Book Review by Peter Symon

Hard ground — Unions in the Pilbara

by Brandon Ellem

Most Australians have an image of the Pilbara — one of a vast 
unforgiving and red landscape, of huge holes in the ground where 
millions of tons of iron ore have been gouged out and railed to 
the coast for export overseas. The picture is one of huge dump-
trucks dwarfing the anonymous workers wearing hard hats. All this 
is associated with the logo of BHP, the allegedly "Big 
Australian". Some will know of the huge mineral resources of the 
region and the fantastic profits of the corporations. There may 
be memories of the name Robe River and Hamersley Iron, the scene 
of major attacks on the Australian trade union movement, and not 
just the workers of these mines.

It was the mid-1980s and early 1990s, when economic rationalism 
was being pushed by the Labor and Liberal Parties. In 1983 the 
trade unions entered into an Accord (social partnership) with the 
ALP with all its subsequent consequences for the trade unions. 
New Right ideologists such as Charles Copeman became the CEOs of 
major companies, including the mining companies of the Pilbara. 
Both State and Commonwealth Governments were enacting laws that 
weakened, quite severely in some instances, the rights and 
functioning of trade unions.

The restructuring of the trade union movement by the ACTU led to 
bickering and in-fighting between trade unions — no less than 
for the bodies of mineworkers in the Pilbara.

Employers sensed that their time had come and their objective was 
nothing less than the elimination of trade unions from 
workplaces. Their weapon in the Pilbara was individual work 
contracts which set out to re-establish the master-servant 
relationship of the 18th century between employer and employee.

Removal of trade unions

This ploy at Robe River and Hamersley Iron together with 
questionable trade union tactics and in-fighting rapidly led to 
the virtual elimination of trade union influence at these two 
mine-sites.

On November 11, 1999 BHP moved to bring about the same result at 
its mines and very quickly almost 50 percent of the mineworkers 
signed the contracts. It appeared that the last bastion of trade 
unionism in the Pilbara was about to fall.

Brandon Ellem's book of 78 pages simply but graphically tells the 
story of the survival and revival of trade unionism not only at 
the BHP pits but in the Rio Tinto mines as well.

It is as well to put the whole story on the background fact that 
BHP-Billiton (as it is now known) and Rio Tinto are arguably the 
most powerful resource mining companies in the world.

In simple and very readable text the author traces the story of 
the last five years and poses many questions for the whole trade 
union movement — when to struggle and when not to struggle; what 
issues unite and which divide; what tactics; are scabs always 
scabs; why has unionism revived at BHP mines and what went wrong 
in Rio Tinto mines?

The answers spring out of the story itself. 

Out of defeat 

Out of the trauma of defeat sprang the necessity for new forms of 
trade unionism such as the formation of a single negotiating 
unit, but not a new union in its own right. It is called the 
Pilbara Mineworkers Union (PMU).

It is a creation of the rank and file and is an industrial union 
formation uniting all mine-workers.

It is not just an industrial body but one that not only thinks 
about the collective and solidarity but also about community, 
taking up issues of health and education and even the survival of 
the mining townships. Rio Tinto is attempting a new tactic called 
FIFO, meaning, fly in/fly out, thereby destroying the townships 
which themselves became a collective challenging the unfettered 
power of the mining companies.

To rebuild support for trade unionism those who retained their 
trade union commitment had to go house to house to talk to the 
families. An important part of the process was the formation of 
Action in Support of Partners, a women's group. Workplace 
bulletins were published and websites established.

Above all, this is an inspiring story of courage, determination 
and the high principles of the men and women of the Pilbara, 
fighting these huge and powerful transnational corporations which 
have the support of State and Federal industrial legislation and 
traitors within the ranks of the trade union movement.

At the very moment the mineworkers at Robe River and Hamersley 
Iron were beginning to tread the path of the BHP-Billiton 
mineworkers and build new trade union structures based on rank 
and file membership with new community based policies, officials 
of the Australian Workers' Union (AWU) did a secretly negotiated 
deal with Rio Tinto management.

"'Betrayal' was only the gentlest word for feelings on the 
ground", writes Brandon Ellem. The names of Bill Ludwig and Bill 
Shorten the national president and national secretary of the AWU 
are mentioned. But while there was betrayal at the top, the unity 
on the ground remained intact.

They sold their "deal" by claiming that it allowed trade unionism 
back in the gate forgetting, perhaps, that it was precisely their 
activities and divisive policies that put unionism out the gate 
in the first place.

The author draws some conclusions from the regrouping of unions 
at the BHP mines: "First, the workers took the initiative back 
from the company. They resisted on every front: locally, 
nationally, globally and at the state scale. They put their own 
stamp on all these things.

"Secondly, the workers buried the rivalry between unions that had 
done so much to damage their cause — they started to make a new 
kind of union, a one-union site and what some people might call a 
community union. Something was happening that no-one had really 
anticipated."

He ends on a positive note while recognising that the struggle is 
far from over.

"The story of the PMU is one of how activists learn from others' 
experiences and apply them to their own circumstances. Despite 
the great size and fragmentation of the Pilbara, despite the 
years of anti-union propaganda, some workers knew [what] was 
happening at BHP. The past remained a big obstacle though. Local 
officials knew that any union revival in Hamersley would have to 
be from the ground up."

"The PMU has now become the official form of unionism at BHP. It 
may be that this kind of unionism, melding unions together in new 
ways with new tactics and methods, is a sign of things to come 
here and elsewhere."

This is a book that every trade union and political activist must 
read and study. It is an inspiration to all who may feel 
despondent when considering the re-election of the Howard 
Government, the trough into which the Australian trade union 
movement has sunk, the weakness of the left and the apparent 
overwhelming power of the transnational corporations.

* * *

Hard Ground — Unions in the Pilbara 
by Brandon Ellem, published by the Pilbara Mineworkers Union, 
80pp, illustrated.