Industrial dispute Assignment

INDUSTRIAL DISPUTE REPORT BETWEEN OAKY CREEK COAL MINE AND CFMEU 1
An Industrial Dispute Report between Oaky Creek Coal Mine and CFMEU
Name
Institution

INDUSTRIAL DISPUTE REPORT BETWEEN OAKY CREEK COAL MINE AND CFMEU 2
Executive summary
The report aims at providing an analysis of the industrial dispute between the Oaky Creek
Coal Pty Company and the construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union (CFMEU) in the
year 2017 and 2018. It also seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of the Fair Work Commission in
solving the dispute as well as provide a recommendation as to whether the commission has
higher power to intervene in such type of a difference. It will also provide an understanding of
different concepts used or employed by the Commission in dispute resolution. The report is
addressed to the president of the fair work commission.
Introduction
Industrial disputes have become common in the modern working environments. The
prevalence of industrial cases in the global market has increased and hence increasing concerns
about the effectiveness of fair and work commission in handling the disputes (Wright &
Lansbury, 2014). According to the Australian Industrial dispute Act, 1947, industrial disputes
have been defined as a difference or disagreement between employers and employers, employer
and workers, workers with fellow workers. Industrial arguments can also be the current
disagreements between employers and employee representatives which in this case refer to the
trade unions. Most industrial disputes arise overpay or even over the working conditions and can
result in industrial actions. The Fair work commission is an Australian Tribunal that deals with
work relations (McCrystal, 2014). CFMEU is the Australian leading trade union in construction,
Maritime, mining, forestry, energy, clothing, and textile as well as footwear production. The
union has been facing several legal actions from the commission about industrial disputes (De
Prins et al., 2018). For instance, in the year 2014 according to the Sydney Morning Gerald

INDUSTRIAL DISPUTE REPORT BETWEEN OAKY CREEK COAL MINE AND CFMEU 3
Newspaper, the union and some officials from the union were charged or fined by the Federal
Court of Australia $590 800 after legal actions was taken by the commission. The behavior of
the union and its officials in relation to work relations was questioned and found to be centrally
to the regulations of the Fair Work Act.
The nature of 2017 and 2018 industrial dispute between Oaky Creek Coal Pty limited and
the CFMEU
Oaky Creek Coal Pty Limited is a coal mining company that was established in the year
1982 and experienced its primary saleable coal production in the year 1983. The company is
based in Central Queensland in Australia and produces two premium quality as well as medium
volatile cooking gas. It works under the umbrella of the Glencore Group which is one of the
largest diversified global natural resource companies and is also a major producer as well as
marketer of more than 90 commodities. The company has an annual production of 15.9 million
tonnes run of mine coal. Since the year 2017, the company has engaged in several industrial
disputes with the construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union (Eklund, 2015). The
discussion started with a statement that was made by the CFMEU national secretary Michael
O’Connor in a meeting with Oaky North employees where he was quoted saying that the
CFMEU officials were there because they had a broken IR system as well as unfavorable laws
which stacked against them and therefore they had to do something like the union officials
(Pekarek & Gahan, 2016). He further said that this was their appropriate time to take action and
that the North Oaky employees were leading in their work. According to Glencore Group, such
statement expressed a form of attack to the Oaky North employees and company at large.

INDUSTRIAL DISPUTE REPORT BETWEEN OAKY CREEK COAL MINE AND CFMEU 4
On 10th of January 2018, in a meeting with the deputy president of the Fair Work
Commission, the CFMEU officials had shaken hands with the Oaky Creek Coal limited
representatives on a new enterprise agreement developed about the Fair Work Act (Lewin &
Gollan, 2018). The deputy president Asbury also recommended that all the parties should
support the proposed new enterprise agreement. The new proposed enterprise agreement for the
Oaky North was fair and reasonable. According to the enterprise agreement;
 It protected the rights of the work as outlined in the Fair Work Act
 The deal also maintained an annual wage of approximately $ 1 180 000 per annum
 It also proposed a wage increment of 8.24% over four years of employment
 The agreement also took care of housing consideration by maintaining an accumulated
rent at $ 15.50 per week for 2 to 4 bedroom houses as well as $ 24.00 per week for the
single rooms per person all inclusive of meals and service charges.
Glencore Disputing arguments
According to Glencore, the CFMEU members at the North Oaky walked away from the
handshake deal and a return to work by voting against the agreement. It is the CFMEU members
at the Oaky North who are holding industrial actions and been supported by the CFMEU
officials. After walking away from the handshake, the CFMEU officials have continued to accept
public donations for members working with the Oaky North Creek Coal Company who receive $
1600 per week from the union (Sarkar, 2017). They also collect approximately $ 300 per week in
coal bonuses from the company for work done by the abused members who travel to and from
work. The dispute, therefore, did arise from the failure to deliver on their prior handshake about
the new proposed enterprise agreement and the continued efforts of CFMEU officials to pay their