Olympic Dam Expansion – opportunity to strengthen working class organisation

Vanguard November 2011 p. 6
Ned K.

In October this year, out-going SA Premier Mike Rann signed off with BHP-Billiton for the expansion of a massive open cut uranium/copper /gold mine at Olympic Dam in South Australia’s north.

The expansion is being opposed by environmental groups for a variety of reasons, and lauded by the most influential sections of SA business and government as the economic saviour for the people of South Australia.

Environmental and Indigenous concerns sacrificed for profits

The main reason for the multitude of environmental issues associated with the Olympic Dam expansion is that the mine is controlled by the multinational corporations, legitimised by their state apparatus, and developed in a way that serves the pursuit of maximum profits. Even minority BHP-Billiton shareholders are concerned about the impact on the environment.

One shareholder, Richard Quilty, has set up a web site, www.savethebasin.com to alert people to the environmental consequences of BHP-Billiton’s intention to continue to extract massive amounts of water from the Great Artesian Basin for the next 130 years! 42 million litres of water a day will be used from the Basin in the mining process, and the company will pay only 3 cents per kilolitre, which amounts to about $12,000 per year. If a household in Adelaide used this much water it would cost them $60,000 a year!

Other environmental concerns are being voiced from anti-uranium mining groups and upper Spencer Gulf communities who are concerned about the impact of the company’s desalination plant at Point Lowly on the fishing industry and giant cuttlefish breeding grounds in the Gulf. A broader environmental concern is that the whole expansion is a missed opportunity, and that governments, both state and federal, should be developing the north of the state as an alternative energy source and ‘leave uranium in the ground’.

Indigenous concerns ignored

Indigenous representatives have accused the company of disrespecting and damaging Aboriginal people and their traditional land. Eileen Winfield, a Kokatha woman said at a shareholder conference in 2009: “the mining company doesn’t listen to people. Ruining your children’s lives, anybody’s life. I mean the funny thing they worry about is the money. Money’s important, not the human side. I mean we have people dying every day ...”

“The State Government, in conjunction with BHP, has sold out the people of South Australia. We have never had a say,” said Arabunna elder Kevin Buzzacott, whose lands are impacted by the current mine and the expansion, and who has opposed the mine since its inception.

At BHP Billiton’s October 20 Annual General Meeting in London, the London Mining Network and others will call on BHP to acknowledge the opposition of the Arabunna and Kokatha traditional owners to the Olympic Dam expansion.

What about the workers?

From a historical perspective, the expansion of Olympic Dam is a continuation of the way capitalism has developed in South Australia since the invasion by British colonialism in the 1830s.

The British colony’s development was based on rural industries and mining from the very beginning. There was conflict between the competing interests of wealthy farmers wanting to expand production of grain and wool for export, and mining interests in the Adelaide Hills, Kapunda and Burra copper mining and the largest mining development in the 1850s on York Peninsula. The latter centred on mining companies in Moonta, Kadina and Wallaroo. Both the major rural industries and the big mining ventures of the 1800s were like the Olympic Dam expansion of today, in that all served the dominant interests of big capital, predominantly owned by colonial/imperialist interests.

They had an unintended consequence for big capital; a larger and better organised working class.

It was the mining and agricultural industries which triggered a growth in the numerical strength and level of organisation of the working class in South Australia, both directly and indirectly.

In 1864, hundreds of Moonta and Wallaroo miners went on strike after a number of workers had been sacked for taking Easter Monday off as a public holiday. The strike demands broadened to demands for better pay and working conditions. “The strikers voted unanimously against arbitration of the dispute. Storekeepers on Yorke Peninsula gave the miners credit and supported them ... Miners’ delegates addressed meetings at Adelaide and Port Adelaide.” (The Sounds of Trumpets by Jim Moss). The strike went for seven weeks from March 29 to 12 May. Workers won significant concessions from the mining companies. They would not have won without support from the community and workers in the capital of the colony, Adelaide.

The industrial working class

Mining and agriculture also gave birth to an industrial working class in Adelaide. J.S. Bagshaw (later Horwood Bagshaw) employed hundreds of workers to manufacture winnowing machines and chaff cutters and mining machinery. At Gawler and Kapunda to Adelaide’s north, workers manufactured bullock drays, wooden ploughs and other machinery for the mining industry. By 1875 27,000 workers were employed in mining and transport and manufacturing industries that had developed largely as a consequence of mining. In 1875 79,000 workers were directly and indirectly employed in agricultural and pastoral industries (The Sound of Trumpets).

Fast forward to 1945, and the number of workers in manufacturing in SA increased from 44,100 in 1938 to 65,000 workers in 1945. In this period, the number of large factories employing more than 100 people jumped from 41 to 85. Most of this expansion of manufacturing was not mining related, but centred on the vehicle and whitegoods industries. However, by the mid 1970s, the plans of multinational corporations resulted in the decline of these industries and weakening of the industrial working class in South Australia, as the big manufacturers moved off-shore to cheaper labour sources to make more profit.

Today, the vehicle manufacturing industry in SA is hanging by a thread in the northern suburbs of Adelaide, where General Motors has an assembly plant. However, the non-agricultural and non-mining related manufacturing in SA has only been a strong sector of the economy for a relatively short period of the state’s history. (How long the recent expansion of defence related manufacturing remains in SA remains to be seen as once again it is dominated by foreign capital needs and decision making)

It was the mining industry and related manufacturing industry in SA that developed the strength of the industrial working class. The enormous expansion of Olympic Dam will give rise to thousands of mining and mining related jobs, both in the construction and post-construction stage.

Challenge for the working class

Given South Australia’s history, there should be an air of optimism about the inevitable coming struggles of those workers against the profit seeking of mining and mining related companies.

The big challenge is for working class organisation, awareness and purpose to be central to the mine’s inevitable expansion.

Rather than limiting workers to narrow economist perspectives, unions will have to appropriately combine representation around wages and conditions with agreements with Aboriginal communities that respect both heritage and custodianship.

They will have to show leadership on environmental protection.

Progressive trade unions, perhaps of a form not yet seen at Olympic Dam or other current large scale mining ventures, have the opportunity to emerge during this stage of the State’s development.