Forget for a moment that one digs holes in the ground and the other flies overhead at 10,000 metres and you can see how both are victims of the Fair Work Australia industrial relations process, which is neither fair, nor does it work.
What’s happening today at the seven BMA mines in Queensland’s Bowen Basin, where unionised workers are engaged in a form of guerrilla war with management, is taken straight from the “how to bash Qantas” handbook published last year.
The only question now is whether BMA will “do a Qantas” and lock-out its workforce in a move which will force everyone to the negotiating table and possibly drag Australia’s weak and divided government into the game.
Before going into the detail, a quick heads-up on what was the key word in the last paragraph – it was “game”, because that’s what the unions are doing and it’s what BMA will do next, though not until March 25.
Why that precise date? Because that’s the day after the Queensland state election and no one involved in the hit-and-run campaign underway at BMA wants to make the dispute a state election issue.
They want it to go national.
Now for a spot of background for anyone who did not follow the Qantas dispute or what’s been happening in outback Queensland.
Last year, Qantas, Australia’s biggest airline, was subjected to months of “on-off” industrial action which saw unions give 72 hours’ advance notice, as required by Fair Work Australia, that they were going to start industrial action – and then turn up for work with 10 minutes’ notice.
For Qantas management trying to schedule flights, roster crews and notify passengers, the process made normal business impossible.
That’s why in late October airline management took the unprecedented action of grounding the entire Qantas fleet, locking the doors at all offices around the world and stranding passengers.
It was a drastic, dramatic step by Qantas but it was totally legal under the bizarre rules of Fair Work Australia, which have not only allowed unions to play games with strike announcements only to end them with 10 minutes’ warning but allowed management to lock the doors when a dispute cannot be resolved.
Understand the background and you can see why BMA has put itself in a holding pattern until March 25 when management will probably issue one more warning along the lines of “we must be allowed to manage the business the way we see fit” – and then lock the doors at seven of the world’s most important coal mines.
When BMA management takes that step, which it must or risk losing day-to-day control over the business, the international outcry will be heard loudly in Canberra because closure means removing more than 20% of global steel-making coal from the market.
Most of Australia’s major trading partners depend to some extent on metallurgical coal for
their steel industries.
The prospect of losing supply, plus the prospect of being forced to pay more for alternative supplies, will have ambassadors and trade commissioners knocking on every door in Canberra, including that of the prime minister.
Why, you might ask, is The Hog so confident this is the way events will unfold?
The answer is simple.
It is because that’s the only way a hit-and-run industrial campaign designed to cripple a business until it succumbs to union demands for effective control of the management process can be brought to an end.
What the unions are attempting to do, led by the militant Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, is take over the running of BMA (just as happened at Qantas) so the business is run in favour of employees and not the rightful owners, the shareholders.
The rules of Fair Work Australia take the country back to a “them versus us” confrontation of labour v capital that has been fought for over 100 years.
The entire process is tribal and futile and the only way BMA can assert management’s right to manage is to bring the issue to a head, lock the doors, cripple the metallurgical coal export industry and force the Australian government to intervene.
