Workplace Relations

The majority voted in favour of a motion introduced by Tasmanian Senator Anne Urquhart (Labor), which means it was successful. Motions like these don't make any legal changes on their own but are politically influential because they represent the will of the Senate.

Motion text

That the Senate—

(a) notes that:

(i) pay and conditions in supply chains are often characterised by a race to the bottom in which companies at the top drive down rates through their economic power,

(ii) in the resource industry, mining companies such as BHP, BHP Mitsubishi Alliance and BHP Mitsui Coal through their tenders for auxiliary work are the ultimate employer in the sector influencing the setting of pay and conditions across the sector,

(iii) workers at Greyhound Resources have in, good faith, engaged in negotiations with their employers for a new enterprise agreement,

(iv) workers at Greyhound Resources exercised their democratic right to take protected industrial action as part of the bargaining process,

(v) Greyhound Resources responded threatening to lock out any and all workers who took part in a legal industrial action, and

(vi) Greyhound Resources carried out this threat and is currently locking out those workers who took part in protected industrial action;

(b) calls on Australian mining companies to recognise their role as the ultimate employer in the sector and their influence on the rates and conditions across their industry; and

(c) supports the workers of Greyhound Resources who are currently locked out by their employer and calls for the end to the lockout so that negotiations can continue in good faith.