Mining Protest 2012

Thousands of wharfies and construction workers today flooded the front steps of the West Australian Parliament House in opposition to foreign workers being used on resource projects and what they claim are insufficient industry moves to upskill locals.

 

About 4000 people marched up Hay Street to the West Perth headquarters of Gina Rinehart's Hancock Prospecting in protest of the private company's move to bring 1700 foreign workers onto the Roy Hill project in the Pilbara on an enterprise migration agreement.

 

CFMEU national secretary Michael O'Connor said the rally was not against foreign labour as blanket policy, rather, the unions wanted to see more done to train and employ Australians.

 

The message has been blasted in WA for several months now through a string of small and larger rallies, which have targeted Chevron's Gorgon gas project and more recently Hancock Prospecting's Roy Hill.

 

Australian Manufacturing Workers Union WA state secretary Steve McCartney told the crowd more had to be done to train Australia's youth and protect the nation's struggling manufacturing sector.

 

"There's $220 billion worth of project work yet to go in Western Australia, there's millions of dollars worth of manufacturing work going to India and China and there's thousands of kids on the Kwinana strip who can't get a job," he said.

 

"At the end of the day it's our gas, it's our rocks and it's our jobs."

 

Workers from the MWU were joined by the Maritime Union of Australia and the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, among others.

 

Hancock Prospecting had shut the blinds on the front of the unassuming Ventnor Avenue building, while two security guards lined the inside of the main entrance and WA Police had a couple of officers posted outside.

 

No representatives from the company addressed the crowd.

 

Retrieved from the WAtoday website

4 July 2012