In early June Peabody announced plans to axe between 35-40% of the jobs held by employees and contractors as part of a restructuring to cut about 1.5 million tonnes per annum of coal production in the wake of the weak coal market.

Subsequent talks with union officials broke down with the Sydney-based FWC ruling on two cases on Friday as part of the resulting arbitration.

The decision document revealed that mine management aimed to reduce staff numbers from 168 to 104 and contractors from 203 to around 70.

This combined layoff total of 197 equates to shedding about 37.5% of the total workforce – the halfway point of management’s 35-40% target.

While the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union argued that Peabody failed to meet consultation obligations on the enterprise agreement in one case, and had a disagreement about the selection process for the redundancies in a second case, senior deputy president JM Hamberger found that Peabody met its obligations in both matters so far.