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BHP wage theft cover-up in the shadows of Christmas

by Michael West | Jan 4, 2025 | Business, Latest Posts

Despite the outcry from Big Coal, the government’s Same Job Same Pay laws are derailing the ‘labour hire scam’. But, as Michael West reports, BHP’s wage theft cover-up continues.

The clean-up operation was swift and silent. In the shadows of Christmas, the Fair Work Commission granted secrecy orders to BHP, the unions, and a gaggle of its labour hire companies.

“The Fair Work Commission had asked for all the financial documents, the contracts between BHP and its labour hire companies,” says coal miner Simon Turner, who has been in dispute with the parties for the best part of a decade. But these orders mean ‘let’s keep it in-house, only the Commission and the parties can see it’.

“That means that all the union members paying their money can’t see anything. How do they know they are getting represented fairly?”

And there are plenty of ‘parties’. Besides the lawyers for BHP, the Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU post split) and a myriad of labour hire companies, are the lawyers for Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Murray Watt.

Fair Work Commission email disclosures

Fair Work Commission email disclosures

The retinue of blue chip law firms: Freehills, Mallesons, Holding Redlich, HFW and Minters show the big end of town is throwing a lot of money at shutting down public visibility of the contracts between BHP and its satellite of unions and labour hire firms.

Why? BHP and other big coal miners such as Peabody, Glencore and Rio have deployed labour hire companies to short-change their workers, with the cognisance, says Turner, of the union since 2010.

Under the Black Coal Award, casual labour is not permitted. So the labour hire companies were used by the mining corporations to legally distance themselves, defuse their risk to legal claims, for underpayment of wages.

“We should have been paid, from 2014 onwards, $137k a year under the Black Coal Award, but we were being paid $60k. That was while I was going to work at the Mt Arthur mine. While I was on workers comp, it was $400 a week – $20k a year. They could not have done this without labour hire because BHP’s Enterprise Agreements don’t allow casual employment.”

The former coal miner from Newcastle broke his back in a workplace accident at Mt Arthur in 2015 and has been fighting for compensation ever since, although yet to no avail.

Same Job, Lame Pay: BHP and the black coal wage swindle

 

The Labor government knew the wage theft was a problem and moved to legislate its ‘Same Job Same Pay laws when it came into office. However, they are not retrospective. So, those coal workers who were employed as casuals on a fraction of the Black Coal Award, remain underpaid.

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Turner estimates the cost of the wage theft at around $2.5B. “There were thousands of workers employed – from 2010 onwards – as casuals.

“We all worked the same full-time hours, whether directly employed by BHP or other. I was employed under the Award but they don’t want that out because it shows that every deal the union (MEU) approved was under the award value. Every labour hire mining agreement was below the award value.

“We know from previous Federal Court rulings (CFMEU v HVEC) that (labour hire firm) Chandler Macleod was making $1k per person per week. While i was working, BHP was paying them (labour hire) $2,500 per person per week a week and we would get $1k less – roughly $1,500 less tax.

“When the EAs were done the union would negotiate it with Chandler Macleod (or other labour hire firms). Not BHP. But they had to know what the BHP contract price was because if it was a true EA which was above the Award then BHP would have to pay more.”

It is the details of these contracts which have been buried by the FWC confidentiality orders.

“Why would BHP not just do it themselves? It’s the filter between them and legal action. BHP says we have no control over Chandler Macleod [and other labour hire firms]? Because the contract between BHP and Chandler Macleod [and other labour hire] mandates casual employment.”

Two other interesting points about the FWC confidentiality orders: they show that the minister is intervening as a party to the secrecy, and secondly that two of the labour hire firms mentioned in the orders are actually owned by BHP itself.  

Black Hole: CFMEU, governments, BHP, black coal giants in $2.5B worker wage swindle

Michael West headshot

Michael West established Michael West Media in 2016 to focus on journalism of high public interest, particularly the rising power of corporations over democracy. West was formerly a journalist and editor with Fairfax newspapers, a columnist for News Corp and even, once, a stockbroker.

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