Mining giant Xstrata has locked out up to 200 Tahmoor miners for a week in a bitter dispute over workplace agreements.
The company confirmed all production would stop and Tahmoor employees had been told not to attend work from last night until Sunday.
Xstrata Coal western and southern operations general manager Dan Clifford expressed disappointment at the miners' continuing industrial action, including work stoppages, overtime bans and protest marches. The miners held a six-hour strike on Sunday and a 24-hour stoppage yesterday, claiming the company had failed to address safety and job security concerns. By late afternoon, the company had announced the lockout.
"The CFMEU's decision to continue to take strike action at the Tahmoor mine during negotiations for a new Enterprise Agreement is not in the long-term interests of our employees or the viability of the operation," Mr Clifford said.
Mr Clifford claimed the proposed Enterprise Agreement would offer an average 25 per cent base salary increase over the next four years, and when combined with other changes would boost the total salary packages to $127,000 a year by 2014.
But CFMEU mining and energy district vice-president Graham White disputed the figures and said the company was offering extra money while stripping away basic entitlements.
"They're putting their allowances into their base rate. It's all about entitlements - at the end of the day we want a fair deal," he said.
Mr Clifford said the company and union had held more than 50 meetings to negotiate the agreement over 15 months and during that time the union had taken over 320 hours of direct industrial action and implemented 850 hours of workplace bans.
CFMEU mining and energy division vice-president Wayne McAndrew said the workers' demands were more than reasonable.
"All we are asking from Xstrata is a deal that delivers fair wages and conditions of employment including clauses that protect job security and maintain safety standards at Tahmoor mine," he said.
Xstrata published a production report for the 12 months ended December 31, 2009, last week, revealing a 7 per cent drop in coking coal production, which the report partly attributed to the Tahmoor stoppages.
Mr McAndrew said workers would picket outside the mine until they were allowed to return to work and negotiate with the company.
"Tahmoor mineworkers work long and hard to deliver Xstrata healthy profits each year, with the company making more than $US850 million from its Australian coalmines like Tahmoor in the first half of last year," he said.
"It's not too much to ask Xstrata to give something back to their workforce."
Mr Clifford defended the lockout action and the proposed Enterprise Agreement at the centre of the conflict.
"Today's fair and measured response from Tahmoor Coal to the CFMEU's continuing campaign of strikes and workplace stoppages is in accordance with Fair Work Australia legislation," he said.
"The company is pursuing changes in the proposed EA which would align Tahmoor with Enterprise Agreements widely accepted throughout the coal industry and the Illawarra region."
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