Rio Tinto set to be dragged to Fair Work Commission in historic union victory at Pilbara mine

The re-unionisation of Australia’s mining heartland is closer to reality after the majority of Rio Tinto workers at a large Pilbara iron ore mine voted in favour of a collective bargaining agreement.

“Well over” 400 workers at Rio’s Paraburdoo mine have signed a petition by the Western Mine Workers Alliance — a joint venture between the Australian Workers’ Union and the Mining and Energy Union.

“Over the next week, we will triple-check every petition before writing to Rio Tinto and making a formal application to the Fair Work Commission to make an order for Rio Tinto to collectively bargain with its workforce at Paraburdoo,” the WMWA stated on Thursday.

“We expect that Rio will do whatever they can to oppose and slow our application.”

A Rio Tinto spokeswoman said the company’s “existing approach” helps drive productivity and wages growth.

“This model has delivered for our people, our business and the Australian economy, through the creation of jobs, strong and sustained wage growth, and the payment of royalties.”

If the FWC orders Rio to negotiate with the unions and a new bargaining agreement cannot be reached, then the miner faces the prospect of costly strike action at a key iron ore operation.

Paraburdoo has been operational since 1972 and churns out more than 20 million tonnes of iron ore a year. It is believed about 800 workers are employed at the site.

The AWU and MEU dragging Rio to the negotiating table will send shivers done the spine of the entire mining industry, which has been scarred by union action of the past and argued WA’s workers are already highly-paid.

Unions in response have claimed iron ore worker wages are stagnating while the likes of Rio and BHP still rake in billions of dollars each year from those operations. BHP is also battling union infiltration at its Pilbara mines.

The union push across the Pilbara has been spearheaded by AWU WA state secretary Brad Gandy.

Militant unionism was rife across the Pilbara’s iron ore mines in the 1980s and caused major disruption.

Over the next few decades unions were effectively sidelined from the nation’s mining mecca, but the Albanese Government’s changes to industrial relations laws have re-emboldened the union movement.

Unions can now bargain with companies even if they do not have support from a majority of the workforce.

Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA chief executive Rebecca Tomkinson said the current industrial relations regime threatens to break the connection between productivity and wages growth, which in turns puts the viability of mining projects and the jobs they sustain at risk.

“The IR model that has served the WA resources sector so well for decades is based on a mutual understanding between companies and their workers that wages growth must be tied to productivity gains,” Ms Tomkinson said.

“When businesses do well, they can afford to pay their staff more. For more than 30 years the resources sector has been able to get that balance right.

“The evidence is wages 57 per cent higher than the national average, and tens of billions of dollars in taxes and royalties paid to both the State and Federal Governments every year.”

The union win at Australia’s most lucrative mining region comes as figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics this week showed a 40 per cent increase in days lost to industrial disputes across the country.

More than 131,000 working days were lost in 2024, compared to 99,300 in 2023. The number of employees taking part in industrial action also increased to 89,100 in 2024, up from 46,000 the year before.

Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA chief executive Peter Cock said it was “clear the union movement is flexing its muscles” and making its way deeper into the State’s vital mining industry.

“A 40 per cent increase in just 12 months is an alarming result and should serve as a wake-up call to the Federal Government that it has got the balance wrong,” he said.

“The sweeping industrial relations changes introduced over the past two years seemed only designed to fix the problem of falling union membership.”

In WA, working days lost to industrial action increased by 56 per cent last year, rising from 7500 in 2023 to 11,700 in 2024.

“Any attempt by the unions to drag us back to the 1980’s where workers in the Pilbara would strike over the slightest grievance would have significant impacts on the WA economy and destroy the global reputation of the Australian mining industry,” Dr Cock said.