AREEA, Sojitz Blue defend bid to tap foreign labour

Updated October 25 The Australian Resources and Energy Employer Association has hit back at a union attack on coal miner Sojitz Blue's application to recruit foreign operators for work in Queensland. An AREEA spokesman described the statements from the Mining & Energy Union as predictable, but disappointing given the industry was enduring the worst skills crisis in a generation. The mining company has also rejected union allegations regarding the impacts of international recruitment process on other employees and pointed to its record of local employment and training. "This is not about importing cheap labour, which is totally against our company policy, however it is about raising the supply of coal mine workers in an industry struggling to find skilled people particularly in the backdrop of a carbon sensitive environment," Sojitz Blue managing director and chief executive officer Cameron Vorias said. The MEU said Sojitz Blue had applied to import coal mineworkers from overseas for its Gregory Crinum site while simultaneously offering current workers substandard work contracts and delaying negotiations for an enterprise agreement. MEU Queensland district president Stephen Smyth. “If this outfit sat down and negotiated a fair enterprise agreement at market rate with Australian workers they wouldn’t be in this pickle,” MEU Queensland district president Stephen Smyth said. “Sojitz Blue put its workers on individual contracts which duds them out of a range of industry-standard pay and conditions including retention payments, sick leave provisions and redundancy entitlements. “That’s all money Sojitz Blue is trousering instead of their workers, and they wonder why people take their skills elsewhere. “If Sojitz Blue think they can import cheap labour from overseas to undercut Australian workers, they need to know our members will fight them every step of the way." Mr Vorias said Sojitz Blue had one of the highest rates of permanent residential/local workforce in the industry, with substantially less reliance on a labour hire workforce. It would maintain its commitment to recruit and train local employees as it had done for the past decade, he said. Sojitz Blue managing director and chief executive officer Cameron Vorias. "In fact we have effectively and safely trained over 100 unskilled “new to industry” people from the local community across both our MDS and Gregory Crinum mines and based on its past and current success, it will ensure that this policy remains in the very centre of our recruitment strategy for years to come," Mr Vorias said. "We continue to hold the deepest respect to our existing employees who have been incredibly loyal to the organisation for many years and as such we will continue to safely train and upskill as we have done for the past decade. "We are in the process of taking over operations at our Crinum underground mine and this will also give rise to many great opportunities for all Sojitz employees to increase their skill base." The AREEA spokesman said the severe skills shortages across the country were widely reported and covered everything from operators and engineers to technical and maintenance positions. "Pretty much every skill area in the mining industry is under extreme pressure in terms of getting boots on the ground in order to not only maintain current production but to cover expansion projects and those sorts of things," he said. "It's a reality that unless we get relief on those issues projects are going to be disrupted." Far from being an easy way out, he said accessing international skilled labour was one of the most expensive options due to the costs involved in sourcing workers and bringing them to Australia, on top of the bureaucratic hurdles an employer must cross.

AREEA, Sojitz Blue defend bid to tap foreign labour

Industry Queensland

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