Another 70 miners at Wollongong Coal are facing the axe as the troubled company looks to further cut costs.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
This news comes on top of 41 jobs cut in May as part of a Wollongong Coal restructure and just a week after Peabody Energy announced it was looking to axe as many as 80 jobs at its Helensburgh mine.
A Wollongong Coal spokesman said the delay in gaining further approval for longwall mining at Russell Vale had prompted the move but that it was committed to the long-term viability of the Russell Vale mine.
"To enable the company to remain viable in these difficult economic conditions it needs to make changes to reduce costs," the spokesman said.
The changes included reducing shifts, removing contract labour and making some employees redundant.
He said about 69 of the 172 Wollongong Coal employees at Russell Vale could be affected by the changes, including operators, electricians, fitters, deputies and staff.
"The final reduction of our workforce will depend on mitigation measures that can be implemented," he said.
"The critical business needs means that any reductions arising from operational changes would need to occur as soon as practicable, subject to further consultation."
CFMEU south-western district vice-president Bob Timbs was in the "early stages" of negotiation with the company on Monday.
"They've given some numbers to us but they're in the process at the moment of going through VRs, so they're looking for expressions of interest in voluntary redundancy," Mr Timbs said.
"We won't know how many forced redundancies there are until we get the final number of voluntaries in."
Mr Timbs said the company was now waiting for the approval process for its longwall extension "to play out". He said if that approval was given, any union employees made redundant could be rehired.
"It's certainly my view that at some stage there will have to be another increase in hands at the colliery.
"There simply won't be enough to operate the longwall with the reduced workforce," he said.
"We've got an enterprise agreement ... that would allow for those that have been made redundant to come back."