Members of the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU) took protected industrial action late last week in the form of partial work bans at Glencore’s (LSE:GLEN) Townsville refinery in Queensland.
Glencore has sent correspondence workers on Friday 20 March, advising they will not be paid if they participate in the partial work bans regardless of any other work they perform.
On 25 March 2025, negotiations began with AWU members, but to date, the mining giant has not offered workers a ‘decent’ wage increase that meets the rising cost of living.
This news comes after AWU announced members working at the Townsville refinery took protected industrial action. As previously reported, AWU gave notice of protected industrial action, that workers would walk off the job on Friday 13 March if the issues can’t be resolved at a bargaining meeting scheduled for 12 March.
AWU Queensland Branch Stacey Schinnerl says Glencore’s response shows “how little respect this community has for their workforce”.
“This is a multi-national company that happily made billions of dollars off the sweat of these workers,” Schinnerl says.
“A multi-national company that was all too happy to take a $600 million tax-payer funded government bailout because they ran their assets into the ground. And now they are happily kicking the hell out of workers who are simply trying to get a wage increase that doesn’t see them continue to go backwards.”
AWU says that it will continue tonight, alongside its members, to provide workers a decent wage increase that reflects the cost of living.
The Australian Workers’ Union represents workers in mining, manufacturing, steel, aluminium, glass, oil and gas, aviation, agriculture, construction, state public services, local government, health, plastics, hospitality, food, paper, resources, aquaculture, beauty, events and racing industries.
Write to Aaliyah Rogan at Mining.com.au
Images: Glencore