Vol. 71/No. 29 August 6, 2007
“We’ve been on strike for the last 11 days,” Glen Campbell, president of the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) at Spring Creek, told the Militant in a July 9 phone interview. “I think it’s the longest strike in a coal mine for 14 to 15 years. It’s been very solid.” Spring Creek and Terrace miners maintained picket lines at the Spring Creek mine.
The workers began their strike June 29 after Solid Energy refused to transport Spring Creek miners from their bathhouse to the mine entrance. The bosses told the workers they would have to walk two kilometers in full mining gear, often in stormy weather, up an industrial road used by heavy vehicles—a clear threat to their safety.
“We said that’s a lockout,” said Campbell, who is also a working miner, “and that’s what sparked the strike.”
According to an EPMU media release, the company took the action to punish the workers for carrying out a two-hour work stoppage at the beginning of their shift. The stoppage was part of a nationwide campaign of rolling strikes and overtime bans by more than 800 coal miners around the country. They are pressing for a wage increase as part of a new collective agreement. The fight takes place in the context of an export boom for coal mined in New Zealand.
About 100 Spring Creek and Terrace miners marched with their pay slips and copies of their contract to the offices of the Greymouth Star newspaper July 6 to protest a media release by Solid Energy which they said “wildly exaggerated” their incomes.
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