Year in Review: 2024

2024 has been an exceptional year for the WMWA – for the explosive growth of member numbers within our union, and also the power we’ve gained onsite and through government allowing workers’ demands to be heard. And we’re proud to see we’re ending this year ready to take on Australia’s two largest iron ore producers and bring up pay and conditions to where they should be in 2025.

This year, we’ve been gearing up our communication and membership so we are all on the same page ready to fight the hard fights. We’ve conducted over 400 site visits and met members in Perth and local Pilbara towns, talking about the big issues directly affecting mine workers and how to solve them.

Our online organising has also kicked into full-gear, posting daily to our Facebook Page and collecting over 2,000 survey responses giving us concrete data into what our members want.

The results of our organising has been clear to see. Over the course of 2024 our membership has exploded to the largest they’ve ever been, and our members are feeling the benefits.

We’ve recovered over $1 million in underpayments and through payouts for our members, supported over 100 members through periodic medical processes, aided 92 members with workers compensation claims, and represented over 300 individual members who’ve raised substantive issues.

Our members’ health and safety has also been front≠of≠mind this year. There’s no such thing as an acceptable amount of deaths in any Australian workplace, and we’re committed to seeing this number hit zero.

Our organisers have been holding BHP, Rio Tinto, and FMG to account, holding 8 site safety inspections this year and flagging 8 serious safety matters reported directly with DEMRIS and several more raised with the employers. We’ve trained, provided expert advice and support to 34 safety reps across various sites, and worked with our members and the local community at Tom Price to improve their hospital with a $20 million funding commitment from Rio Tinto and further support from the state government.

Finally, through this Labor Government’s Closing the Loopholes Bill we’ve been able to force BHP, and are working on bringing Rio Tinto, to the bargaining table after a decade of refusal. We’ve already won big for workers at Otraco and BHP Pilbara rail workers; now we plan to bring miners up to par with the rest of the country.

Our negotiations with BHP show positive early progress and will set the precedent for our 2025 agreements, when we take on Rio Paraburdoo and BHP ports.

Our foray into negotiating a fairer Pilbara has only just begun, and we remain committed to our members to see it through till the end.

BARGAINING IS BACK IN THE PILBARA!

At the end of 2023 WMWA informed our members of our intention to improve members Job Security, Safety, Pay and conditions through undertaking collective bargaining for Union collective agreements in the Pilbara. Many of the major news outlets said it couldn’t be done.

When WMWA wrote to BHP seeking to collectively bargain the media headlines were full of fear and fiction. WMWA members that we will always get a better deal when workers bargain collectively and the WMWA is professional well≠resourced Union that will fight for a fair outcome.

As our MEU WA District Secretary, Greg Busson, says, “Iron ore miners at Rio Tinto tell me they simply wish to discuss their pay, conditions and rosters, but Rio seems determined to continue ignoring them.”

Our AWU WA Branch Secretary, Brad Gandy, agrees. ““Our members in Pilbara work in an inherently dangerous industry, with shifts between 12 and 14 hours, that go on for weeks on end,” he says. “Wanting decent rosters and fair pay and conditions is not too much to ask.”

At the 2024 AWU National Conference, delegates recognised the importance of union≠led bargaining in addressing substandard pay and conditions in the iron ore mine sector, commended the Federal Labor Government’s support of WMWA’s bargaining efforts, called on employers to come to the table and bargain in good faith, and called on all Pilbara mine workers to support the union’s efforts to bring bargaining back to the Pilbara!

WMWA CAMPAIGN COMMUNITY WIN

WMWA members joined with our Tom Price and Paraburdoo community members to call on Rio and the state government to honour their previous promise to fund a new hospital at Tom Price.

It’s fair to say that campaign ruffled a few feather is parliament but in the end the community campaign won out with the Rio and the State government committing to honouring their promise with additional funding and the tender for a new hospital going out in October. Thank you to everyone who signed our petition and joined the campaign!

WA IRON ORE INDUSTRY OVERVIEW

Whilst there will always be lots of BS on site to try and encourage workers to do more with less WMWA will always put our members safety and job security first – an important part of this is to call out the industry doom and gloom BS.

2024 has been a challenging year in WA for the broader mining industry with closures of a number Nickel and Lithium sites The WA mining industry employees 134K full≠time equivalent (FTE) positions and whilst there have been almost 5K jobs lost across the WA mining industry in 2024 this has been more than offset by the 8k additional roles created.

Average Iron ore prices in 2024 have seen an overall decrease in price for 2024 with the average prices now sitting just above US$102 a tonne, a drop of $US12 a tonne from the 2023 average. This drop was significantly less than the industry predicted 30% drop and is attributed to the reduced demand from China.

It’s important to remember that overall Iron ore continues to be strong, and that Rio public reports say that it gets its Iron Ore into its bulk carriers for less than $23 a tonne whilst BHP reports it does the same for less than $20.

WMWA members may not be forensic accountants, but they do know mining management doom and gloom BS when they see it.

FIGHT CONTINUES AGAINST DEADLY SILICA DUST

This year, State and Federal WHS Ministers agreed to  important reforms to protect workers from deadly silica dust. Under the new laws, workers exposed to respirable crystalline silica dust can now demand comprehensive safety control measures. These include not just personal protective equipment (PPE), but under the new laws must also include at least one of the following:

• Isolation of workers from dust exposure;
• Fully enclosed operator cabins fitted with high≠efficiency air filtration systems to ensure clean air;
• Water suppression,
• On-tool extraction systems;
• Local exhaust and effective local exhaust ventilation system.

But disappointingly, WA mine workers are excluded from these protections, putting thousands of lives at risk. Nothing is more important to WMWA than your health and safety at work and we will not give up the fight.

e are calling for the WA Industrial Relations Minister Simone McGurk to extend these new laws to the mining sector to ensure EVERY worker is protected. We know that silica dust exposure is a serious problem on mine sites, and many employers simply don’t do enough to protect their workers from this deadly dust.

That is why we are calling out bad practices when we see it – like at FMG Iron Bridge in November.

Wherever possible, raise safety concerns to your Safety Rep and Supervisor verbally and back it up with a txt or email. If your safety concerns remain unresolved, take the photos and contact your WMWA organisers.

You can also support our campaign by completing our silica dust exposure survey ≠ this will help us inform the WA government just how bad silica dust exposure is on mine sites, and the danger it poses. Click here to take the survey!

SAME JOB SAME PAY WIN

Mine workers are reaping the benefits of Same Job Same Pay across Australia, which took effect in November of this year. The Same Job Same Pay provisions means we can stop companies like BHP, Rio Tinto and FMG paying labour hire workers less than permanent employees doing the same job, where an Enterprise Agreement is in place at the work site.

So far, the MEU has secured $128 million in wage increases for labour hire workers nationwide and some mine workers have won payrises of up to 60%!

WHAT’S NEXT?

As WMWA continues to grow we will continue our fight for fair across the Pilbara mining industry in 2025, with more collective agreements at more sites.

WMWA will remain focused on putting our members’ safety and job security first. The one thing that won’t change is your Union will always stand up and speak up for our members!