Employment Relationship Issues in Glencore's Oaky North Mine

Running head: EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIP ISSUES
Employment Relationship Issues
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIP ISSUES
Question 1
Glencore's Oaky North Mine is located in central Queensland, Australia. The mine
consists of a coal presentation plant and two underground operations plant. Glencore’s Oaky
North mine is facing some tough challenges recently. The worker of the Glencore Oaky North
mine is protesting for having a work environment that is safer for their daily operations (Craig et
al., 2016). According to the worker’s, Glencore is trying to bring a new agreement that is
favoring a cheaper, contract labor. The dispute has caused due to casualising the employees.
The protest is going for over 88 days and the 190 workers are involved in this protest
(Mcllroy, 2016). On May 10th, the workers of the organisation started this protest and on June 9th
Glencore decided to lockout their employee without pay giving them the reason that protest is
affecting the man-hours. Glencore continued its production by using the contractors in their
organisation. The protest is not only affecting the workers and the organisation but it is also
affecting the families of the workers. The main issue of the organisation is the lack of
communication between the employee and the organisation (Gallois & Giles, 2015). Glencore
has stated that the organization is trying to create a flexible, modern and streamlined EA to have
a modern working environment. A meeting was also held between the union representatives and
the Glencore’s representation but according to Mr.Brodsky, Queensland District Vice President
of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) Mining and Energy Division,
two sides clearly disagreed about the revised remuneration that Glencore have offered (Industry,
2015). He also added that they mainly disagreed on three issues, dispute procedure, workplace
representation, severance and retrenchment (Marsden, 2013). No further dates have been selected
for meeting but they have agreed for email communication.

2EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIP ISSUES
Unions are groups of workers aims at improving the working condition as well as to
promote the common needs of the workers (Kaufman & Bennett, 2017). The issue is mainly
related to safety and pay scale of the union. The new enterprise agreement contains some of the
clause that the unions are not satisfied. Mining plants are very dangerous and proper safety
guidelinesare not maintained in Glencore’s mine. There are a number of cases where accidents
happened due to the lack of safety measures taken by the organization (Akgun, 2015). This will
also affect the shareholder’s of Glencore's Oaky North Mine. If the pay scale of the employee is
low then the employee will not show any interest on the organization. The union members are
protesting against the lack of safety measures taken by the organization. The organization should
emphasize more on the safety of the workers, unsafe workplace will not only harm the worker’s
but it will also decrease the production of the worker (Geng & Saleh, 2015).
Unitarism is a theory that follows a centralized and unified system (Cullinane & Dundon,
2014). Unitarism describes that every workplace should be integrated and at the same time, it
should have harmonious entity that exists for common goal. In unitarism the main role of the
management is to provide an effective leadership and communication. In a unitarised
organization, the workers need to be loyal towards their organization as well as to their managers
to achieve a common goal in the organization. In Glencore, the unitarism is lacking the
leadership of the management is weak and the employees are not loyal to the organization.
Question 2
Glencore's Oaky North Mine is facing many issues recently and all these issues were
created by the new changes in the employee agreement. Unions are not happy with the new
changes that the management is bringing in the organization. Glencore's Oaky North Mine wants