Mining boss launches attack on Australian workers

Vanguard September 2011 p. 8
Bill F.

There is nothing the bosses hate more than the organised working class united in trade unions that fight for their wages and conditions and stand up for their dignity as workers.

As reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, this class hatred was well demonstrated when MMG mining boss Andrew Michelmore addressed the Australian-British Chamber of Commerce in early August. He attacked the working class for “pissing away” Australia’s economic strength, and for holding “airy fairy” “idealistic” and altruistic” attitudes.

“People can’t be bothered moving 25 kilometres to get a job because they will live off social welfare instead, and it’s a real worry for me watching Australia have a luxurious time at the benefit of our relationship with China,” he said. “We need to get some hunger and drive back into this country, we are becoming soft.”

Michelmore was formerly the boss of Western Mining Corporation, an outfit well known for its anti-working class attitudes and practices. The company he now heads, MMG, has its head office in Melbourne and operates several mines in Australia. However, it is listed in Hong Kong and is majority owned by the Chinese state-owned China Minmetals.

For all his whinging about the lack of skills and ‘flexibility’ in the workforce, what he is really on about is to open the door for a large influx of Chinese workers into Australia, as a source of cheap, compliant and unorganised labour.

Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union national president Tony Maher condemned the statements as “a Trojan horse for a Chinese labour debate”.

“Chinese companies want to use Chinese labour; that is the real problem here.”

Imperialism is the workers’ enemy

But Michelmore’s agenda is not simply about Chinese or Australian workers doing the work; it’s about undermining union solidarity, about intensifying exploitation and making bigger profits.

Australian workers are anything but ‘soft’. They work hard and long all their lives just to keep up with the day to day costs of living. Any decent conditions they enjoy have been wrested from the bosses over generations of struggle, and have to be defended again and again.

Workers already know that foreign monopoly interests dominate the economy and call the shots. Up until now, these have been mainly British, US or Japanese.

Now it seems China is in the mix, as well.