Unions gag ACTU on uranium
Tuesday, 17 October, 2006
by Samantha Maiden, Political correspondent
The Australian
At the same time, however, they are preparing to launch a recruitment drive to target thousands of new jobs the industry will create.
Despite opposing new uranium mines in Australia, unions will campaign to sign up new workers ahead of a likely expansion of operations at the Olympic Dam mine in outback South Australia.
The potential recruits could deliver thousands of dollars in membership fees to unions such as the Australian Workers Union, which has pushed for the abolition of the "no new mines" policy, the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union and the Communications Electrical Plumbing Union. But a policy document obtained by The Australian confirms the ACTU is determined to avoid any discussion at the union's peak policy-making forum on proposals to overturn Labor's longstanding ban on new uranium mines.
ACTU president Greg Combet said he wanted to ensure the focus remained on the Howard Government's industrial relations policy. "We're focusing on industrial relations, we're focusing on the main game," he said.
"We've already got a policy from 1979 opposing uranium mining and my straw poll of the union movement has detected no great desire to revisit it."
The AWU, which will push for the abolition of the "no new mines" policy at Labor's national conference next year, yesterday accused critics of uranium mining within the union movement of hypocrisy.
"If another mine opens, it's not only the AWU knocking on the door for those workers, it will be every other bloody union, including those that don't have a policy of expanding beyond three mines," said the AWU's South Australian state secretary, Wayne Hanson.
Asked if this was hypocrisy, he replied: "Of course it is. On the one hand they are saying they don't want an expansion and on the other hand they are going in there and recruiting workers. I would expect, with the Olympic Dam expansion at Roxby Downs, they will more than double the number of people they employ. This thing is absolutely huge."
The uranium debate is expected to flare at next year's ALP national conference, where Labor leader Kim Beazley will push to overturn the current policy.