AMWU members vote in favour of industrial action at Port Hedland after months-long BHP pay deal stalemate

One of the nation’s biggest unions has voted to down tools at Australia’s most lucrative iron ore port after a months-long stalemate with BHP over a new enterprise bargaining agreement.

Almost 90 per cent of more than 100 Australian Manufacturing Workers Union members resolved on Thursday to take an unlimited number of stoppages at the global miner’s bustling Port Hedland facilities, which are its sole shipping gateway for its Pilbara iron ore.

It marks the latest escalation of a broader union campaign to regain a foothold in the Pilbara’s iron ore mines after a period of dormancy since the 1990s.

The workers are among about 450 BHP employees at the port, covered by various unions, who have applied to the Fair Work Commission to hold ballots on protected industrial action.

The stoppages can last between 30 minutes and 24 hours, after providing five days’ notice to the company.

Members of the Electrical Trades Union voted on the same ballot later on Thursday afternoon.

It’s understood labour hire firms have been feverishly enlisting freelance sparkies to fill in, offered attractive hourly rates, in a bid to ensure BHP keeps exporting nearly 300 million tonnes of iron ore each year from the State’s north.

The votes come days after BHP’s Australia president Geraldine Slattery told a business forum that the dispute could cost it more than $120 million a day but it had “contingencies in place should disruption arise arise that would get to that scale”.

A BHP spokesman said on Thursday that the company was focused on continuing constructive talks, and provided industry-leading pay and conditions that it wanted to maintain, while keeping operations productive and sustainable.

“In the event of union disruptions at our sites, we have strong contingency plans in place to protect our people and ensure safe, reliable operations can continue,” he said.

WA State secretary Steve McCartney urged BHP to “start negotiating seriously” and “strongly” warned it against attempting to undermine the lawful action by bringing in contractors or alternative labour.

“The company should be focused on reaching an agreement, not finding ways around its workforce,” he said.

Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA chief executive Aaron Morey said two of Australia’s most significant economic assets were “being held hostage by militant unions”, referring also to industrial action at INPEX’s Ichthys LNG facilities in Darwin.

“Every Australian should be worried about the message that sends the world,” Mr Morey said.

“History shows industrial conflict doesn’t lift living standards. All it is does is drive investment, jobs and opportunity offshore. The primary beneficiary of the Pilbara strikes in the 1970s and 1980s wasn’t workers in Western Australia – it was workers in Brazil.

“Since the deunionisation of the Pilbara, direct and cooperative bargaining has delivered decades of jobs and productivity growth, the highest average wages in the country and more than $100 billion in royalties for WA.

“Unrealistic union demands are putting the future of our industry at risk . . . Militant unions must be pulled into line.”

Mr MCartney said the workers had fruitlessly waited seven months for genuine progress at the bargaining table and were just seeking fair wages and conditions during a cost-of-living crisis.

“Members have had enough. They are demanding to be heard and they are demanding a fair agreement,” he said.

High-voltage network workers aligned with the ETU began protected industrial action across BHP’s iron ore mining operations in April, the first such instance at a Pilbara mine in more than three decades.

ETU members are pushing for salary bumps to $249,000 a year by 2028, as well as other bonuses that the Chamber of Minerals and Energy say could lead to annual salaries of $400,000, although the union disputes that figure.

Meanwhile, a pay deal BHP offered in May to about 1600 workers at its conjoined Mining Area C and South Flank operations — the crown jewel of its Pilbara iron ore empire — will be put to a vote on June 30.

The spokesman said the miner had proposed “fair and reasonable new employee benefits which will guarantee industry leading pay and conditions, while protecting what makes the BHP iron ore business so successful”.