Mining company BHP Billiton is facing the possibility of strikes at a second Illawarra coalmine as supervisors at Dendrobium consider industrial action in a dispute over pay.
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Fair Work Australia has approved a protected action ballot at the mine as the frontline supervisors - called deputies - seek to bring enterprise agreement talks to a head.
The 32 workers will vote this week on whether to endorse a wide range of action, from stopwork meetings through to consecutive week-long strikes.
If approved, any action would not occur until January at the earliest.
The ballot comes less than a month after an unprecedented two-week strike by about 50 supervisors at BHP subsidiary Illawarra Coal's Appin mine in separate negotiations.
In both cases, the Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers, Australia has argued that the Illawarra supervisors' base rate of pay was lower than at other NSW mines.
Yesterday, it urged the company to listen to the Dendrobium supervisors' concerns. Industrial legal officer Margaret Buchanan said the company had refused to budge in negotiations that had been underway since August and that supervisors had twice rejected the company's offer.
They wanted base rates of pay to match the state average and for annual increases of 4 per cent to be included in the new agreement, she said.
Increases of about 5 per cent paid in recent years had been at the company's discretion.
"The deputies here are not looking to go on strike, but when you've been in negotiations with a company for close to six months and you don't see any change then you have to look at well what are other options available ... to try to show the company that we're serious about this," she said. "They're basically just disregarding what the expressed wishes of the deputies are."
She said Dendrobium deputies' minimum rate, about $129,500, was less than other mines in the Illawarra by up to $7000 and significantly less than other mines in NSW.
The ballot will be held tomorrow and Friday. The existing enterprise agreement expires this month.
Illawarra Coal said the threat of industrial action would not result in the company changing its position on "unreasonable union claims" and that its supervisors were "remunerated in the top quartile of equivalent roles across the coal industry".
"The company has offered a competitive and reasonable package to the Dendrobium mine supervisors, who have already received salary increases and performance-based incentives each year in the last four years," it said.
It remained "committed" to reaching a "reasonable agreement".
