Aussie coal union calls for strike

Australia’s mining union says it will call a national coal mining strike to protest eroding safety standards.

The Construction, Forestry, Mining & Energy Union (CFMEU) says the move is in response to the continued deregulation of safety standards and practices in the coal industry by the governments of New South Wales and Queensland.

The CFMEU’s mining president, Anthony Maher, says the states’ mining departments have failed to administer their own safety provisions.

“Unless we receive a public commitment from the New South Wales and Queensland governments to improve mine safety and improve prosecutions, we have no option but to commence a national campaign of action,” Maher says.

Recently, Anglo-Swiss mining company Xstrata, which owns several operations in Australia, moved to have 52 breach-of-safety charges against it dismissed on a technicality.

Xstrata is being prosecuted for the deaths of four workers at the Gretley coal mine in New South Wales in 1996.