Re-placing the Pilbara's mining unions

Abstract

This paper examines the attempt by mining management in Western Australia's Pilbara to replace mining unions-quite literally-by removing them from the processes of representation and bargaining. It analyses the way in which those unions have tried to re-place themselves, in the senses of transforming themselves in those spaces in which they were already operating and reviving themselves where they were not. Where unionists have succeeded in these engagements, it has been by working at a range of geographical scales, using the 'power of place' in the Pilbara and reshaping traditional geographies of union organisation. It is suggested here that many of these emergent outcomes are the result of the embeddedness of geographically specific historical structures along with new intersections of nationally and locally scaled labour politics.

Challenging the ‘care penalty’: The Queensland pay equity campaign for community services workers

“…It demonstrates the value of studying service sector union campaigns using sociologically and geographically sensitive approaches, adding to the literature on campaigns in secondary and extractive industries (see e.g. Ellem, 2003;Herod, 1995) that have deepened our knowledge of union strategy in the past. Using a gender lens, it can be argued that union power derives from a variety of sources, not just workplace density and traditionally militant tactics.…”

Excavating the Pilbara: A Polanyian Exploration

“…This radical departure from previous practice ‘drastically chang[ed] the field of conflict between capital and labour in Australia’ (Smith and Thompson, , 304). As Bradon Ellem (2003b; 2004) has explained, the right to manage was boldly reclaimed by the region's largest corporate players, with the connivance of governments at the state and federal scales, effectively breaking the local unions. The suburban paternalism of the company towns had first given way to a period of regulatory reform and increased militancy – the Pilbara's own double movement, perhaps – promptly followed by a yet more profound countermovement, in the form of the restoration of barely diluted corporate rule.…”

“…For some time it has been clear that the sustained expansion of FIFO, along with individualised contract and subcontracting arrangements was cutting ‘a swathe through the towns and demoral[ising] locals’ (Ellem, 2003b, 286). The practice has been widely criticised for its social costs, both for workers' distant families and across those Pilbara towns that have witnessed a hollowing out of some of the best‐paid jobs in their local labour markets, along with fracturing social networks and deteriorating community amenities.…”

A Little Help from Our Friends

“…Spatial fixes may derive from government policy, local consumer markets, or the immobility of production processes (Jonas 1998;Walsh 2000). This has been identified in primary industries such as mining and particular human service work such as cleaning (Savage 1998;Walsh 2000;Ellem 2003b;Ellem 2005). Spatial fixescreate rich opportunities for unions operating in those industries, as they enhance the opportunities for re-regulating labor and local community standards in the interests of unions.…”