BHP boss Mike Henry fears union activity will stifle long-term investment for WA’s iron ore industry

BHP chief executive Mike Henry “fears” an “explosion” of union activity will stifle long-term investment in the mining giant’s WA iron ore arm. Wage pressures are easing across BHP’s Australian mines, yet the company was “not at all more relaxed or less worried about the impact” of Federal Labor’s industrial relations policies, according to Mr Henry. He pointed to WA as a prime example. “We see that within our Western Australian iron ore business, where we have a very marked uptick in (union) right of entry requests,” Mr Henry said. “We are having to devote specific resources just to care for this explosion in request for rights of entry, where you’ve got mandated bargaining taking place, and so there’s a lot more effort going into this. “And I do fear for the long-term drag this is going to create, not just for our business, and at the end of the day we’re a global business and we can deploy capital into other jurisdictions where required.” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s changes to industrial relations laws in recent years has stoked a surge in union activity at WA’s iron ore mines after decades of dormancy. BHP chief people officer Jad Vodopija last year lamented the impact this was having on productivity. “In the Pilbara alone across the last 12 months, right of entries have increased by 400 per cent, and the reason that’s a big deal isn’t the right of entry itself, but it’s the complicatedness that brings into your business there, the distraction for your line leaders and supervisors needing to shepherd and steward these individuals,” Ms Vodopija said. “Then on a weekly basis, folks in my team are at the (Fair Work) Commission because now I’ve got argy-bargy over which union is going to represent this body of employees or that body of employees. “So there’s a complicatedness that is creeping into our system of work.” BHP’s South American-centric copper division outperformed WA iron ore on an earnings basis for the first time ever, according to the company’s half-year financial results released on Tuesday. Two months ago, mining and energy groups expressed alarm over a Federal Court decision that effectively gave workplace delegates the same rights on site as union officials, meaning employers would be forced to pay their own employees for organising industrial action against them instead of working. “The laws create unprecedented new powers for unions, risk turning employees into de facto union organisers, and apply across all workplaces, including non-union sites with no enterprise agreements,” Australian Resources and Energy Employer Association chief executive Steve Knott said at the time. “They blur the long-standing distinction between union officials and workplace delegates and create serious risks for productivity and workplace stability.” Minerals Council of Australia chief executive Tania Constable said the court’s ruling had overturned the Fair Work Commission’s orders that placed “reasonable limits on the exercise of union delegate powers”. “The decision shows that the Federal Government’s Closing Loopholes legislation gives unions significantly more power than what the independent umpire determined was a fair and reasonable balance,” she said. “As well as being an over-reach of union power, this would create a two-tiered class system among Australian workers: those who actually work for the business, and those who work for the union but get paid by the business to do so — enshrining the rights of some workers to do whatever they please, with businesses powerless to stop them.” The court decision was celebrated by unions. “The court has confirmed that Parliament intended workplace delegates to have real, enforceable rights to represent workers they work alongside, not just those who happen to share the same employing entity,” Mining and Energy Union general secretary Grahame Kelly said. In addition to Increased union right of entry and delegate rights, law changes that have upset miners include “same Job, same pay” orders that require companies to pay labour-hire workers the same rate as direct employees performing the same work. Multi-employer bargaining has been another bone of contention that miners have claimed strips them of the ability to negotiate site-specific conditions that suit productivity.