The Guardian 25 January, 2006
BHP employees win case
Peter Kennedy
A coalminer employed at a BHP-Billiton mine in NSW’s upper Hunter has just recently won a court case claiming his employer was discriminating against him by not allowing him to work overtime. After three years of court appearances the worker was finally given the justice he deserved in a court in Sydney.
The history of this case is that the worker hurt his back in an accident on the job just over five years ago and the company saw an opportunity to rid itself of a union activist by doing what ever they could to delay his return to full-time work by sending him to countless doctors, hoping one would say he was unfit to return to work, leaving the way open to sack the man.
The employee returned to work under the watchful eye of BHP-Billiton staff for a few hours each day where his progress was carefully monitored, all along hoping the man was not up to scratch and thus leaving the way open to dismiss him.
After a few months the man was asked to return to full duty to which he did. At this stage he felt well enough to do overtime like everyone else and when asking if there was any extra work available to him the reply was, "There is no overtime being worked here".
It was obvious to the worker that this was a payback for being a union activist, so he started collecting accurate details of overtime being worked in his department by his fellow workmates.
Union solicitors for the Mining Division of the CFMEU were briefed and court proceedings were started in Newcastle. As expected the company did all they could to delay proceedings by not having their people available to appear or by sending someone who could not answer the relevant questions. Eventually the magistrate in Newcastle decided he had seen enough and ordered the mine manager to appear at a special sitting in Sydney to finalise the long drawn out case.
When the mine manager finally took the stand he promptly developed amnesia and couldn’t remember if anyone had worked overtime in the mine he was responsible for. When the union solicitor produced all the documents collected by the employee in relation to worked overtime the mine managers’ memory came good for a brief period, with him saying there might have been isolated cases where overtime was worked: in fact there was regular overtime offered to all employees – with one exception.
After a severe dressing down by the union solicitors and some damning comments from the magistrate, a very embarrassed mine manager left the stand to hear the decision in favour of the claimant who was awarded compensation for loss of wages from no overtime worked and a guaranteed one overtime shift per week until he retires.
There is ongoing legal action over this case as another BHP boss is due to appear over the same matter, the results of which will be in The Guardian as soon as available.