MELBOURNE, July 14 (Reuters) – Hundreds of workers at BHP’s Port Hedland iron ore operations are set to down tools on Thursday after workers and their elected representatives did not reach agreement with the company, a spokesperson for the Combined BHP Ports Union said.
Port Hedland is a major artery through which BHP routes around $80 million of iron ore a day, and the action represents the largest at BHP’s operations in at least three decades, as unions look to secure a toehold in Australia’s iron ore regions.
“Today workers at BHP and their elected representatives conducted a five-hour bargaining session … No agreement was reached,” the union spokesperson said.
“It is the intention of workers and their representatives to proceed with protected industrial action notified for Thursday 16 July.”
The unions have called for the action, an eight-hour work stoppage set for July 16, after six months of negotiations that have failed to reach an agreement on terms for a four-year labour deal. The action is set to run from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. (0600 to 1400 GMT).
Given positive progress on Tuesday, BHP said in a statement to Reuters that “it is disappointing the unions have decided to proceed with their planned industrial action on Thursday.”
“As with all potential disruptions to our business, we have plans in place to ensure operations can safely continue,” it added.
The parties will resume negotiations on Tuesday, July 21, the statement from the union added.
BHP will report its quarterly results on Thursday.
(Reporting by Melanie Burton in Melbourne and Shivangi Lahiri in Bengaluru; Editing by Janane Venkatraman, Nivedita Bhattacharjee and Louise Heavens)
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