EDITORIAL: Alarm bells ringing over union push into mining
The red lights are flashing about the need to rein in the unions. Unless Jim Chalmers pays heed to the warnings, his Budget speech will be an other exercise in missed opportunity.
Among the many words tossed around about the economy there is one which carries significant importance: Productivity.
As the Reserve Bank of Australia makes clear, higher productivity means the economy can create more from a given set of resources.
But productivity in 2025 grew by just one per cent and was flat in the December quarter.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.Treasurer Jim Chalmers has made much of the need to tackle the problem.
In a major speech last week he listed his Budget themes as savings, productivity and investment, and taxation, and flagged “productivity-enhancing reforms to boost supply, generate higher living standards and unlock more investment . . . to help the economy grow without adding to price pressures”.
And yet his Government has facilitated a rise of unionism in the Pilbara — the nation’s economic engine — which is threatening the exact opposite.
The Government’s changes to industrial relations laws in recent years have stoked a surge in union activity at WA’s iron ore mines after decades of dormancy.
The impacts have been felt through an explosion of union right of entry requests which complicate daily working arrangements, through “same job, same pay” orders that require companies to pay labour-hire workers the same rate as direct employees performing the same work, and multi-employer bargaining that miners claim strip them of the ability to negotiate site-specific conditions that suit productivity.
Last month BHP chief executive Mike Henry said the company was having to devote specific resources just to meet the explosion in union requests for right of entry.
Rio Tinto chief executive Simon Trott then added his voice in condemning the “significant” rise of union incursions into WA’s iron ore heartland.
Mr Trott said the Federal Government’s industrial relations policies were a “concern” and were disrupting Rio’s longstanding operating model that had worked well for decades.
On Monday Minerals Council of Australia chair Andrew Michelmore said BHP sites in the Pilbara alone recorded almost 900 right-of-entry requests in 2025 and 164 to March 10 — an average of 2.4 every day.
“That doesn’t help productivity,” he told a Minerals Council event in Canberra. “The Pilbara’s co-operative workplace model has delivered the highest wages of any industry, world-leading productivity and secure jobs through modern workplace arrangements,” he said.
“Now, rising disruption and escalating right-of-entry activity, risks undermining the productivity and the reliability that has defined the Pilbara region for more than three decades.”
On Tuesday BHP Australia president Geraldine Slattery warned Australia’s productivity had slipped from 17th out of 42 countries in 2019 to 21st — which raised the risk of a flight of mining capital to other jurisdictions.
The red lights are flashing about the need to rein in the unions. Unless Dr Chalmers pays heed to the warnings his Budget speech will be another exercise in missed opportunity.
And for an economy now being smashed by the impact of the worst oil shock in history, that would constitute extreme failure.
