NSW MP Ryan Park joining community leaders, the union and mine workers in calling on Wollongong Coal to commit to permanent, local jobs.

“The company’s refusal to guarantee the use of permanent, local employees all but confirms that Wollongong Coal is deliberately pursuing the same approach at Russell Vale as they have admitted to at Wongawilli,” he said.

“We’re concerned that this is another opportunistic attempt to deliberately close the mine, terminate the current enterprise agreement, and then re-open the mine using a contract workforce.”

Timbs warned Wollongong Coal would lose the support of not only the community but the union as well if it continued to refuse to commit to permanent, local employees.

“There will be no support from the community for this mine to re-open if the company is not committed to ensuring decent pay and conditions for employees under the protection of an Enterprise Agreement,” Timbs said.

On September 1 Illawarra Labor MP Sharon Bird called on then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott to immediately reinstate the Illawarra Local Employment Coordinator and locate an entrepreneur adviser in the region, following Wollongong Coal’s announcement.

“There has been a number of big employers in the Illawarra laying off staff over the past few months – Illawarra Coal [30 jobs], Peabody Mining [90 jobs], AHM [20 jobs], Fairfax [50 jobs] and now Wollongong Coal [80 jobs]. This is on top of the BlueScope announcement last week indicating the loss of up to 500 jobs,” Bird said on September 1.