Wollongong Coal has gone to ground over claims it is embarking on a deliberate strategy to lay off workers at Russell Vale and replace them with contractors if and when the mine reopens.
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Workers, who won't be named for fear of reprisals, say they bent over backwards to keep the company afloat - working six weeks without being paid, taking voluntary annual leave in tough times and even agreeing not to take legal action over unpaid superannuation. Now they are being left high and dry.
While the company says it it is putting the mine into "care and maintenance" to deal with its stalled mine expansion approval, the workers fear the company is sacking its workforce, waiting the mandatory three-month period until the enterprise bargaining agreement is no longer in effect and then plans to reopen the mine with contractors. They say the company's report to shareholders regarding their actions at the Wongawilli site is proof.
Wollongong Coal refused to comment on the issue when contacted by the Mercury.
In its report to shareholders dated May 27, 2015, Jindal Steel and Power, which owns Wollongong Coal, said: "Wongawilli mine was put in care and maintenance and the entire manpower (160 persons) was made redundant.
"The existing agreements with the labour union has been terminated paving the way for much cost effective contract based mining."
CFMEU local chief Bob Timbs said the Russell Vale workforce feared this was coming.
"We are calling on the company to repay the loyalty of workers and guarantee that if the mine reopens, it will re-employ its workers on permanent full-time jobs employed by Wollongong Coal under the enterprise agreement," he said. "They owe workers and the community that much at least."
An employee at the Russell Vale mine, who asked not to be named, said workers were afraid to speak up.
"But the fact is we've done so much for this company to help them keep the mine going and now they're spitting in our face," he said.
"In the last couple of years we've done a lot to help the company, including working for six weeks with no pay and not taking legal action when we weren't being paid superannuation, and this is how they repay us. There's rumours that they're planning to replace us with contractors.
"Where's the loyalty in that?"
Mr Timbs said the union wanted Illawarra coal miners employed on a permanent basis, "not as casual workers on inferior contract agreements with no annual leave, no sick leave, limited accident pay and the loss of various other conditions that permanent employees receive".
Wilf O'Donnell, who was retrenched 18 months ago, said Wollongong Coal had promised as recently as two weeks ago that jobs were safe until at least April next year "which is when the new coal preparation plant will come online increasing the profitability of the mine".
"Why is this still going ahead if you are closing a mine? Why invest millions in a wash plant?
"And why have they stuck it out all this time only to sack the workforce just as the EBA comes up for renegotiation?"
