QCoal is frustrated that their employees will be forced to travel 40 minutes on an unsafe road after a 12.5 hour shift after the QLD Government saved the town of Glenden but are closing Byerwen Mine’s current mining camp.
The mining town of Glenden faced being destroyed altogether after the Newlands Mine closed and its purpose as housing mining families for that site came to an end.
The State Government secured the town’s future at the 11th hour passing legislation that workers on large scale mining projects must live in the town. While the community was very happy with the decision, QCoal were not.
QCoal Group Executive James Black said the way the legislation was introduced by the Government and the lack of consultation with the workers impacted by the legislation was deceitful and hypocritical.
“Despite claims by the State Government during the short parliamentary debate on the Bill, the Byerwen mine workers and QCoal have never seen, supported, called for, or approved the secretive and discriminatory legislation.
“It will shut down an existing camp and force workers to live in a town they do not want to live in.
“These workers have been told where to go by the State Government. They have been denied the basic human choice of where to live.
“Under the banner of ‘save Glenden’ the State Government has played favourites between our Queensland-owned and operated mining company and a Swiss-based multinational, and of course we and our workers are the losers.
“We all want to save Glenden but why are the Byerwen miners the only ones paying the price?”
James said the change from a camp five minutes’ drive away with free food, exercise and entertainment facilities will add up to two hours a day in travel time on buses on a country road and see the workers live in a town with no permanent doctor, no pharmacy or supermarket, not even a newsagent or takeaway restaurant.
90 per cent of the 800-strong workforce live in regional Queensland already, so James questions why they would want to uproot their families and move elsewhere.
“We have spent months trying to negotiate with the State Government to overturn the decision but have been met with a stone wall, focus on the State election campaign seeming to be more important than workers’ safety.
“We are now forced, for the first time in our 35-year history, to launch a public campaign to highlight the unfairness of this decision and the direct impact on our workers, real people whose lives have been turned upside down by this decision.
“If the focus was really on saving Glenden, why wasn’t Glencore, the company responsible for the mining camp at Glenden, also legislated to move its 1000-person Hail Creek coal mine camp workforce into the town? It makes no sense. The two mines, and camps, are virtually the same distance from Glenden. Why one and not the other?”
QCoal said the campaign will involve partner companies under the banner of the Energy Resources Queensland and include an extensive advertising campaign focused on the regional areas of Queensland where mining families live.
