Gold miners on the booming WA Goldfields are being told to 'trust in Santa' for the next four years with their employer refusing to place yearly pay increases into their four-year agreement.
The miners work at the St Ives, Agnew, Granny Smith and Gruyere gold mines.
The mine operator, Gold Fields Australia (GFA) will not even guarantee basic cost of living/CPI rises which are standard for most Australian workers.
A number of workplace polices and other important working conditions are also at the complete discretion of GFA to change at their will as part of their proposal that goes out to the workforce for vote today, Thursday 3 March.
AWU WA Secretary Brad Gandy says he is flabbergasted at the attitude of GFA.
"These goldfield workers deserve the right to guaranteed yearly pay increases just as much as workers in any part of the economy.
"GFA are being disrespectful to their workforce, using smoke and mirrors to rush through a subpar proposal"
"We keep hearing WA's big miners whinge about a skills shortage but now we find they won't even genuinely negotiate wage increases with their current workforce.
"This is an outfit which saw a significant growth in productivity in the last few financial years, and yet still they won't sit down with their workforce to negotiate genuinely'
"What members are saying is that GFA, which announced a $621 million net profit last week, just isn't listening to their fair and reasonable requests.
"Gold is at all-time highs and yet still we are getting 'trust in Santa' nonsense from GFA.
"It is deeply disappointing that GFA are not interested in providing their workforce locked in pay increases and guaranteed workplace polices says AWU WA Secretary Brad Gandy.
